Sep 12 2009
Chinchilli Day - shame on you.
Now… I am usually against animals used to sell things. I hate the Taco Bell dog, don’t like the Cottonelle puppy, or the bears for that other brand either. But when I saw that R&R Partners put chinchillas as the main attraction in this new advertisement for Las Vegas… I had to give it a chance. You see, I have two chinchillas at home and I really love them (kung-fu training and spear sharpening included), so I thought this may be the one to change my mind.
How wrong I was. Watch it and see…
Part 1
Part 2
Here are my problems with this:
1. Unless I’m mistaken, part 1 celebrates this day because the Chinchillas were defeated. Part 2 celebrates because Chinchillas saved the village from bad guys. Isn’t this contradictory? Am I missing the point?
2. They couldn’t get better looking fake chinchillas? They look more like a cross between a groundhog and a mouse than they do chinchillas.
3. I don’t like that it’s called Chinchilli Day. It annoys me, I think.
4. Yes, I get it. Vegas is making the point that even if you make up a fake holiday, you should take some extra time off to go visit the City of Sin, but therein lies the problem - Something cute and fuzzy should not be associated with Vegas. Vegas should go back to the adults only entertainment.
Remember the days of “What happens in Vegas…”?
or…
These aren’t even the best ones. I can’t find them. But what happened to the day of “go to Vegas, do things you wouldn’t normally do.” I don’t like the direction this is going in.
On the other hand, after looking up R&R Partners, looks like they do a lot of work for Las Vegas and tourism. And the work is very good. They do a bunch of non-traditional stuff (like joining up with dry cleaners to sell Utah Opera seats) and turns out, they also did a few of those commercials that I know and love (look at their website for more - they’re great). Also, my favorite of favorites! They did this huge image of a Maxim cover, actually seen from outer space, in the Nevada deserts somewhere. See that little thing down there at the bottom? That’s a car.
So why the sudden downturn in commercial creativity? Chinchilla muppets? Really? Or am I the only one turned off by this. Those commercials don’t make me want to go to Vegas, because I know it’s making hundreds of children want to go, too. They’ll all be screaming “Chinchillis mommy! Chinchillis!” Yuck.
