Tall Men: Australia is good at making beer ads

I was going to write about this anyway, but it also ties into a couple of other things that have gone around.

Forget Coke, beer is where it’s at:

You may recall Flashbeer from last year. In it I lamented Australia’s lack of quality ads but then, in a freak accident involving dodgy Daily Show torrents, I chanced upon some American ads and saw how good we have it in Australia. For seriously, no wonder you guys don’t watch TV any more. I am familiar with the Superbowl ads (I believe that Coke ad in Shamus’ post is of that genre), but if Snickersgate is what they produce I’m no real fan of them either.

The above ad, which I believe is titled “Tall Men”, fills me with joy. Again, I don’t drink beer; my friend Pang, who was no big fan of Flashbeer, commended this ad on actually being about the product. This ad has been playing for a while, but when I have the TV on I rarely watch the ads; I was familiar with this song playing in the background. The first time that Tall Men had my attention was the second time I saw 300 (on that day I was awarded a special medallion for my services to masochism). It was the best part of that cinema session, and proved that the cinema is the only place where advertisements have me as their captive audience – except I normally talk through the ads. This ad, though, you have to watch. Tom Jones commands it.
Tom Jones could probably sing ice to eskimos, but he can’t sing Mars Attacks! to people with taste. Fortunately, beer to Australians is an easier sell than Tim Burton’s festival of horrors.

While I’m on the note of beer, and having already mentioned Flashbeer, The Chaser’s War on Everything featured an Ad Road Test of the Flashbeer campaign a couple of weeks ago. The results, for your delectation:

Back in the day, Australia had the idea of keeping the bastards honest. Maybe the Chaser folks aren’t quite at that point, but they’re certainly not averse to looking silly across Sydney. Every time I worry that Australia is losing a culture that I can identify with or respect, I look at this team of people and I see that not all hope is lost.

In summary: beer is entertaining.

I drink Pepsi or Coke, having frequently stocked my house with both … but have had such an uninterrupted run of Coke drinking that Pepsi isn’t exactly palatable at the moment. The last time I went to America, I found that Mountain Dew gave me headaches (it doesn’t have caffeine in Australia, but I don’t normally react badly to caffeine … so clearly American Mountain Dew contains poison).