By Brent McKnight | 8 years ago

If you’d told me when I was a weird little horror-obsessed kid that, at some point in my life, one of the most popular shows on television would be a zombie story, and that the undead would be used as spokes-corpses to hawk all manner of products, I would have laughed in your face. But lo and behold, here we are. Recently zombies have endorsed Sears, FedEx, a couple different kinds of cars, and Starbursts, just to name a few.

Still, not every attempt to corral the zombie-fan demographic is a wild success. For example, there’s this one from Norway. It isn’t necessarily a failure as an advertisement — I totally want to buy whatever the hell it is that they’re trying to sell (it has something do with sports equipment?) — but it had to go and get itself banned from the airwaves. Take a gander for yourself.

Banned may be too harsh a word. This charming slice of daily life, interrupted as it is by a rampaging swarm of zombies, was playing during hours of family-friendly programming. Whoever let that happen is probably looking for a new job right now. At the present time, the commercial can only air after 9 pm—it’s like when Cher wasn’t allowed to wear that one outfit on TV before a certain time. Let’s face it, as great and entertaining as this ad is, appropriate for all ages it is not.

You have to admit that this is an inventive way to go about marketing. Who says the suburbs are safe, quiet, and calm? Residents of this idyllic little berg aren’t going to peacefully wait to become dinner for some hungry zombie. They’re going to fight back with everything they have, down to every last tennis racket and soccer ball.