My new, favorite TV ad for ice cream and cake

One of the great things about traveling in the U.S. is that you get to see advertising that you never get to see in Canada, because we have "laws" and "regulations" here.

Like, for instance, this ad for crack cocaine. Oh, sorry, I mean Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake; it's the person who wrote the song who was on crack cocaine.

This thing runs, oh, about 1,000 times a day on U.S. TV during all the best shows, like "NYC Prep." You really hate the ad at first, until you find yourself walking down the street, involuntary thinking, "ice cream and cake do the ice cream and cake do the ice cream and cake."

Suddenly, you realize that you will die unless you buy some ice cream cake at Baskin-Robbins immediately. And you do. Rinse, wash, repeat.

The ad (warning: this ad will not leave your head for the rest of your life):



Infectious and insidious: my two favorite Darths.

This is essentially a more advanced execution of the same strategy used by Head On: Apply Directly to Forehead: that a simple line, repeated ad nauseam, will eventually break through the clutter.

Every indication is that this ad has legs - rubbery, dancing legs; yep, Baskin-Robbins has started an online ice cream and cake dance contest here, in which you ("you" meaning "Americans") can win $10,000 in cash and $1,000 in - you guessed it - ice cream and cakes by dancing to the ice cream and cake song and submitting the video to the brvideocontest.com website.

The helpful instructions:

"Get your friends together, use costumes, props…anything that shows off your style and is fun. We've shown you the basic moves, now it's your turn to make the dance your own. Get creative!"

The awesome results:



I don't know about you, but I think I may have developed a little hankerin' for some ice cream and cakey cake cake do the ice cream and cake ice cream and cakey cake cake cake ice cream cakey cakey cake cake ice cream...