Feb
19
2007
hello goodbye
There’s a new Target ad on television these days that near-infuriates me — to the point where I actually shouted at the TV when I first saw it.
(If you can’t see the video, it’s up on YouTube.)
For the most part, it’s actually a pretty good ad. I’ve enjoyed Target’s television advertising over the past year or so, with the kicky music and clever use of color, repetition and patterns. And this ad, with its dreamy cover of The Beatles’ “Hello Goodbye,” is no exception.
Except for one bit of poorly chosen typographical wordplay that completely ruins the ad for me: Periodically, throughout the ad, the words “hello” and “goodbuy” appear onscreen. “Goodbuy” instead of “goodbye.” Ugh. They’re usually so much more subtle than that. Why use a sweet, peppy Beatles song and totally ruin it like that?
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Comments
Our country’s getting dumber.
But it’s really a pretty good ad IMHO…
Pb
It is a pretty good ad … it’s just that “goodbuy” that, for whatever reason, completely ruins it for me.
just to clarify, you do realize it’s a play on words, right?? as in there are lots of good buys at target? hello good buy? they didn’t just confuse the spelling. anyway, i think you’re just nitpicking, really.
Yes, I do realize that it’s a play on words, and, yes, I am nitpicking. But it’s that wordplay — which takes the commercial from cute to tacky in an ad campaign where Target is usually more subtle — that ruins the ad for me. YMMV.
This commercial is brilliant. Hello to a guy with lipstick on his collar to a good buy of clorox pen, hello to a hot model to a good buy of a fire extinguisher, hello to high heels to a good buy of band-aids. I don’t see where the problem is. It’s catchy and it’s obviously working as an ad campaign with all the message boards that are up. There’s nothing better than free press.
It’s a horrible ad and the Beatles are obviously desperate for money. Why else would they allow a corporatation to reinterpret their song and actually change the context of it to sell toilet paper and toothpaste. They would have never done this if all 4 were still alive and Michael Jackson and Yoko didn’t own rights to the publishing. It’s a disgrace. The idea of it is to create associations with the music when consumers listen to it. So the next time they hear Hello Good Buy they’ll feel an urge to go shopping for toilet paper.
How is it that nobody else has seemed to notice that the first voice heard on this ad — unaccompanied — begins almost a quarter-tone below the pitch of the instrumentals and vocals that join a couple of bars later? KILLS my ear every time it comes on. Target has had such inventive other ads, and this one has totally lovely voices — but the first singer clearly didn’t hear the starting pitch well. How did the producer let that get by him/her?
It’s extremely annoying, they have played it so mannny times, I mean with different commercials but the same song, and i agree it was smart to think og using it to advertise as “hello, goodbuy” Like you said it ruins it. Though I think people(the ones who know who owns the songs or whatever) take it out to much on MJ. I’m sure he didn’t know the song would become overexposed, he has been worried about being overexposed himself (talked about this is autiobio moonwalker in 1988 and his experience with the Jacksons/jackson 5 in there own TV show and how he knew it was a bad idea from the start, and he understands this already in J5 days).
Target will eventually give it up, i hope.