Bridge to Babylon: Snuggie, The Blanket with Sleeves

Subscribe | Twitter | RSS

There is no more ignoring it. Mocking it has proven futile.
There is only one thing left to do: stick out your arms and prepare yourself
for a hug from God. Stop pretending you don’t want it. And, surely you know what I’m talking about.

The Snuggie.

Ad-agency creative types often have a love-hate relationship
to direct-response marketing. Mostly hate, actually, but with repressed
admiration lurking just below the surface. On the one hand, the genre’s
punch-in-the-nose lack of subtlety and often-intentional artlessness are cringe inducing. On the other, these qualities often provide fodder for a
most-reverential form of flattery: comedic imitation. At this exact moment, who
among us can honestly say that they wouldn’t like to hire Vince Offer–of
ShamWow! fame–to spoof the infomercial in a “serious” campaign. The genre’s
slick-talking condescension is at once offensive and crudely charming.

Recently, I have found myself working with several direct-response
oriented clients. It probably goes without saying that all of the cutting to the
chase left me feeling a bit winded from the search for inspiration. However, this quest, this search for the perfect
blunt object with which to generate click throughs also started a chain reaction. A
mild genre obsession that ended with the moment captured in stills above.

They reveal me as I enter what by now should be to most Americans a familiar-looking fleecy
blue place. A DR challenge? Why not look to success for inspiration. And the January
26^th issue of Advertising Age confirmed
what I had already suspected: that the Snuggie folks had moved four million
units in just over three months, establishing a warm, monk-like foothold in the
zeitgeist of the moment in the process. Perhaps nothing so sums up this
position of honor as the following quote.

“Fox News honed in on a woman wearing a Snuggie as she
braved the cold attending Barack Obama’s inauguration on January 20, five days
after Ellen DeGeneres donned on on her daytime talk show.”

There are now more than 200 parody videos on YouTube, making
this one of the more viable memes of recent memory. Most
use some portion of the actual commercial and some
manner of profane ranting. I would link to some here, but why? Part of
the miracle
of the Snuggie lies in the self-discovery that it implies. This is more
than just a
bathrobe worn backwards, my friends. This is a journey to the heart of
American
consumerism, with all of its attendant zealotry, laziness and obedience
to trend on full
display. However, there is also a perfect symmetry here that is
strangely beautiful. It’s cheap. It’s warm. Direct and to the point.

And you can even type in it,

Daniel Turman