One of the worst TV commercials of 2018 is back on the air. Let’s all point and laugh at Little Caesars’s “Can’t See The Crust,” a deliberate nipple-slip of an ad that exposes the naked stupidity of today’s advertising and deserves to be mocked forever.
As this embarrassing commercial opens, we see an overweight husband and wife sitting down for dinner, a flat-ass looking pizza on the table between them.
Suddenly and without warning, the woman keels over, banging the side of her face on the table.
“This new Little Caesars thin-crust pizza is so loaded with pepperoni and cheese,” she says, “I don’t believe there is any thin crust.”
“Pepperoni, pepperoni, pepperoni,” she says. “Cheese, cheese, cheese . . .” Her face scrinches into a moronic expression and sinks further into the table with every word.
“Crust. Found it!” she finishes vacantly.
Now it’s the man’s turn to fall over. Wearing a grotesque one-eyed expression, he whistles and says, “There is a crispy crust under all that pepperoni.”
Then the voiceover: “Pick up the most cheese and pepperoni you can fit on a large thin-crust pizza for the nation’s best price of just six bucks.”
And the Little Caesars cartoon mascot: “Pizza, pizza.”
One thing this TV commercial does get right: It makes us want to slam our heads into something hard.
Below: Stupidity reigns in the Little Caesars TV commercial, “Can’t See The Crust.”
What this Little Caesars TV commercial gets wrong
Is this really how Little Caesars sees its customers? As zombie-like dullards with a taste for terrible pizza?
How insulting.
Not only to Little Caesars pizza customers, but to everyone unfortunate enough to see this ad.
Because what’s on display here is not simply asinine. Shot in drab colors in a dreary dining room, this ad depicts everything, including its actors, in the grossest possible light. Even the pizza looks sad.
I might understand if this was an ad for antidepressant medication, but it’s not. What about this dismal picture does Little Caesars and its ad agency think any of us can relate to?
In a word, it’s revolting.
I will say, the voiceover at the end does a good job of communicating the offer—truly, the only attractive thing about this ad. Unfortunately for Little Caesars, it comes too late—at the end of the commercial, long after any self-respecting TV viewer has violently stabbed the mute button on the TV remote.
Like Caesar, agency behind this ad meets a tragic end
To the surprise of no one—well, not me, anyway—Barton F. Graf, the ad agency behind this fetid work, is closing. According to Ad Age, Little Caesars is “hot-n-ready” for a new ad shop. (Does anyone else think “creative” like this may have had something to do with Barton’s untimely demise?)
But please hold your applause, because new dangers await. Word is that Goodby Silverstein & Partners (the agency behind those dreadful Zoltar and LiMu Emu commercials for Liberty Mutual) is vying for the account along with three other agencies.
Yikes. Should Goodby win it, I shudder to think what spectacular new forms of idiocy Little Caesars ads might take.
But we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, it is my honor and high privilege to immortalize this 30-second skidmark as Exhibit A of what is wrong with advertising today, and why brands need to stop buying into bad ideas put forth by agencies bent on making them (and us) look ridiculous.
And so I say: Congratulations, scattered remnants of Barton F. Graf! Your excremental work has earned you this critic’s eternal derision, disgust, disrespect, dissatisfaction, disavowal, and dismissal, along with the lowest rating of any Cranky ad review to date. Enjoy, for these are the fruits of your labor!
Cranky Ad Rating: Twenty-three stab wounds (and no stars) out of five.
What do you think of this Little Caesars TV commercial? Share your opinion below.
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I’m Sicilian so I have never purchased a pizza from any chain. I live in a city and state with countless Mom and Pop pizzarias all selling delicious pizza for every taste. In fact, the oldest continuously operating pizzaria in the country is less than a mile away. In truth, we don’t even always call it pizza. We mostly call it tomato pie. So no, I don’t eat this pizza.
That said, I like this commercial. There’s just something about the woman’s smushed face and her voice insipidly calling out the layers that leaves me laughing every time I see it. The concept is funny to me. Does it inspire me to run out and buy their pizza? No, and that is the point of advertising, but…I can still laugh at this goofy commercial.
Easily amused much?
You have to question the intelligence of a group of people at an ad agency, sitting around a table and looking at that ridiculous commercial, and patting each other on the back, and saying “Great Job Guys.” It’s terrific!
The word intelligent doesn’t even deserve to be in the description of that commercial.
A close second to that one, is the Emu one for Liberty Mutual. (Are those ad agencies related) Yikes!
this is without a doubt one of the STUPIDIST commercials ever made and if I have to watch that ghastly caricature artist commercial for Liberty Mutual one more time someone is going to die. The idiots who work for these ad agencies should be strapped to a chair and forced to watch episodes of mad men until their eyes explode.
Yes, Katie, the caricature-artist ad for Liberty Mutual gets me, too. Where is the joke? WHY is there a joke? Or maybe they’re trying to say that Liberty Mutual IS a joke. Because it sure acts like one.
Thanks for writing.
Ha! I get what you’re saying but according to the demographics around the Little Ceasers closest to me… they nail it.
Mouth breathers that are looking for coupons to save $1.00 off of their $5 pizza. 🤤
Thanks for the chuckle, Pat. You’re probably right.
But even people who love Little Caesars pizza deserve better than this.
I bought one of those store frozen pizzas with the cauliflower crust and it looks just like the pizza on the Little Caeser ad. The crust was so thin that you can only get just a little bit of cheese and pepperoni on it and it still makes it almost impossible to pick up and eat. Don’t they know that one of the biggest allure of pizza is the ratio of crust to toppings? Even other places thin crust pizzas have the right ratio.
Save the money on your gross ass ads and use to make your pizzas edible, would be my suggestion for them.
LOL, Pepper. I like your suggestion. 😛
Anyone who eats that crap, and for dinner no less, deserves to watch the ad while choking down that crappy pizza imposter. It’s right up there with TV dinners served in a three compartment foil trays. Do they still make that stuff ??? People are dumb enough to eat garbage. No ad needed because they are going to keep buying it anyway. Yes, I’m a food snob with high standards. Really good food doesn’t need advertising either. I’ve never seen an ad for organic grass fed beef. I too am creative and can be cranky. Waiting for you to flush toilet paper ads down the toilet. Now THERE’S a topic!
Hi, Jean. I suppose some folks may “like” Little Caesars pizza because it’s inexpensive. And the “value” angle makes good sense. (In 1979, the company introduced its famous catchphrase, “Pizza! Pizza!” to promote the idea that customers can get two of its pizzas for the price of one of its competitors.) I just can’t understand how the company benefits by portraying its customers as mouth-breathing morons.
Were I in charge, I’d make my customers look smart for treating their families to restaurant pizza at a price that allows them to make every night “Pizza Night.”
But hey, what do I know. I don’t live in New York, so I must be missing something for sure.
This commercial is depicting us as complete morons (or as if we were stoned on the corn syrup in the turducken sandwiches in the Supernatural season 7 episode “How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters”). I guess that might be who would find value in this commercial.
Yes, Adrianna, there was a time when advertisers portrayed the people in their ads as role models with traits to aspire to. This Little Caesars ad just makes everyone look and feel stupid. Why anyone thinks that’s smart is beyond me.
Thanks for posting.
Awful. I assume they focus-grouped this so hopefully the research firm was fired as well.
Research? Testing? You give these people a lot of credit, Chris. But I agree, everyone involved with this abomination should be sacked.
And forced to eat Little Caesars pizza.