The Hair of the Dog
Valedictorian ,
produced for Seagram Americas.
Valedictorian is more
than an appeal to the thirsty to drink Crown Royal. It is the first break in
the liquor industry's self-imposed ban on hard-liquor advertisements on
television. The purveyors of spirits complain that the decades-old ban doesn't
apply to beer and wine, and cite this as the reason why grapes and hops have
been gaining market share against the hard stuff. Industry strategists knew
that the ads were bound to be controversial; the initial spots, therefore, are
designed to slip the product into the commercial dialogue with minimal splash.
No happy groups hoisting highballs in the Polo Lounge here; no scenes from the
days--or nights--of Crown Royal and roses. The spot is a little like the
negative ads fielded early in a political campaign: If you can get them by
without being too offensive, almost without being spotted, the message goes
down a lot more smoothly.
Using metaphor to make its
point, Valedictorian clearly targets the male viewer. We see a large,
obviously well-trained vizsla (if it wasn't well trained, who would want to be
near it?) bringing the morning newspaper up the steps. The scene evokes the
gracious life, even if it doesn't quite translate to the real world: As dog
owners know, the family pet--if it fetches the newspaper--is as likely to shred
it as to deliver it. The setting is obviously upscale, and so is the reading
matter--the New York Times . The music is Elgar's Pomp and
Circumstance ; the vizsla, the spare narrative tells us, is an
"obedience-school graduate."
We next see an identical
vizsla bringing in a velvet-pouched bottle of Crown Royal. (Or, is it the same
dog, doing double duty with the help of editing techniques that make it look
like the twin of the first--a commercial takeoff on Multiplicity , which
brought multiple Michael Keatons to the screen?) This dog is not just a
graduate, the narrator and chyrons tell us; it is the "valedictorian": a clear
invitation to the viewer to see Crown Royal, too, as being at the top of the
heap. If the class of canine brings a sense of nobility to the ad and product,
this particular specimen is so well trained that it intensifies the image of
controlled elegance, of comfort--an almost royal dog striding through a
minimalist palace. Perhaps, echoes of Elgar's very similar Coronation
March whisper across our minds. This is all a postmodern variation on the
blend's brand name. The advertisers deploy the images to persuade the well-off
and upwardly mobile that Crown Royal should be the Chablis or chardonnay of
their generation. Real men, the message here has it, don't drink wine--any more
than they would own a poodle; and upscale men can do better than a beer and a
mutt.
Thus the ad hits its
target--but it never attempts to tell us why Crown Royal hits the spot. The
appeal is to a different kind of taste.
We get a brief glimpse of a
dark glowing warmth in cut glass as the pouch falls away, much as a shift might
fall from the shoulders of a man's lover. Valedictorian floats
subliminal notes like this one, but uses few words--only nine, compared with
the 90 or more in the usual 30-second spot. This ad is almost a nonpolitical
bumper sticker, a simple image designed to give a familiar name fresh life.
Finally, we see the two
vizslas, waiting for their master's choice: Crown Royal, ready to be consumed
with the Times . The unanswered question, of course, is this: Has the
first dog waited all day to fetch the paper, or is its master about to have the
first drink of the day sometime in the morning?
On the surface,
Valedictorian is innocuous. The aristocratic hounds grab our attention,
and the ad reaches for those who are in charge--of their world, their careers,
their money, and their vizslas--the kind of men who are in control of their
drinking. Or so the company would like us to think. But this won't placate the
critics of alcohol advertising, who charge that the underlying purpose of the
ad campaign is to recruit new drinkers, especially among the young. Almost
ritually, the company will reply that the campaign aims merely to compete for
market share among those who already drink. This spot has provoked calls for
Congress to enact a second Prohibition--not on drinking alcohol, this
time, but on marketing it in this way. One of the first hard-liquor ads we see
on television, Valedictorian may be one of the last.
The
owners of Seagrams also control Universal Studios and MCA. Just as Disney's
101 Dalmatians is coming to neighborhood theaters, Crown Royal's twin
vizslas are coming into your homes. Man's best friend, the ad seems to tell the
best of men, is telling us that Crown Royal is man's best drink.
--Robert
Shrum
