‘Big Gas’ Ad Is Kmart’s Latest Promotion to Play on Words
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Tim Boyle/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Kmart’s new ad is a gas. Literally.
In its new tongue-in-cheek ad “Big Gas,” the retailer promotes a special discount on gas. Throughout the spot, customers praise the “big gas” savings and “big gas” prices, but their repeated, rapid use of the phrase makes it sound as though they’re saying “big a**.”
The ad starts out with customers getting gas at the pump.
“Ugh, I hate these big gas prices,” one woman says.
Another woman chimes in: “Sounds like you could use some big gas savings.”
There’s more of this, with customers expressing excitement over Kmart’s promotion. The retailer is offering its Shop Your Way members 30 cents off every gallon of gas when they spend at least $50 dollars at Kmart.
The retailer has had previous success with this style of commercial. Last month it released “Ship My Pants,” an ad featuring wordplay mimicking a crude joke to promote free shipping for loyalty members.
Within five days of being uploaded to YouTube, that 35-second video had nearly 10 million views.
The ad starts with a man speaking with a Kmart employee:
“Ship my pants? Right here? Ship my pants, you’re kidding,” the man says.
“You can ship you pants right here,” the worker replies.
The ad then has a number of other characters proudly saying they’ve shipped their products. The spot racked up another 7 million YouTube views before making its way to cable TV.
“Big Gas” was posted on YouTube on Wednesday, and had 92,000 views as of Thursday night.
The risqué ads may be generating buzz, but they’re not helping the company’s bottom line.
Earnings reports released late Thursday show the retailer is down 4.6 percent this quarter.
“They really need to goose things up quickly,” Lisa Granatstein, managing editor at AdWeek, told ABC News. “But it was only one month ago that the ‘ship my pants’ campaign came out, and we have to give it time.”
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