Corporate Mascots Gone Wild

It's been an interesting couple of weeks for the Canadian ad industry.
If you don't live in Canada you probably never saw the Keith's beer guy...and it's your loss.

First you should know that Keith's is an India Pale Ale by name, but it's not ACTUALLY made like a true pale ale at all. It's really basically just Molson Canadian in another bottle. As Wikipedia says, the name makes it sound "exotic." It's not a BAD beer, but it's not an IPA.

Anyway, their ads featured this guy who was basically an obnoxious stereotypical Scot berating people for not treating their beer with the respect it deserved. I must confess I had a bit of a soft spot for the guy. I mean, in this post-Shrek world we live in, faux-Scottish pitchmen are a dime a dozen but you had to admire the way this guy really went for it.

Then, last week, he got busted on child porn charges. Oops. There's nothing FUNNY about it...suffice it to say his ads were pulled and that's it for royalties.

Frank and Gordon are another matter. They are a couple of CGI beavers who shill for Sympatico, Bell Canada's Internet service. We've been getting a healthy dose of them throughout the Olympics and, personally speaking, the jury is still out.

Certainly it's a bit trite on one level and yet, one of the beavers is Norm MacDonald. Also their website (linked above) is riddiculously elaborate and, of course, only meant to make money for one of the biggest corporations in this country.

But one of the beavers is Norm MacDonald!! And I'm happy to see him getting work.

All I know about all this is that it once again proves my theory:
Germans love David Hasselhoff.