ASK FOR IT BY NAME - ED HERBSTMAN FOR ORBIT & FEDEX
Sunday, August 28, 2011 at 11:19PM
I'm always amazed at how companies can reinvent their products to make them great. I remember when Orbit was a shit gum (really), inasmuch as you never saw commercials for it featuring hot white-girl twins on vacation , at the beach or getting their portraits done by hot white boys. Didn't black people chew gum, too? Well, today we live in the age of Everything Is Funny In Commercials where less emphasis is placed on socioeconomics and those who buy chewing gum. That said, Orbit gets credit for taking an early, different tack, glorifying the randomly strange, but also playing it a little safe by buttoning their ads with an attractive '60s-style English air hostess. Why? No idea. But that early work is why this ad featuring Ed Herbstman ( The Mantzoukas Brothers , The Magnet Theater ) is not only acceptable in its strangeness, but also eye-catchingly good. Watch the ad and find yourself not asking these questions: "Why is Ed bobbing for apples at a teenager's house party? Why is that bearded guy in a pool of apples? Why did Ed take him home?"
Maybe these two ads were meant to be book-ended. The domestic strife has caught up to Ed and now he's shipping his wife's wedding dress to a dead-letter office in Topeka. I like how Ed flawlessly opens the fusion box, though. Like it should have taken a million tries to get it right, but Ed nailed it in two. I could do without the bit with the kid at the end, though. No offense, Youngster.
-- Keith Huang
