Stop me if this sounds familiar.
We open on a man in a tight gray suit crammed into an even tighter gray cubicle—dark circles around his eyes, desk overflowing with work. He looks almost broken. A friendly coworker peeks over the partition and offers him a stick of gum, a scratch-off ticket, a car insurance deal.
Our guy tries the product and is so overcome with joy that he starts to dance. He breaks into a routine, music blasts, ties are loosened, backup dancers appear. Confused coworkers watch before joining in, and soon a full parade is prancing through the streets.
The easy way out
This formula of “use product, start dancing” has infiltrated every market, from food delivery to used cars. Even Apple’s done it. So. Many. Times. And it’s clear why: Dance is the purest expression of happiness. There is even a touch of transgression in dancing somewhere unexpected that gives the ad an aesthetic of rebellion without actually ruffling any feathers, the way sanitized skateboarding has been used to signify counterculture.