Anyone who watches "Saturday Night Live" saw the Pepsi-infused "MacGruber" sketches. What suprised me was that the same sketches were then used for the Super Bowl the next day...
"In a move that some viewers considered shocking, cast and crew from the Peacock Network's venerable 'Saturday Night Live' crafted three ads for Pepsi that essentially grafted mentions, cans and logos of the famous soda into three different executions of 'MacGruber,' a long-running spoof of the old 'MacGyver' TV series. The ads looked just like 'SNL' skits but ran during commercial breaks on the Jan. 31 edition of the show. One of the ads also appeared during the recent Super Bowl. Pepsi's ad agency, Omnicom Group's TBWA/Chiat/Day, had little if any involvement in the commercials."
It seemed that people were really shocked SNL went along with it, especially when they're known for making fun of commercials.
"As creator and executive producer of 'Saturday Night Live,' Mr. Michaels also is concerned about the integrity of his long-running program, which regularly skewers Madison Avenue hyperbole with a steady barrage of parody ads. For that reason, he said, the Pepsi work could never run in the program itself. 'It was very clear that it was a commercial, and I thought for our audience it was fun. I don't believe it compromised the integrity of 'MacGruber,'' he said.
But it seems clear that this sort of thing is unorthodox for the man whose program has strong anti-establishment roots. 'These are perilous times,' said Mr. Michaels, who added that he normally has little interaction with NBC's ad-sales department. 'The network is going through transition,' he added. 'I'll do whatever is necessary to support the network.'"
What do you think?
Comments