Ferrero Rocher’s Valentine’s Commercial – The Music and the Shady Math

Hello there! If this is your first time to Out of the Wilderness, you can find much more of the random stuff I write about on the main page. Look at the upper right corner for all the different topics. One subject, of course, is TV commercials. Let’s take a look at this one from Ferrero Rocher.

The Music. The lovey-dovey soundtrack for this Valentine’s Day ad is “One in a Billion” by Shannon LaBrie.

Funny math. Something fishy is going on with this and a few other Ferrero Rocher YouTube uploads. The commercial above has 1.6 million views in just 4 days. Not too shabby, right? The thing is, though, there are only 5 likes and no comments. Whaaa?? The chances that over a million people watched it and not one person commented are very slim. On top of that, only 5 people liked it… out of 1.6 million views…?

Other weird math. Ferrero Rocher’s YouTube channel only has 2,000 subscribers. Again, that’s not bad, but you’d think a video that garners millions of views would compel a lot of people to subscribe. Let’s check back to previous videos. The one posted before the Valentine’s ad (the one we’ve been talking about) was posted 2.5 weeks prior. Here it is below, and guess how many views it has? Scroll down for the answer.

This video, posted nearly a month ago, has 317 views. To be clear, that’s 317, no thousands, no millions, just a few hundred. It also has 5 likes. Just for fun, let’s go back a little further. A few videos back is wildly different in its statistics. It has 8.7 million views, no comments, and 2 likes. Another suspicious aspect: this multi-million viewed video is just the 15-second version of the video that has 317 views (which is 30 seconds long).

Why such different view counts? Would Ferrero Rocher buy views, a practice YouTube prohibits? If so, why? I think there’s more to this story so if you can shed any light, comment below and let’s get to the bottom of it!

Going back to the original ad, do you like the music? Can you think of a different song you’d use to back the visuals of the ad? Is there anything fishy going on with the YouTube views of these few videos? Let’s chat…

Thanks for dropping in…

-Out of the Wilderness

Encanto …a reaction in less than 500 words

Encanto. Disney’s movie featuring a girl with no gifts (magical talents) but who’s family all have gifts. I’d heard this movie was good and I really wanted to like it. I promise! I mean, when is the last time Disney let us down, you know? OK, I remember Ralph Breaks the Internet and Frozen II but still, Disney is usually putting out good stuff! So just like the rebellious kids in Dangerous Minds when Michelle Pfeiffer announced they were starting the class with A’s and all they had to do was work to keep the A, Encanto already had my approval, it just had to keep it.

Unfortunately, the first 10 or 15 minutes lost me almost completely… for two reasons.

  1. The lyrics in the first couple of songs were very hard to follow. Honestly, I had no idea what the young girl was singing/talking about. So it wasn’t until after all the gibberish that I had any idea about what was going on.
  2. The magical house. There was also the issue of the “magical powers” building a house for the family. Not only that, but those powers could allow the members of the family to do almost anything at any time. This bores me to no end.

Even with this disappointing introduction to the animated family, I watched all the way through. I wanted it to keep the A it started with, or at this point it’s more truthful to say I wanted the movie to get back to the A it started with. Throughout the film, there were moments of humor (not enough). The plot was OK (not explained well enough). The music was really good (in spite of the disastrous opening songs).

By the end, I sort of understood what it was all about and I’ll be generous by giving it a C grade. Well, I would’ve given it a C until the last few minutes when the family is rejoicing together again. Remember that magical house? Well, it was destroyed. The community joined together like it was an episode of Extreme Makeover Home Editon and built them a new house in a few weeks or less. Ty would have been so proud. It would’ve been a sweet moment to end on but then…

All of the sudden the floor tiles sprang to life like they did often in the magical house. Wait, what? I thought the magic was gone? Now, without explanation, it’s back? That completely ruins the entire “moral of the story” of the movie!

To sum up, I give this movie a 4/10 because of these few positive things: the animation was great and the animals were cute and mostly cuddly. That’s it.

Have you watched it yet? If so, share your thoughts and reviews below. Like I said, I really wanted to like it, but I just can’t help but want to watch it never again.

-Out of the Wilderness

Chevrolet’s Snowy Cat Commercial – The Music and the Actor

Hello there and welcome! You came here to find out more about the recent Chevrolet ad featuring Walter the cat, huh? Well, this is Walter’s follow up to this ad. He’s a fascinating cat. Here’s the commercial…

The Music. Creators must’ve been feline fine with the first Chevy Cat ad because they used the same soundtrack. They call on Harry McClintock’s “Big Rock Candy Mountain” from the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.

The Actor. Walter’s partner in these adventures is actor John Hoogenakker. If he looks furr-miliar, you might recognize him for his role in “Jack Ryan,” a series on Amazon Prime. I’m sure he’d love an outpurring of support so check out his resume on IMDB here and also find him on Instagram here. For playing such a serious role in “Jack Ryan,” he does a great job providing some humor in these Chevy ads.

Do you like the use of Walter promoting Chevy trucks? What is it about Walter that’s resonating with viewers? Comment below, and thank you very meowch…

-Out of the Wilderness

All the birds in the Liberty Mutual “Bird Call” Commercial…

If you’re new to this blog, you’ll see I write about commercials a lot. Some are the perfect combination of music and visual and I can’t help but research and post what I find. For ads you may be curious about, too, check out Popular TV Ads to discover interesting info about lots of popular ads in the recent years. With that said, let’s move right along to Liberty Mutual. In this ad, Limu Emu and Doug are back and they’re in a neighborhood park. Limu wanders off in the middle of Doug’s insurance pitch, and Doug has a thousand whistles to get him back. It’s funny what happens next…

That’s a lot of birds! But what are they? Well, some are common and a few are not quite so. The ad starts off with, of course, Limu the emu. But after he sneaks away, the following birds answer Doug’s call.

Eagle

Tawny Owl (this is just an educated guess, it also resembles a Northern Spotted Owl)

Banded Penguin

Flamingo

Seagull (on his head)

Pigeons (behind him, to his left)

Chickens

King Vulture (flies in, black wings with white up near the top half of the back)

This ad caught my attention because I’ve developed a fascination with birds. It’s only been in the last year or so that this curiosity has turned into wildlife photography… specifically birds. With camera in hand, I’ve come across eagles, herons, egrets, hawks and a lot more. Check out a few favorite photographs of the flying wildlife on my FineArtAmerica “birds” page.

Thanks for flying by…

-Out of the Wilderness

(Not Very) Wild Horses

I was recently driving on backroads in central Florida and came through a couple of towns that were steeped in the equestrian life. I had not seen so many horse and tack shops in such close proximity to each other in all my life. There were also farms and fences spread out over rolling hills and acres of pastures. As I made my way north I glanced to my right, I think my heart skipped a beat because of the beauty in that passing moment. I was almost stunned at the scene: a white horse in the middle of a gigantic fenced-in field. It’s the scene Taylor Swift would write a song about. But today you’ll have to settle for a few photos because I definitely made a u-turn and pulled over to the side of the road to snap some photos. That in itself was an adventure (and probably not very smart) because the narrow deserted highway all of the sudden became a rush of travellers; cars and semis zooming by. A little dangerous, and like I said, probably not very smart of me. But it was worth it to capture these horses in photograph form!

The next three photos are available by clicking here for my work on FineArtAmerica… so you can have one (or all!) of them in your home or office, as well.

Thank you so much for dropping by…

-Out of the Wilderness