Brawndo the Thirst Mutilator: It's like shaving your chest with a lawnmower!
A commercial which doesn't really tell much about the product, only how it will feel to use it.
Usually, the commercial starts out by asking "What's it like to try new Product X?", then shows a ridiculous metaphor of it. Alternatively, the commercial shows the metaphor first to make you wonder what the heck you're watching, then reveals "That's what our product is like."
The name comes from the ads for York Peppermint Patties which apparently will make you feel like you're skiing down the alpines from atop your coffee table.
Compare and contrast Sex for Product. Related to Bottled Cool.
Examples:
- York Peppermint Patties, of course. Currently intersects in the North American ads with Sex for Product, since these spots feature really hot women seemingly having orgasms while eating the candy.
- One of the most notable examples is How it feels to chew 5 Gum. The ads are so striking visually that it makes one wonder how chewing 5 Gum will make them feel like they're in their underwear in a pit of vibrating ball-bearings!
- Sierra Mist - Extremely cold experiences followed by, "Yeah, it's kinda like that."
- Parodied in The Muppets Take Manhattan.
Bill the Frog: How about this? "Ocean Breeze Soap: It's just like taking an ocean cruise, only there's no boat and you don't actually go anywhere".(...)Kermit the Frog: Why don't you try something like: "Ocean Breeze Soap will get you clean"?Jill the Frog: You mean just say what the product does!?Gil the Frog: No one's ever tried that before!
- Parodied until it screams for mercy by The Powerthirst Ads (to which the Brawndo ads were a Spiritual Sequel)
- Drinking Nestea is like a MAGIC TINY SWIMMING POOL appearing behind you and then you fall in backward.
- Taken to non sequitur extremes in early PSP ads. "It's like cheese you can listen to outside!"
- Caribbean Essence Bath Oil commercial on Saturday Night Live. Transcript
- Fisherman's Friend. "It's a bit strong..."
- "Calgon, take me away!"
- The Douglas Max-Air bubblegums are SO FRESH IT'S LIKE CHEWING THE SVALBARD AND JAN MAYEN ARCHIPELAGO! (which is actually close to the real thing!)
- The in-game radio in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has a deodorant ad that says "When fighting the war against personal hygiene, bring up the heavy artillery: PIT BOMB! It's like NAPALM for your skin! AGENT ORANGE for your sweat glands! It kills bad odors like GIs in a peasant village!"
- Practically every Perfume Commercial ever. Somewhat understandable, as the only thing that really distinguishes one perfume from another is its smell, and smells (1) cannot be transmitted via television and (2) are almost impossible to adequately describe in words, without running into the same ten adjectives over and over.
- In 2000, a Super Bowl Special ad showed a full minute of cowboys herding cats. At the very end we got a slogan: "In a sense, this is what we do." Many people remember the ad but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who can tell you what was being advertised. We can, though. It was for EDS, an IT services company that until then was better known for being the source of Ross Perot's fortune — if you were familiar with it at all. EDS was bought out by Hewlett-Packard in 2008.
- All but parodied in a series of radio ads for Pine Sol floor cleaner, which featured an excited man going on about things like getting sucked into a giant lemon or having pine cones shoved up your nose.
- This is actually the reason the Old Spice The Man Your Man Could Smell Like ads are so popular. Who needs to listen about the bodywash once we know that it gives men the ability to build kitchens, bake cakes, and swan dive into motorcycles in hottubs?
- All the while stating outright the body wash 'cannot' give men the ability to do this, only make the man 'smell' like he can.
- The trope's concept is deconstructed and parodied in this commercial for Old Spice bar soap.
- Non-commercial example: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy describes the experience of drinking a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster as being "akin to having one's brain smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick." Although this one may or may not be metaphorical.
- Dentyne Frost Bites: don't chew too many or your head will freeze solid and fall off, freaking out everyone around you. Oh-kay...
- Forcibly done with some products as a result of them being legally unable to say what their products do. Some, like the Q-Ray bracelet and HeadOn, can't or couldn't prove that their so-called benefits are anything other than the placebo effect, so they aren't allowed to list these benefits in their commercials. Instead you get "HeadOn - apply directly to the forehead!"
- UK advertising for Halls cough sweets. The regular "vapour action" menthol sweets are like your head turning into an air conditioner, or sticking your head out of an aeroplane. Soothers, on the other hand, are like having your sore throat kissed better by someone.
