Be all you can be or be a loser

It took me FOREVER to find this video online but I finally did. This is one of my favorite commercials. Well.. from an advertising standpoint anyway. I don't think it's funny or entertaining, but I do think that it's an effective way to get people. This commercial actually played a large roll in getting me interested in advertising and marking.
This is a 2005 army commercial entitled "Smart Guy." It's all of the subtle messages in this commercial that make it so interesting. What was even more interesting to me was that when the commercial would come on, I would ask my friends if they noticed any of these messages and they never did until I pointed them out.

OK, here it goes. It starts with a man being shown to the back yard by a woman to meet with his friends. All of these men appear to be in their twenties and the woman appears to be the mother of one of the friends....who is apparently still living at home with mom....what a loser. Unfortunately, the video I found is the short version, so you don't see the great shot of the mother looking at the group of friends with a look on her face that says "I love my son, but I wish he was more like his incredible friend." The friends are all in scrubby cloths with scrubby haircuts while the army man walks out saying "some things never change." The friends immediately ask him how the army is and he, with his bold voice, says that it's "good, really good." Then we get to see how stupid the friends are who didn't go into the army. One friend asks if the army has the guy jumping out of planes in such a way as to make fun of him and the army, and the other friends let out an idiotic chuckle. The army guy quickly, bluntly, and proudly responds with "No, I'm working with computers." The friends, with a bewildered look on their faces, ask if he could have just done that at home. After a clip of this wonderful and proud man working with computers on the battlefield, he responds with "Not really." .......morons.

We all know that many of the military commercials do everything they can to convince younger crowds that the military is great and that they too will be great if they join. However, I've yet to see another military commercial that tried to convince you that if you don't join, you'll be a stupid loser still living with your mom.

Again, it's unfortunate that I couldn't find the longer version of this commercial because it had even more underlying messages.

Here is the link to the video.

I hope the link works! Keep in mind that this is a Quicktime video so you'll need that to watch it.