Ad Campaigns We Love: Cartoon Network is Awesome

Posted on by Beth Negus Viveiros

uncle-grandpaEvery week, my kids and I make a trip to the comic book store. My 8-year-old and I often read comics together—one of his favorites is DC Comics’ “Teen Titans Go!”

“Teen Titans Go!” is based on the Cartoon Network series of the same name (which itself is based on DC Comics characters, but I digress). So its no surprise that the comic often features ads for Cartoon Network shows, especially since DC and Cartoon Network are both owned by Time Warner.

I have to admit, I typically don’t pay much attention to the Cartoon Network ads. While my kids love Cartoon Network programming, most of it just doesn’t click with me. And it shouldn’t—I’m not their target audience, and that’s just fine.

But one ad in “Teen Titans Go!” #5 caught my attention.  The full page ad featured two pizza slices wearing sunglasses and high-fiving each other, with the headline “In the next 12 seconds, you will continue to be awesome.” The line is from “Uncle Grandpa,” where the lead character—the grandfather and uncle of everyone in the world—visits kids and helps them with their problems. I have no idea where the talking pizza slices come in, nor do I care. (Here’s the video clip.)

But I love this ad. We read it on the second day of the new school year, a time when many kids are excited about meeting new classmates, but insecure about social and academic pressures. I don’t know the original context of this quote, but as a parent and child, it was an extremely cool thing to see.

Yes, my kid will continue to be awesome for the next 12 seconds, and the next 12 seconds after that, and into infinity. We’ve embraced this as a mantra, and I’ve repeated it to my boys several times in the last week, and it always gets a smile. It’s important that our children know we think they are awesome, and I thank Cartoon Network for the reminder.

The ad is part of Cartoon Network’s ongoing “Are you CN what we’re sayin’?” campaign, both in print and on-air. In the same issue, another page featured Starfire and Cyborg from Teen Titans with the tagline “I shall give you the smiles, too” (Starfire is overwhelmingly positive), while another had two characters from “Stephen Universe” and the line “If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs.” I don’t get the reference but let’s face it, truer words were never spoken.

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