Edge Rewrite
// request.cf · coarse context

A page that knows where it met you.

Only coarse request metadata is shown. This demo does not display or persist visitor IP addresses.

Country
US
Cloudflare location
CMH
Connection
HTTP/2
Language
Not provided

Ray ID: a45cf1d1ed82de81

Jump to content

This Is a Generic Brand Video

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This Is a Generic Brand Video
Still from beginning of video
Release date
  • March 21, 2014 (2014-03-21)
Running time
2 minutes 49 seconds

This Is a Generic Brand Video was an advertising video created by Dissolve,[1] written by Kendra Eash[2] on McSweeney's, and narrated by Dallas McClain.[3]

Described as a hilarious ad poem that is "every cliché that ever was."[4]

"Using a specific ratio of Asian people to black people to women to white men, we want to make sure we represent your needs and interests – or at least a version of your skin colour – in our ads."[2]

This comedic video parodied the advertising industry and its commercial clichés while advertising its own company as a new entrant in the stock footage market.

Reaction

[edit]

This video won the 2015 Shorty Award for Best in B2B[5] and was nominated for the 2016 Webby Awards.

Dissolve website visitors increased by 9x the week the video launched while user signups and revenue also increased by 6x.[5]

As of February 27, 2026, it has over 2.9 million views[6] on YouTube and 660,000 views on Vimeo.[7]

The video also received wide online media coverage from magazines and news article websites.

AdAge reported this brand video as "tragically funny"[8] while Fast Company labeled it "The Greatest Thing About The Absolute Worst In Advertising".[9]

Time commented that the video covered all the advertising trends in under three minutes.[10]

Other media sites such as Adweek, Vanity Fair, Forbes, and The Globe and Mail all shared this video.

Other videos

[edit]

This Is a Generic Presidential Campaign Ad - A fake presidential campaign ad that poked fun at the election that made the 2016 Shorty Award Finalist.[11]

This is a Generic Millennial Ad - A millennial version of This Is a Generic Brand Video created in collaboration with And/Or studio that shows how easy it is to appeal to anyone born between 1980 and 2000.[12]

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ "This Is a Generic Brand Video, from Dissolve". Dissolve. Archived from the original on August 20, 2019. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  2. 1 2 "This is a Generic Brand Video". McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  3. ↑ Voices.com. "Dallas McClain". Voices.com. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  4. ↑ "WATCH: Every Ad Cliché Rolled Into 1 Hilarious Video". HuffPost Canada. March 27, 2014. Retrieved August 21, 2019.
  5. 1 2 "This Is a Generic Brand Video - The Shorty Awards". shortyawards.com. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  6. ↑ This Is a Generic Brand Video, by Dissolve, retrieved August 20, 2019
  7. ↑ Dissolve (March 19, 2014), This Is a Generic Brand Video, by Dissolve, retrieved August 20, 2019
  8. ↑ "Watch This (Awesome, Tragically Funny) 'Generic Brand Video'". adage.com. March 25, 2014. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  9. ↑ Beer, Jeff (March 25, 2014). "This Generic Brand Video Is The Greatest Thing About The Absolute Worst In Advertising". Fast Company. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  10. ↑ "Here's an Amazing Parody of Every Generic Brand Video You've Ever Seen". Time. March 25, 2014. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  11. ↑ "This Is a Generic Presidential Campaign Ad - The Shorty Awards". shortyawards.com. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  12. ↑ "This Is a Generic Millennial Ad, from Dissolve". Dissolve. Archived from the original on May 12, 2020. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
[edit]