Okay, I'm ready to start a boycott against The Little Blue Cow, until we all get an apology. Who's with me?
Anyway, you just know that whoever billed them for those wastes of airtime is eating their hearts out over Bell Mobility's "we are all connected" wave.
24 Comments
The Little Blue Cow is a Clio winner compared to those Air Canada remixed-event ads. “It’s amazing what you can do with a little union-busting!”
Good point.
THNK TH LTTL BL CW RCKS ND WH VR DSNT LK T S LSR!!!
T TH PPL WH DNT LK TH LTTL BL CW:
Y– S–C-K !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DSRV T D!!!
I LOVE THE LITTLE BLUE COW
F Y DNT LK TH LTTL BL CW THN Y DSRV T D F Y D LK TH LTTL BL CW THN YR TH CLST PRSN VR!!! I LV TH LTTL BL CW!!!!!
FRM TH LTTL BL CW LVR: NN!!!
Nina, your caps-lock key is stuck. Perhaps you should get that seen to.
Likewise your command of rhetoric. I normally allow children posting comments here a fairly wide latitude, but such puerile sentiments as the ones you’ve chosen offend my artistic sensibilities. “Shall I,” I ponder, “pay month after month for database space in order to store such invective as this? Nay, nay—but rather than remove it entire, I shall merely disemvowel the offending comments. Perhaps Nina will learn from this to elevate her discourse above the level of the midden, and so eventually win converts to her viewpoint.”
I love a good disemvowelling.
LL YR VWLLS R BLNG T S!
:)
The whole Little Blue Cow in the Olympics thing is stupid. In the first place she isn’t blue. In the second place she has no business competing in men’s events.
And the bell?? If there’s some assurance that we won’t see her again after the games are over, they can’t finish soon enough for me.
Why no medal count for the Little Blue Cow? Another conspiracy? For background info see the book.
I can’t stand the little Blue Cow either. I think it’s a slap in the face for Canadian Beef producers. All we try not to think about is cattle and every 5 minutes or so what is in our face at the Olympics- a fat little cow (who isn’t even blue) taking part in the most ridiculous sports for cows!
Medal count? Ha! As if the Little Not-Really-Blue Tub-o-Lard could have qualified for East Timor’s team, let alone Canada’s.
Now, a Little Blue Mad Cow…
(Michelle, you’re so… vowelthirsty. I like that.)
I second Steve re:Air Canada. The little blue cow spots suck, but the Air Canada ads. . . I don’t even have the words to properly denigrate them.
The olympics seems to be advertising’s anti-superbowl, where the cheapest, cheesiest, most poorly conceived crap in the world gets shown against all good sense. The little blue cow ads, while boring and a little trite are still vastly superior to the insanely annoying Air Canada advertisements (the worst of which is the diver who goes into synchronised swimming. besides being an assinine premise and safety issues- diving onto swimmers and such, the guy’s drug-addled smile just makes me want to punch him in the face).
Even McDonald’s, who usually sink some serious cash and creativity into their ads are basically doing the same thing as the little blue cow. In the McD ads, Ronald goes out and kicks some ass sports wise, but I have no idea what this is supposed to convey to me, other than the fact that Ronald McDonald is an innescapable iconic presence. Resitance is futile. The swimming spot particularily rubs me the wrong way, because the announcer says something about the clown’s shoes acting like flippers. And I’m thinking, hell yes, those shoes are a clear violation of sports rules – what a lame cheat.
The only spot that I have anything good to say about is the Bell Expressvue ad that just shows all the olympians hanging around. It’s a great spot that got me interested, and actually sort of surprised me when I found out what was being advertised. And the ad actually ties in with the product. The weightlifter chatting up a judge as a simile for pausing live action on your television – that’s actually pretty clever. The imagery of the boxers sitting cross-legged in the middle of the ring was also pretty compelling. Between that and the ‘wave’ ad, bell’s advertiser deserves some serious props for their olympic advertising. I do sort of wonder, though, if I’d be quite so gaga over these ads if they weren’t surrounded by such absolute shit.
Most of the other ads feel like the advertising exec decided to pocket the whole budget, and hand the project to his nephew’s high-school media class.
I do sort of wonder, though, if I’d be quite so gaga over these ads if they weren’t surrounded by such absolute shit.
Mmm… no, those are actually good in their own right. They’re understated and beautifully executed; they pull the audience in rather than beat them over the head. Where the LBC and McD’s spots trivialize the athletes and the competitions, the Bell ads celebrate the Olympics as worldwide festival.
(Is it me, or are there really only about five or six different commercials altogether?)
I hate the little blue cow!! First of all it’s white with a little blue maple leaf, second of all, why is a cow competing in men’s events instead of women’s events. Last time I checked cows were female and bulls were male, maybe all the gender confusion is the couse of all the mad cows. I am thinking about not drinking milk, after all if they think animals with teets are males…what are they milking exactly??? Uuugghhh!
The commercials make this family (all adults over thirty) wish to throw up. The ad’s are purile, the COW is NOT blue, it is white. Whoever decided a ‘cow”, female, with, with teats, duh , decided she could participate in male events, is more than just stupid, he/she offends anyone who has to watch these stupid, inane commercials that suggest to the world that we are all, idiots!
