If Only I Had Payed Attention To This Advice In Second Year

July 16, 2010 8:31 PM

Hello Mefites! Look at an Old Spice commercial. Now watch this one. What's the difference? This one is an ad for Harold B. Lee Library. Part of Brigham Young University. Yes, that Brigham Young. Mormons apparently have a sense of humour. And good study habits, scholar.
posted by battlebison (22 comments total)

I posted this video back in the other thread about this same ad campaign only a 3 days ago. A little bit excessive for one ad campaign don't you think?
posted by azarbayejani at 8:39 PM on July 16, 2010

er... looks like I couldn't decide between "a few" and three...
posted by azarbayejani at 8:40 PM on July 16, 2010

A "celestial" sandwich? Also, too, where did BYU find an African-American Mormon?
Still pretty funny, though. I watched it twice.
posted by Gilbert at 8:40 PM on July 16, 2010

Yes, it definitely needs its own post, because it is awesome.

(Or, to be more specific: It involves great viral ads, pitch-perfect parody, and libraries. All of which are topics that Metafilter loves.)
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:49 PM on July 16, 2010

I used to make snide comments about BYU, but it's a real university that provides a real education. All the language proficiency exams in the state I went to college in (Florida) are from Brigham Young, because they provide courses in over 70 languages (75% of their students have some foreign language proficiency).

I feel like posting this with that kind of framing is like taking a post about something at Notre Dame and saying "Look what those Catholics are doing!" It seems beside the point when the subject is a video about a library ad campaign that could have been used for any university—one which many university libraries would love to have!

Anyway, libraries RULE.
posted by audacity at 8:58 PM on July 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I love how the tree in the first shot is pulled off-camera so forcefully that it clobbers somebody in the process. You can see him trapped on the floor under his leafy assailant as soon as the camera pans to the left.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 9:18 PM on July 16, 2010

Heh, it's like those commercials.
posted by tapesonthefloor at 9:23 PM on July 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

You can see him trapped on the floor under his leafy assailant as soon as the camera pans to the left.
He was looking for a shrubbery...
posted by Brent Parker at 9:28 PM on July 16, 2010

Love this ad. Wish more library PR efforts were like it, or even close to being like it. No BYU jokes here. They've got it going on with this ad.
posted by blucevalo at 9:33 PM on July 16, 2010

It was Lee who blocked the LDS Church from rescinding the Negro doctrine...

I learned this WITHOUT the help of a library named after a racist who believed that he would get his own planet (complete with sex slaves) when he died.

Suck it, Mormons!
posted by Brocktoon at 9:33 PM on July 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

where did BYU find an African-American Mormon?

They sent out a missionary to convert him.
posted by decagon at 9:34 PM on July 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

azarbayejani: "I posted this video back in the other thread about this same ad campaign only a 3 days ago. A little bit excessive for one ad campaign don't you think?"

P&G's shareholders don't think so.
posted by aerotive at 9:36 PM on July 16, 2010

Did... did he say "a laptop with fuckaloads of library databases"?

If so they won.
posted by airways at 9:39 PM on July 16, 2010

Their library won't carry any of the major works by Timothy Liu, BYU alumn and my former teacher, on account of his gayness. :(
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:40 PM on July 16, 2010

Bucketloads.

Bucketloads.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 9:41 PM on July 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Their library won't carry any of the major works by Timothy Liu, BYU alumn and my former teacher, on account of his gayness. :(

Their library is not unique in that respect. Unfortunate, but true. I still think the ad is great.
posted by blucevalo at 9:46 PM on July 16, 2010

So BYU students, sorry scholars, need to be told that it's good to study in a library.

Snicker.
posted by oddman at 9:47 PM on July 16, 2010

(They do, apparently, have his undergraduate thesis, a review of which I was able to find and is sort of hilarious, when you're consider that this is the same poet who later wrote "Bisexuality", which you can read at the center of that page: "In "Convertible' Liu describes a Sunday drive in a girlfriend's Jag, during which they happen to pass a church. . . For example, in 'So Cal,' describing his friend's camera pointed at downtown L.A., the phallicism seems forced. . . Much better is his poem 'In the Closet,' where homosexuality, AIDS, and Mormonism are dramatized with subtle symbolism and deep feeling." So, so weird. And so, I imagine, not a fair representation of Tim's work. Sad for a place that advertises its students as "scholars.")
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:52 PM on July 16, 2010

Old spice guy says a few words regarding libraries. (via)
posted by jyorraku at 9:56 PM on July 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

So BYU students, sorry scholars, need to be told that it's good to study in a library.

Many students in many schools have never set foot in their schools' libraries and don't have any reason to think it's a worthwhile expense of time and energy to do so.
posted by blucevalo at 10:02 PM on July 16, 2010

Bucketloads.

Bucketloads.

It sure sounded a lot like fuckloads though, didn't it?
posted by contessa at 10:12 PM on July 16, 2010

Their library is not unique in that respect. Unfortunate, but true. I still think the ad is great.

What other major universities won't stock books by glbt men or women?
posted by kylej at 10:16 PM on July 16, 2010