Kraft Zesty Italian - The Zesty Guy Says Hey (with bedroom voice) - (2013) :30 (USA)

Remember the old spice ads with Isaiah Mustafa, a campaign playing on suave and sexy so well that I wanted to marry it until they ruined it all with Fabio. This campaign, while clearly a tad inspired, isn't even good enough to be the rebound date. Zesty guy is eye candy. Because girls like salad. And pretty boys. Look, using pretty ladies as eye candy in ads is ungood, and using pretty men as simple eye candy isn't good either. Two wrongs don't make a right (but two Wrights can make an airplane). There's a balance of humor, or emotion, that needs to be reached for the character to evolve beyond the rock-hard abs, now he's just an object.

It's not as if this is an unusual idea, to have men as sex-objects, and bringing them to social media is par for the course. There's Gorgeous man on facebook, now there's The Zesty Guy on twitter (not to be confused with The Zesty Man who has nothing to do with it and probably refused selling his user name). The Zesty Guy will respond to your tweets with a flash of his perfect abs, and it all feels a bit Coca-cola light to me. You see, unlike Old Spice mens stuff using Isaiah, it's not a groundbreaking strategy to dangle a pretty boy in front of the target market of ladies (and pretty boys who like pretty boys). Can we make him eat yogurt next? How about bathing in it? Or maybe we can squirt it on him, oh wait that's been done on ladies and fined for obscenity. Ok, maybe not. The Zesty Guy is of course going to respond to us on social media, just like the Old Spice guy did - but will we want to play with this guy who doesn't even respond to a joke? He's not even on a horse yet. If Mr Zesty doesn't raise the level of humor, I fear we have a watered down old spice on our hands, popular with the Bravo crowd because sixpack.

Also, since when do we fry salad dressing? I have clearly missed the memo.


Update, but wait - there's more! Kraft "Slap Some Dough" and Kraft "Zesty Guy Gets Steamy" .

Ad agency: TBWA/Chiat/Day LA

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Anonymous Adgrunt's picture
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Dana Summers's picture

I wonder how many takes they had to go through before Mr. Works His Abs But Not His Brain could deliver? As eye candy he's fine but as soon as he opened his mouth my eyes glazed over.

AnonymousCoward's picture

Don't be a Fabio hater. Fabio sells product. Perhaps your comments can be a little more insightful than "popular with the Bravo crowd because sixpack." try proofreading.

Dabitch's picture

There's proofreading, then there's slang and new expressions. Go out and hang with the kids sometime, maybe you'll learn something.

This wasn't about Fabio hating, and if you thought so you missed the point about creatives use sexism because lazy, by a mile.

kidsleepy's picture

@anonymouscoward glad to see you had something pertinent to say about the spot itself. Like whether or not you believe that the rampant sexism in advertising is a problem. Or the inaneness of "cooking" salad dressing. How this will affect sales of Kraft Salad dressing. And why Kraft's advertising is so conceptually all over the place astot create confusion in the consumer's mind as to what the brand itself stands for.

As opposed to, you know, calling us haters.

Good show.

garricks's picture

Eh. Ignore AnonymousCoward, because DOUCHEBAG. Nice post @kidsleepy.

kidsleepy's picture

Cheers, mate.

Dabitch's picture

"Fabio hater" is now my middle name.