Why is JFK's youth fitness anthem marketing the iPhone 5S?
Apple has a new 5S spot out, and the musical choice is even odder than the previous 5S spot, which featured a reworked version of "Gigantic" by the Pixies (and that's saying something, since that song is supposedly about male genitalia).
As Uproxx noted, the new ad uses "The Youth Fitness Song," aka "Chicken Fat," a song from President Kennedy's national physical fitness program. Apparently this little ditty, which the creator of The Music Man came up with, was sent to school districts throughout the U.S. in the '60s to accompany the calisthenics program.
On visuals alone, it's clear the spot is promoting the physical-fitness uses of the iPhone, and it's got quite a few. The tagline here, as in the previous spot, is: "You're more powerful than you think."
Though the song could theoretically make boomers' nostalgic for a time when they were told to "Go, you chicken fat, go," I found it quite confusing and distracting. Personally, I didn't notice much of what was going on in the ad until I took my headphones off.
Welp. Hopefully there won't be too many customers upset at the prospect of the tech giant telling them, in a questionable manner, to start exercising.
