What Your Office Commercial Says About Your Company

Because more than half of the world's population lives in cities and over 80% of American city-dwellers have office jobs, that means roughly 92 trillion people can relate to Jim Halpert. And because of that, the Anonymous Office has dethroned the Family Kitchen, the Backyard and the Skatepark as the premier location for commercials.

Most of them follow the same template because ad men are not smart. The template is Jim Halpert. Go.

Healthy Choice

I can't stop hating Healthy Choice. This commercial is the worst because it's literally The Office. The smart-ass young guy is Jim, the Ginger VP is Michael Scott, and this dry black dude is this dry black dude. 

I knoooow Healthy Choice didn't make this themselves but they hired the idiots who did, so they're idiots too. Healthy Choice needs to Healthy Go Out Of Business. 

Budweiser

Handheld camera. Check. Cute mousy administrative assistant. Check. This one's also like The Office but it works because it's funny. But Bud loses points for the tired device of bleeping curses here and there and then doing the super bleeped curse tirade. That joke is so old it married its daughter and then made Match Point. 

Doritos

They follow the Skittles rhythm of commercial story-telling: Normal, Crazy, Product, Crazy.

"Hey, man, what's up?"

"I'll tell you what's up! I'm fucking crazy!"

Doritos

"I'm crazy too!!!"

The problem with doing "crazy" is it's supposed to make you feel crazy. A commercial featuring crazy people isn't effective. It's actually lazy and it makes you feel extremely normal. Here's a billion dollar commercial idea for 'ritos:  A guy is eating Doritos and he says "mmm, Doritos." He's normal and I think I just made myself crazy with hunger. And if Doritos thinks they can fool America into eating them DURING THE DAY AT WORK, they truly are crazy and also liars. 

Greenpeace

You're like, where's the office shit? Oh, you mean you didn't catch Asian Jim Halpert at the end being all cute and terse with his stubborn geek hair? There's something you should know about "office hair" like that:

All these commercials are loaded with bad hair because that means people are over it and uncool is cool and like, it's just a job, man. I have bad hair because I don't wash it. Defeat the machine. 

Burger King

BK has their own poetic metre going: Normal, Normal, Not Funny. Why does everyone think acting bananas in the break room is hilarious? And why does Burger King keep doing commercials where a person is always handing out burgers like it's mail call at Camp Loneliness? Has anyone ever actually handed you a burger in your life? That's weird.

Fed Ex

Ha ha, young ugly guy gets taken to school by handsome rich guy. This is basically the undercurrent of a lot of these spots. Young people are smart and always just barely keeping it together and they know everyone around them is retarded. Just like us!

Staples

Staples is really getting a lot of mileage out of that Easy Button. Mileage to Whocares-esota. Also, printer humor has been dead for 10 years, right Office Space?

Volkswagen

But dig this. The Office didn't start the office look in advertising. It was VW.

2002, son! I do believe that's a Proto-Jim Halpert. Volkswagen's angle has always been boring nerdy-smarty-pants-centric. You can thank the New Beetle Convertible for bad hair, low chroma, staid office monotony. Also for getting ELO in the Eternal Sunshine soundtrack just for being in the trailer. WTF.