The Cooper family
Several people have mentioned this: that the COW is engaging in events reserved for men rather than those in which women compete. Since the activity itself is, in fact, the same, down to the smallest detail, one (okay, me) wonders what prompted the advertisers to select men’s events as the setting for their LBC glorification.
Okay, I’ll fess up. I don’t wonder. I have been a woman for many years, I know what’s going on here. What I do wonder is, do the advertisers have any clue as to the chauvanism they are espousing? And my bet is, ja da, they do.
Their goal is to show their cow, and by extension their product, whatever the fuck it is, as unilaterally superior. To do that, in their minds, it is not enough that the cow be seen to excel in women’s events, where it, by some stretch of the word ‘natural’, belongs. The LBC must be seen to show up the best men.
I suspect that the advertisers are in fact not well acquainted with the average sports fan’s attitude toward the rules governing a given sporting event. The rules are All. If the rules are ambiguous, or mutable, how the hell can you place bets? How do you know who won, for certain? That’s why men and women compete in separate venues, after all. It’s not that men are automatically better at everything, as is assumed by the ignorant, it is that the differences between how the two sexes approach a given task, and set about reaching the common goal, are fundamentally different in a thousand thousand subtle points.
In a sport like diving, for instance, one wouldn’t think that overall strength would be a deciding factor, and that therefore men and women should compete differently. After all, there are no weight classes in diving, as there are in boxing. However, as in gymnastics, there is at least one basic difference between men and women: their relative centres of gravity. There are more, but that’un is the biggie.
The LBC approach is concerned with proving product superiority, and goes about that in the most ham-fisted manner, to the point where I am thoroughly sick of seeing the mascot and have yet to discern for which product or service it is shilling. I only know that it is annoying, and badly placed.
I just wonder if the Little Blue Cow could pass a drug test.
Oh, will you grow up, please?? You are taking the damn commercial way out of context, and looking way
past it’s point. Quality Milk’s colour is blue, so I think it is fair to say that they are allowed to call it that?
And whether it is a female, or a male, who really cares? They are trying to raise money for our athletes,
and those commercials make it possible to watch them!
Oh, and how can you say it is a slap in the face to Cnadian Beef? ITS A MILK COMMERCIAL! And it is just a
commercial anyway? Man, you know how to make me go to bed on an upset note >:{
Sorry, one last post:
Quote: The campaign is designed to spotlight the exceptional talent of our homegrown team and to increase awareness of the meaning behind the little blue cow Quality Milk logo. The slogan Best with the little blue cow conveys a brand claim of homegrown goodness and standards among the highest in the world. It urges consumers to choose Canadian dairy products identified with the little blue cow logo. Unquote
Link: http://www.cossette.com/affiche/nouvelles/details.asp?id=1667&lg=en&ce=1
(drawing up a front row seat)
I heard there might be a disemvowelling in these here parts, and thought I’d stop by to watch.
(While Meagan’s comments lack something—”respect for others” comes to mind—she hasn’t quite strayed into the realm of personal invective. She can keep her vowels. For now.)
Meagan, let me assure you that discussing the quality and effectiveness of advertising messages is, in fact, a ‘grown-up’ activity. The advertiser gets to say what they’re trying to convey when they put out a commercial, but that isn’t where the discussion ends, it’s only where it starts. You don’t have to participate if you don’t want to; but this is my weblog, not yours, and the only temper tantrums permitted are mine.
Quality Milk’s colour is blue, so I think it is fair to say that they are allowed to call it that?
I’m going to guess that the milk itself is not actually blue, just that the company that bottles it is fond of blue as a colour. :-) Nevertheless, calling an obviously white cartoon character “blue” has confused more people than just me. Confused audiences become annoyed audiences pretty darn quick; it’s not a successful tactic, and the error lies in assuming more familiarity with the company and its mascot than exists.
And whether it is a female, or a male, who really cares?
I do so fervently hope a dairy company would care. At least one supplying milk to my area.
They are trying to raise money for our athletes, and those commercials make it possible to watch them!
Beg to differ. They’re trying to sell milk. The broadcasters for an event as popular as the Olympics can and do sell advertising time at premium rates and measure that time in seconds; they none of them go begging for buyers. Quality Milk’s commercial efforts attempt to associate their product with Canadian sporting success. This, while unobjectionable in itself, cannot by any stretch be regarded as a charitable endeavour, for which they should be lauded by an adoring public.
If you want to be grateful to any organization for televising the Olympics, the CBC should be the one to stroke.
Oh, and how can you say it is a slap in the face to Cnadian Beef?
There, there. Mae was making a funny.
(No more promo lit quoting, if everyone doesn’t mind. I deal with quite enough of that in the rest of my life.)
Sorry for overreacting lol I just get upset sometimes when people argue over, in my opinion, little things.
I would say that they make it look cooky and questionable so that people do notice it. It’s so that people recognize that logo, so they know they are supporting canadian dairy. So if I were doing something like that, I would make a different looking logo, something that stands out.
And whats this about vowels?
I think the real concern here is that we, as consumers, are being patronized. It’s like, “Hey everyone, look at our cute cow, and awww…she’s competing in the olympics – how clever and appropriate, I think I need to buy me some milk.” Puke. I think they should have saved their advertising dollars and put them toward a better cause – like getting our pathetic athletes some preformance enhancing drugs.