When this Black Mirroresque spot dropped in 2017, ADWEEK called it “the perfect cinema ad to run before horror films.” That’s because it creeped everyone out, and also because it got big-screen media buys in front of Stephen King’s It and other genre flicks.
The dystopian spot, which gives serious Kubric vibes, centers on the potential (inevitable?) robot enslavement of the human race and what might happen when “everyone you love is gone.” Hint: It involves too much hand-fed ice cream. Blessed by Halo Top founder and CEO Justin Wollverton, the work came from director Mike Diva, who said he leaned on Four Loko and his baser instincts for the concept. The result, in all its sterile glory, became an instant classic.
Halo Top, “Ice Cream for Adults”
By 2019, the fast-growing low-sugar brand was ready for its first national campaign. But was its humor any less bleak by then? Not much. Centered on a nihilistic, kid-unfriendly ice cream truck, the spots deal with such realities as soul-sucking jobs, crushing debt and romantic failures—you know: typical adult stuff.
The work, with its deadpan delivery and angst-riddled edge, came from 72andSunny New York and director Tim Godsall. For a compilation of the four ads, check out the link here, posted by actor Eric Satterberg, who played the truth-spouting ice cream man. The spots hit even harder, in the best way, when viewed back to back.
Little Baby’s, “This Is a Special Time”
This is a spokesthing, and it has a name: Malcolm. Freaky, right?
Little Baby’s, a small-batch “super premium” brand and retailer, launched in Philadelphia in 2011 and grew to $1 million in revenue a few years later, partly on the strength of the ad’s surprise viral success. Founder Pete Angevine hadn’t envisioned “This Is a Special Time” as a traditional commercial, telling CNBC that he spent $3,500 to make a “funny little piece of video art” that he posted to YouTube. The wide-eyed character, by the way, isn’t covered in ice cream. It’s marshmallow fluff.
Alas, the brand closed up shop in late 2019, shuttering its four Philly locations. Malcolm, though, lives on in our nightmares.
