Why The Pandora Commercial Everyone Loves Makes Me Gag

Hi. I’m the Mom who thinks the Pandora commercial is complete bullshit.

Please tell me I’m not the only one.

I can be cynical at times. I can err more on the logical side than the emotional side. But I really, truly don’t understand what all the fuss is about here. Moms keep posting this on Facebook with comments like, “This will melt your heart!” and “Guys, I swore I wouldn’t cry, but I totally cried.”

The Pandora commercial (above) has a lineup of six women whose children are blindfolded and asked to “find their own Mom” using their “intuition.” Cue sappy music, loving gazes and a few tears from some of the moms.

Instead of melting, it kind of made me want to throw up. Here’s why:

1. Each mom is dressed quite differently. Long sleeved sweater, flowy blouse with cardigan, fitted shirt, short sleeved blouse, dress. You get the idea. You don’t think the kids remember what their moms are wearing?

2. They all have relatively different hairstyles. Short and curly, long and straight, tied back in a pony tail, thicker, thinner…come ON. The very first kid feels for her mom’s hairstyle. How is this intuition, again?

3. There are about a million different camera angles and cuts in this commercial. Do you know what that many cuts means, in the film world? It means a million opportunities to get it right, if the kid doesn’t do the correct thing, the first time around. You just set everything up exactly the same as before, and cut together different takes. Super. Duper. Contrived.

4. Seriously, who the fuck doesn’t know their own mother by feel? Who doesn’t know their own dad? Hell, I bet you could also recognize your spouse, your best friend and your dog, blindfolded. It’s not actually that big a deal, if you’re already familiar with their features. How do you think people who are blind get by?

I wonder how many moms are going to ask for a Pandora bracelet for Mother’s Day this year. I wonder how many dads are going to get conned into shelling out all the money so that they can prove that their wives are also unique and special.

Honestly, let’s see this entire scenario again, only this time how about we use a single take, leave the sound on, and have the moms all dress in the same outfit, with their hair pulled back. Let’s see the children make a beeline for their own moms. Then maybe we can start to call it “intuition.”

But for now, I’m calling it ingenious, total bullshit marketing. Plain and simple.

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