Buzz
DIRECTV's newest ad campaign aimed to highlight the convenience of satellite TV by claiming that messy wires were a thing of the past (though this claim is technically untrue). The ads feature a seemingly average adult man, his insecure marionette puppet wife, and a downbeat, awkward marionette puppet son. The campaign has been heavily criticized and mocked as either unsettling or sexist.
Using puppets to advertise can sometimes result in an eerie or off-putting feeling, but at times they’re embraced as a fun and fresh approach. Here are nine examples of puppets being used to promote various products.
1. RICO
In 2010, a puppet rodent named Rico became the face of Air New Zealand, flooding the airwaves with his painfully obvious sexual innuendos. Rico joined forces with Snoop Dogg, David Hasselhoff, and Lindsay Lohan, before being eventually "killed off" by Richard Simmons.
2. GODADDY AND PUPPETSBYGWEN
During the Super Bowl that year, GoDaddy aired an ad featuring a real-life engineer who spent her free time making puppets. Gwen Dean, selected from a pool of one hundred candidates aiming to leave their regular jobs to focus on their own business, announced to the nation she was quitting her job to fully devote herself to puppetsbygwen.com. After the ad aired to 111.5 million viewers, she immediately sent her resignation letter, and her boss was surprisingly supportive, calling the commercial "great."
3. ABLA FAHITA
Earlier this year, amidst rising tensions in Egypt, a bizarre news story emerged when a beloved puppet was accused of spreading terrorist messages in a Vodafone ad. Abla Fahita, a "gossipy widow" puppet, claimed in a 2013 commercial to have lost her late husband's SIM card in a shopping mall.
Conspiracy theorists speculated that the Fahita puppet was actually a British agent, subtly communicating bomb threats and secret messages through the ads. Despite an official investigation — which was ridiculed by many Egyptians — Fahita herself appeared via Skype on an Egyptian CBC channel to deny the accusations.
4. BAR NONE: THE PETS.COM DOG'S SECOND ACT
Pets.com was the epitome of a bubble company. This website, selling pet supplies directly to customers, ran an extravagant marketing campaign during its short-lived twenty-seven-month existence, featuring a famous dog sock puppet. The commercials were created by the same advertising firm behind the legendary Apple "1984" ad and the Taco Bell chihuahua.
5. THE SNUGGLE BEAR
The lovable Snuggle Bear, also known as Snuggle the Fabric Softener Bear, made his debut in 1983, voiced for many years by the talented voice actress Corinne Orr, who also voiced the female characters in the original anime Speed Racer and the 2008 movie adaptation.
Many found Snuggle Bear to be unsettling, particularly in a commercial where he keeps a watchful eye over an infant. This inspired parodies on The State and MadTV, where the housewife from the original ads becomes terrified and proceeds to beat up Snuggle.
As if that wasn't enough, 150,000 Snuggle "Teeny Bean Bears" sold with the fabric softener were recalled in 2001 due to a choking hazard. A year later, 4 million plush Snuggle Bears were voluntarily recalled because their detachable eyes and noses posed a potential danger to children. Fortunately, no injuries were reported in either incident.
6. LIL' PENNY
Launched on November 4, 1995, Nike's "Lil' Penny" campaign was a brilliant promotional tool for Orlando Magic's Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway and comedian Chris Rock, arguably more so than for the sneakers themselves. The ads helped Hardaway establish a cool image during his rise to NBA stardom. Rock, meanwhile, was two years removed from his frustrating time on Saturday Night Live and feeling like a "has-been." However, the ads, combined with the 1996 release of Rock's stand-up special Bring the Pain, helped elevate him to nationwide fame. Before Rock had reached the point where he could make his first official appearance on Oprah, Lil' Penny had already scored an exclusive sit-down with her.
The impact of these commercials is still felt today. While Hardaway, who stood 6-foot-7, never won a championship and faced ongoing injuries throughout his 14-year career, he became the first NBA player, other than Michael Jordan, to have a Nike sneaker line continue after his retirement. In 2009, Nike revisited the concept with ads featuring puppets of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.
7. THE LITTLE CAESARS
The Little Caesars were a four-piece band that performed and sang in celebration of Little Caesars and the love of pizza. In a 1992 music video, they reworked the lyrics of "Wooly Bully" to "Pizza! Pizza!" In another commercial, the band performed a unique rendition of Shirley Ellis' "The Name Game" to promote both pizza and spaghetti, which was added to the menu in 1993. By August of that year, spaghetti was available in various bucket sizes, including the "Big!Big!" option.
8. FARFEL THE DOG
Named after the pellet-shaped noodle, Farfel the Dog made his debut in the 1950s, frequently appearing alongside ventriloquist Jimmy Nelson and his dummy companion, Danny O'Day, on The Toast of the Town (later known as The Ed Sullivan Show) and the Milton Berle-hosted Texaco Star Theater. Farfel and O'Day began promoting Nestlé's Quik in 1955, with live commercials on The Jackie Gleason Show. Farfel would always complete the ads by answering O'Day's "N-E-S-T-L-E-S/Nestlé's makes the very best" with an elongated "Chawwwc'-lit."
Farfel quickly became a puppet superstar, and in 1959, he almost achieved music fame when Everly Brothers producer Archie Bleyer wanted Farfel to perform spoken word lines on the song "Bird Dog." However, Bleyer was overruled in the decision.
The Nestlé ads ended in 1965, but Farfel was far from forgotten. In a 1991 episode of Seinfeld titled "The Dog," Jerry ends up looking after a troublesome dog named Farfel. To ensure that the reference wasn't lost on viewers, Elaine casually makes herself a glass of chocolate milk while Jerry struggles with the barking canine.
A year later, Farfel made a return, promoting Nestlé candy during the holiday season. In the commercial, he performs the classic Nestlé theme song, accompanied by five dog puppets who appear to be part of his never-before-seen family, all shopping together for seasonal sweaters.
9. THE MUPPETS
Advertising agencies have learned that muppets are almost always a hit. The first muppet commercials aired in 1957, each running for just 10 seconds to promote Wilkins Coffee during station breaks. In these, a muppet named Wilkins (sounding like Kermit) would ask another muppet, Wontkins, if he wanted a cup of Wilkins coffee. Wontkins, true to his name, always declined, and as a result, he would be punched, shot, electrocuted, stomped, and more. These absurd commercials continued with Wontkins getting punished, even in later ads for other regional companies like Michigan's Faygo soft drinks in 1958 and 1959.
Throughout the 1970s, many companies, including IBM, Hawaiian Punch, and RCA, requested Jim Henson's muppets for their advertisements. However, after the debut of Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, the number of such ads decreased. In the past decade, though, characters like Miss Piggy have appeared in a Dove ad, promoted Pizza Hut alongside Jessica Simpson, and Kermit has pitched the Ford Hybrid in a 2006 Super Bowl commercial.
In 2014, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem pushed Terry Crews to his limits inside a Toyota, Miss Piggy indulged in a heap of pistachios, The Swedish Chef landed a job as a sandwich artist at Subway, and the gang had fun eating Go-Gurts with their faces on the packaging.
