Will David Lynch's Disembodied Barbie Head Sell Coffee?
David Lynch, who directed Lost Highway, Blue Velvet and Dune, has released the strangest ad you'll see in a long, long time (video below). It promotes his David Lynch Signature Organic coffee brand and consists of 4 minutes of the maestro talking to the disembodied head of a Barbie doll about mostly nothing, but also coffee. There are no edits, and no coffee either.
Yes, it's creepy. There's a misogynist undertone to it -- at one point Lynch seems to be trying to twist Barbie's head off -- but nothing bad actually happens. It's a blank slate. Read into it what you will.
At four minutes, it feels more like an indulgent whimsy than an ad, but it does end with a traditional product shot (if you can last that long).
Lynch has made coffee commercials before, including a campaign for Japan's Georgia Coffee that riffed off the "damn good coffee" catchphrase from Lynch's Twin Peaks TV show. He also did a relatively normal promo video for his own line in 2009. There's clearly no ad budget for the brand but Lynch's super-weirdness has gotten a lot of media attention.
Viewers' reactions range from bemused to alienated -- which is typical of the Lynch oeuvre:
This is serial killer territory. I am frightened.Next question: Will Mattel (MAT) demand the spot be taken down for copyright violations?That's right -- it's real. And surreal. And disturbing. And baffling. And tedious. And weirdly hypnotic.
See if you can sit through the whole video.