Hasta La Creative!

Procter & Gamble’s Charmin isn’t actually slated to appear in the Super Bowl (as far as we know), but that didn’t stop “Saturday Night Live” from imagining how a focus group session for a Big Game ad for the toilet paper brand might have gone. In the segment above, which appeared as a part of the weekend’s episode of “SNL,” we join the discussion just after the ad (which we don’t actually get to see) has been played on a monitor for a group of average consumers. The focus group moderator (Aidy Bryant) makes it clear the planned Super Bowl ad will be part of Charmin’s continuing campaign starring a family of cartoon bears, and she does an admirable job of trying to keep the conversation on trackto no avail.

As happens in every focus group ever, the participants keep trying to suggest alternatives. “We aren’t looking for new commercial pitches,” the moderator explains, “just your thoughts on the commercial you just saw.” A hyper-woke, uber-PC woman (Kate McKinnon) arguably comes closest to following those instructions, but a middle-aged dude in a hoodie and leather jacket (portrayed by guest host James McAvoy with a flat Philly accent) can’t help but keep suggesting elaborate new scenarios for the Charmin bearsincluding a sex scene in which one of the male bears “has no idea that his lady’s just deuced it, because the booty is clean!” Which, come to think of it, is not that far off from the narrative of an actual Charmin commercial (minus the sex).

Continue reading at AdAge.com