McCann Erickson Romania"s pathetic ad campaign

The same character of the ad promoting the revamped ROM chocolate bar wrapped in the American flag, under the pretense that the Romanian spirit is obsolete, appears in a new clip, tasked with the mission to convince us that the previous ad was just joke:

"Hello again!

There"s talk that you don"t like the having the American flag on the package of the ROM bar.

It was just a joke!

I"m a funny guy!

Rom remains Rom no matter what.

With the three colors and stuff.

Romanian strong sensations, people!"

The website of the "new ROM" now writes:

"Rom is back for you!

Congratulations for you persistence in asking for the 100% Romanian AUTHENTIC ROM!"

Of course, all of the above claims are misleading.

No, it"s not true that we have a problem with the American flag that was painted on the wrapping of the Rom bar.

As proof, we have no problem drinking "American Cola", a Romanian drink made in Romania that carries the American flag on the label.

Instead, what we didn"t like was the fact that McCann Erickson Romania - the company that created the advertising campaign - mocked the Romanian national spirit, (even though its "copywriters" are Romanians themselves).

We didn"t like it that the national spirit was involved in a lousy promotional campaign, designed to go viral, hurting the intimate feelings of Romanians.

It also needs to be said that this is not about the emotional attachment to the Romanian flag or to the American flag (like the advertisers tried to make it look), because the Romanian flag does not include the brown color featured on the wrapping of that poor chocolate bar.

Another lie is that this had all been intended as a joke.

First of all, because it does not fit into the parameters of a joke: you don"t give someone a black eye and then tell them they don"t have a sense of humor: "It was a joke! I"m a funny guy!"

No you"re not, you"re pathetic!

Ha, it was a joke!

Second of all, if it had been a joke, then we wouldn"t have received a press release about how the "American dream" is so much greater than the Romanian spirit.

Was it a joke?

Actually this is what is called media manipulation.

Complete with "samples" of the chocolate bar wrapped in the new package, sent to our editors.

Very clever!

It"s a lie that we had actually campaigned heavily for the authentic Rom chocolate bar.

Just like a lot of our readers said they would never touch that chocolate bar again either way, we don"t care about that chocolate either.

You can stick it where the sun doesn"t shine.

Strong sensations, boys!