Dairy Queen made a mistake with some of their recent ads. They rolled out new commercials on June 21st (just in time for summer) and it did not take long for parents to be outraged. They took serious offense to them. Why? Oh because Dairy Queen thought it was a good idea to do some ads containing a children's choir singing popular children's songs only with replaced lyrics about how parents should make up for neglecting their kids by taking them to Dairy Queen. An example is one that they did that was a take on the children's classic song "Frere Jacques". Instead of the original lyrics, the kids sang lyrics that said, "Are you working (2x), mom and dad? Of course you are. Summertime's a calling, blizzard treats a calling, but you're gone, always gone". It doesn't end there, it gets even better! "I'm spending more time with the neighbors, than you, it's true. But it's not too late, you can fix it, skip some work, hang with me." Whewwww, Dairy Queen hitting you in the jugular with the kids singing about their parents never being around and hinting that they are "neglecting" them. Yeah...I can see why parents are upset.
Now Dairy Queen did pull all their ads and any content containing those ads but I was able to dig some up! The written lyrics itself does not do it just, you have to see these kids singing, check it out below for a tid bit!
Is Dairy Queen tone deaf? I can't get over these ads! They grabbed my attention the moment I saw them and I could immediately tell what was wrong with them. With that being said though, I'm not offended but then again I'm not a parent. I actually get a kick out of this and find it funny but heck maybe I'm being insensitive. Then again I can laugh at things where others might take it too seriously. This to me looks like a SNL skit though and not something entirely appropriate for regular primetime cable. If I was in charge of advertising here for Dairy Queen, it would have to be all about the target demo and who is that demo? The parents and to upset the parents is not hitting your demo correctly so they missed the mark on this one. Now if I was a writer for late night TV, this would be gold!
To see the other Dairy Queen commercial versions of the kid's choir singing about their parents neglecting them for work and how they should take them to DQ, I found them available, HERE! These ads are nothing short of bold!
-Producer Lightning