more bad archery

27 January, 2016


If you can’t see the video above click here.

So here we have an US archery-based commercial for Milk Life , fresh for 2016. Oh my. Where do we start? I did make a vague promise to stop featuring ‘bad archery‘ as a category, and let the Back-To-Front Archery Club carry the torch, but sometimes you’ve got to step in.

So, you wanna use archery to illustrate how awesome your product is, right? Don’t blame you. It’s pretty hot right now.

Let’s go with the stance. It’s not too bad; her toes shouldn’t be pointed that far out, weight is a bit off balance. The chunky riser shape they’ve overlaid the milk on the second shot strongly suggests a Samick wooden trainer bow. Cheapskates. She’s gripping it all wrong. She’s gripping it, for a start. You don’t grip. Two finger draw, should be one over two under – or three under for real barebows, but I guess they all watched the Hunger Games again. Maybe that massive ring on her third finger got in the way.

Her draw wrist is cocked sideways and not flat to the forearm. Hope she likes wrist pain. Her bow elbow is wayyy over extended. No bracer, either. That’s gonna hurt tomorrow. Shoulders aren’t in alignment, which means it’ll be all arm muscle to draw – you aren’t using your bones and back, as our Lord intended.

She doesn’t anchor to her face or anywhere else. Cut back to the wide CGI shot, where the arrow isn’t anywhere near where it was in the previous shot. Lazy. And inevitably, there’s a  horrible sideways popped release (if she’s actually releasing a physical string) that would send things wildly to the left.

But no matter, because the arrow doesn’t seem to actually hit the target, looks like it’s just been CGI’d in there. (I’m guessing they gave up after running out of fresh target faces). As for the arrows, the points wider than the shaft and the gigantic plastic nocks indicate that they must be the standard child’s starter fiberglass ones you get with the jelly bow sets. Cheapskates again. Why not go for some awesome crested traditional arrows, beautiful feathers flying? Says ‘authentic outdoors life’ right there.

Look, I know. No-one cares. It looks like a girl firing a bow (made of erm, milk) and that’s all that matters, right?

BUT: this is the thing I’ve said a few times. I believe that people tend to recognise authenticity when it is in front of them. When something sophisticated or technical is presented you can almost always tell when you are seeing an expert doing something rather than just an actor – and with archery-based ads that little gleam of reality is only going to enhance the image of rugged individualism / ‘aiming for the gold’ / ‘hitting the target’ etc. that they are trying to project with their products.  You could get more interesting close ups, too.

Also the archer is very unlikely to be the most expensive element of the production, and I could name half a dozen elite archers, male and female, who are young & hottie enough to sell this particular gig.

So: I think you could have tried harder, Milk Life. And it would have been better. For you. For your sales. For everybody. Duuhhhh.

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