Hive Mind Testimonial

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"Here we show people from all walks of life,
each speaking a fragment of a sentence,
edited together into a big annoying mess.

The worst part comes at the end, when each person in turn says the last part of the sentence. We get to hear the same three or four words spoken by 5 or 6 people. Somebody somewhere thought this was cute.

I'd like to put cactus quills in that guy's scrambled eggs."
—commercialsihate.com Fspont

An advertising technique that has a series of people repeat the same or similar line over and over again.

"I" "I" "I" "Have acid reflux." "Have acid reflux." "Have acid reflux." "I didn't know it could be serious." "I didn't know." "I didn't know."

The last person to say the line will often emphasize it or whisper it. This is so annoying. So annoying. Annoying. So so annoying. Ying.

Sometimes, to prevent repetition, one person will simply--

--finish a line someone else started. Letting you

--assume they were going to say the same thing.

There is also the occasional "testimonial chorus" where multiple people saying the same thing are tracked into a simultaneous mix.

Is not caused by an actual Hive Mind.

Examples of Hive Mind Testimonial include:

Straight examples

Education

  • Commercials for Kaplan University have assorted people walking and talking.
    • There's also all those people singing National American University's Ear Worm

Food and Drinks

  • Played with in a Lipton Green Iced Tea commercial that had the series of people around the world "spontaneously" humming a line or two of the same melody, building up to a full-blown tune. Surprisingly effective.

Medicine

  • The ads for the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil, with its chorus of women of different ages saying "I want to be one less."
  • Head-On has gone through quite the commercial shift. First the repetition (to give you the headache), then "I hate your commercial... but I love your product." Then a chorus of people doing the repetition all at once (boy, haven't we been schooled). Now it's up to a fake doctor type repeating "We will give you your money back." For a homeopathic medication that is essentially a tube of wax.
    • In addition to Head On's "apply directly to the forehead", the commercial often transitioned into mini commercials about other related products, all using the line "apply directly".

Military

  • A recent National Guard commercial, where a series of guardsmen do this.

Movies

  • Movie trailers can do this, where every time the main character's name is spoken in the film, the trailer cuts them all into a montage that lasts for nearly half the trailer.
  • Invoked in one of the more elaborate fan-made ads on The Dark Knight's IBelieveInHarveyDent.com campaign website.

Politics

  • "I'm Joe the Plumber" ads near the end of McCain & Palin's Presidential campaign.

PSAs

  • There was an ad about raising awareness about global warming; lots and lots of kids of various ages saying "Tick" or "Tock", with various levels of seriousness or enthusiasm, speeding up with less of a pause between each word, then repeating "Tick" before having a few more kids explain that time was running out, and they were the ones who would be affected.

Restaurants

  • Some McDonald's commercials.

Technology

  • This was a common trope in IT/Technology advertising during the boom of the 1990s. The commercial would show stereotypes around the world completing one long pitch using Dilbert-esque technobabble. ([African tribesman] "TCG can connect you..." [Japanese businessman] "...to the new global paradigm..." [Italian in Piazza] "...of information.")
    • One example featured a grating repetition of the word "you" between pitches. ("You want to enter the digital age, but you..." "...you don't know how to connect to the global marketplace, so you...") The company running the ad was, of course, UUNET.
  • I'm a PC!

Television

  • The promo spots for NFL Network, before its launch, did this sort of thing, but instead of having ordinary people, it had half the head coaches in the NFL (i.e. recognizable figures) saying "I guarantee / guarantee / I guarantee / that you are going to love it."
  • The opening of Castle used to subvert this, with the characters saying their names over and over

Transportation

  • The latest radio commercial by Boeing in the ad war of Boeing vs EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company) features this. Some background for those not in the know first: Boeing and EADS are in a contract war over developing the KC-X tanker aircraft for the US Air Force; Boeing is proposing a 767 based tanker while EADS proposes an Airbus A330 based tanker. The ad has people each speaking parts of the ad and finishing each other's sentences as they talk about how Boeing is better than EADS for various reasons including Made in the USA as well as directly refuting the EADS slogan of "Real, Proven, and Ready" by stating that their A330 has never been actually built so it is not really proven is it?

Websites

  • Recent commercials for vehix.com are a textbook example of this.


Parodies

Live-Action TV

  • Supernatural's Herpexia ad. (There was a YouTube video, but it's been pulled.)
  • This fake PSA parodies this trope with devastating accuracy.
  • Saturday Night Live did a parody where a hypnotist's Broadway show was given the following rave by everyone, spoken in a Creepy Monotone: "I laughed, I cried, it was much better than Cats. I'm going to see it again and again."

Web Original

Western Animation

  • In The Simpsons' "Radioactive Man", Homer unintentionally creates a Hive Mind Testimonial by rapidly channel surfing during a News Monopoly:

Various TV personalities: "Ev"-"er"-"y"-"one"-"is"-"tal"-"king"-"a"-"bout"-"Ra"-"di"-"o"-"act"-"ive"-"Man"-"y'all."

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