Your father was a douche bag and he drank our whisky!

The copy for this Canadian Club ad starts with…

“He went out. He got two numbers in the same night. He drank cocktails. But they were whisky cocktails. Made with Canadian Club….”

Right. We remember this douche bag. He’s the one who drank way too much and got sick in the middle of making out with that girl he met and threw up all over her bad, then passed out and slipped out in the morning without apologizing. He’s the guy who gave everyone noogies when he got loaded. He was the loud prick in the movie theatre that had to be hauled out by his friends. He’s the guy who was always starting fights when he got sloppy, and ended most Saturday nights past out with his head in someone’s toilet (if they were lucky enough to drag him there).

We know this douche bag. He’s the one who screwed as many women as he could, lied to them all and bragged about it to his buddies. In fact, if this is your Dad, he’s the guy who’s still been doing it and lying to your mother all these years. (Guys like that don’t change unless they have to).  He’s the guy who screws his secretary and then gets her fired when he’s over it. He’s the guy who hunts for tail on every business trip. And guess what? If this is your dad, your mom probably knows it and has been quietly suffering all these years. In fact, she’s probably the one dropping a couple of cubes into a rock glass and dosing with a healthy pour of CC at 3 in the afternoon, now that the kids are grown and out of the house and she and your Dad haven’t spoken a true word in years or shared an intimacy of any kind since well before she hit menopause.

So, what is the big romantic promise that (the usually spot on) BBDO Energy and client Canadian Club are offering here? What is the magic they’re trying to tap into, besides douche-bagginess? Ah, yes, the Seventies! Check out the horrid snap shots in the ads. Do they think that these faded color snaps make the 70’s seem like a place twenty-something’s actually wish they could have been? If the 70’s represents some sort of magic, they sure didn’t try to romance it. That was the era of wine in a box, the worst moustaches since the Gay 90’s, wide flapping shirt collars, gold chains and shirts unbuttoned to the waist.

That’s right, your douche bag of a dad gave out the idiot nicknames. Like Fro. And Hootermeister. He got loaded and made an ass of himself at other people’s weddings and never thought to apologize. Why? He was a douche bag. He dressed like one. He acted like one. And you want to be like that?

Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say you do. Here’s the bizarre anti-logic of the campaign. The ads don’t say your dad drank CC straight up. Every ad proclaims that your Dad loved whisky cocktails. Like whisky sours. Whisky sours? That’s what the drag queen at the end of the bar is sipping through a straw.

So, if this is indeed your dad and your dad drank Canadian Club, what these ads are saying is, Drink Tequila. Cause face it, this dad was a douche bag. And three divorces later, he probably still is. And you don’t really want to be like that. Do you?

That’s our POV. What do you think? Comment below.