Join the Coffee Achievers! (1984)

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

Kurt Thomas, first American men's gymnastics world champion, shills for coffee.

Comments

[jtaylor2.livejournal.com]

I love how at :18 or so, he puts down his coffee cup in order to really drive his point home at :22.

AWESOME. I want to achieve my dream! To stay awake at my office job!

[hazeltea.livejournal.com]

Now I've got "Dare to be Stupid" stuck in my head D:

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

It's bizarre to me that we needed (well, you know, needed) ads for general food concepts in the 70s/80s. Not specific brands or anything, but basic types of food. Like eggs. Coffee (anyone remember the one with David Bowie?). Milk. And the milk ads are still going.

So weird.

[misstia]

david bowie did a coffee ad??

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I have tried to find it on YouTube before and failed. More power to you if you can come up with it!

He's not on for the whole thirty seconds, but it showed him running out on stage in that billowy white suit while "Modern Love" played in the background.

[misstia]

they show him...no modern love playing though....

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

"The movers... and the shakers..."

Cut to Kurt Vonnegut at his typewriter. Wow.

[amiga500.livejournal.com]

Those corn syrup ads define snarky. Bitch.

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

That's the point; the corn syrup ads are still on because HFCS is a controversial food additive and they need to try to paint it in a good light.

[mary-shelley77.livejournal.com]

The Incredible Edible Egg!

[dantc.livejournal.com]

And material concepts as well: Aluminum (I remember a whole series of them about how aluminum was superior to glass or plastic for soda), and those gawdawful cotton commercials with Aaron Neville singing over them.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. I'd forgotten the aluminum ones.

Human beings are so weird.

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

The reason we "needed" to be told we "need" eggs, dairy, beef, and coffee, is that there is no human nutritional need for any of these substances.

Back in the 60s they had ads promoting sugar, because you know everybody needs sugar.

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Usually these generic promotions come when sales of an item slump.

Remember the ads for orange juice (even one during the Super Bowl) at the height of the Atkins craze? Orange juice was considered all carbs and sales had plummeted.

Coffee at the time was losing out to diet soda. Diet Coke was only two years old in 1984 but it had decimated the hot drinks market. Later people stopped wearing giant shoulder pads and went to Starbucks.