A Living Room Mystery

The ad begins with a roomba-style vacuum gliding across the ad-frame, presumably sucking up dust and dirt as it goes along, and revealing a block of mysteriously cropped-out text. Unfortunately for the ad, the little vacuum’s brief appearance wasn’t the end of the suck…

They want me to buy something; that much is clear. But what? From the tops of the letters, I have deduced three possible variants. “Buy this” … Door Vacuum? Buy this Bobo Vaquilim? Nono Varlilim? Who is Nono Varlilim, and what is she selling? Dirt? Dust? Toenail clippings from a previous tenant? I’m on a Chrome browser on a regular-sized monitor – what’s happening here? Was the wrong ad size served into the frame? Did a design intern miss their class on how to use the crop tool? Or did my witless millennial sensibility lack the cognizance to perceive a hidden message in the… hidden message?

This ad cracked me up. The video caught my eye at first, but lost my faith with the cropping issue. This ad would have damaged my perception of the brand – if I could only tell what the brand is. I don’t even know if it changed how I feel about the product because I’m not 100% sure what the product was. Or what they wanted from me. Or who I even am after that experience.

24%

Week-Old Guac!