Promotional Consideration: Santeria

Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.

It physically pained us to see Ubisoft's print campaign and European boxart for Jam Sessions, but the publisher came through with its commercial for the recently-released guitar sim. The 30-second spot is broken up into three scenes of alleged teenagers playing and enjoying the game, all of them singing along to Sublime's "Santeria," a track that isn't actually included on the Jam Sessions cart. It's a catchy tune, one we're sure you've heard many times on the radio, and we can see why it was picked for the piece. Continue past the jump for the commercial and this week's installment of Promotional Consideration.


Sitting on the bus. Singing out loud. All alone.

Like with the title of Sublime's song and this very post, "Santeria," an Afro-carribean religion, has very little to do with this commercial. On its surface, "Santeria" tells the story of a man plotting revenge on the "Sancho" dating his ex-girlfriend. The Jam Sessions advertisement understandably leaves out those details, skipping right over the more violent lyrics in the first verse:

"If I could find that heina
and that Sancho that she'd found,
well I'd pop a cap in Sancho
and I'd slap her down"

As inappropriate as the song might've been had it included the omitted lines, some of Sublime's other popular hits would've been just as objectionable -- "Smoke Two Joints" and "Wrong Way," a ditty about a 14-year-old prostitute named Annie, for example. Still, it's hard to imagine the last verse of "Santeria" making it past the censors and onto a commercial aimed at kids:

"Tell Sanchito that if he knows what is good for him,
he best go run and hide
Daddys got a new .45
And I wont think twice
to stick that barrel straight down sanchos throat
Believe me when I say that I got something for his punk ass"

Speaking of kids, don't be fooled by the youthful guise of Tom Bridegroom, that charming chap riding the school bus in the advertisement; long past his high school years, he's actually 25-years-old! Shouldn't he have a car and a driver's license by now? In Mr. Bridegroom's defense, the dude can sing. His ten-second solo makes the rest of the actors and actresses in the commercial sound like howling dogs.

What's with the surfboard stowed in the back of the bus, though? Aren't there laws against blocking emergency doors like that? Also, who brings a surfboard to school? These are all issues that must be addressed!

Having drawn in the loner-guys-singing-to-themselves-on-the-bus crowd, the remainder of the ad concentrates on attracting its other two target audiences -- skate park kids and girls who have picnics -- neither of which turn out to be very interesting. Maybe the director should've spliced in clips from Sublime's "Santeria" music video instead? It stars a cute dalmation and Deebo from Friday!