Generation Crap

Since I watch TV, the advertisements for "Jacobs Kaffee" (a traditional German coffee brand that is now part of Kraft Foods) have always been a reason to switch channels. I still remember the extremely corny spots for their main brand "Jacobs Krönung" (coronation) from the 1970s through the 1990s - the only thing that used to change were the hairdos and the table decorations of ecstatic coffee-drinkers.

Of course, in recent years the brand tried to refresh its "granny-image" by telling mini-stories involving teenagers and semi-risque sujets without alienating their older clientele.
Some of these clips were as horrible as the idea sounds in the first place. But last year this very funny and clever ad began to air and now -after a brief pause- it´s back again.

It´s about an "intimate" moment shared between a grey-haired but still sort-of-young grandmother and her nice, but thinly characterized grand-daughter.

Below the clip is a word for word translation of their conversation as it might be in English - if people who don´t know youth-talk would have written the script:

Girl: "Wow, granny, the concert was like totally rad! - We totally danced in the mud! In the MUD!!! - My clothes are like, totally ruined now."
(They both smell the coffee and granny remembers)
Granny: "I used to go to a rock-concert too. ´67 Hendrix!"
Girl: "You?! At a rock-concert???"
Granny: "Yeah. We´d also dance in the mud, but my clothes weren´t ruined."
Girl: "Why not?"
Granny: "WE DIDN`T WEAR ANY!

Perfect! Although I doubt that this ad will pull the kids out of Starfuxxs to buy Jacobs pads for their Senseo-machines, it most certainly tries to cater to people of my age. You know, the ones in between, who are too old to see dancing in the mud as anything funny and cool, but still too young to get nostalgic over a past that has turned into a sad cliché.