"The type of shows it's been airing on-including reruns of 'Cops,' 'Walker, Texas Ranger' and 'Bonanza'-suggests that Trumpy Bear is not meant to be taken as a joke by its targeted TV viewing audience," we wrote. The campaign then expanded to 10 networks, including Outdoor Channel and the American Heroes Channel. Or, as Ad Age wrote a little over a year ago ( "Trumpy Bear is now backed by a national TV ad campaign") when Trumpy Bear ads first started airing on TV, "if it's a joke, it's an expensive joke." We cited data showing that the bear, which debuted in infomercial form on YouTube in July 2017, got commercial airtime on, initially, four networks: Animal Planet, Discovery, Grit TV and INSP (the "family entertainment programming" channel owned by Inspiration Ministries). Trumpy Bear is the nastiness of the Trumpian internet made plushie."Trumpy Bear" is a trending topic on Twitter this morning because various TV viewers spotted an ad for the stuffed animal on Fox News and took to social media to wonder if it was some kind of a joke. Trumpy Bear isn’t your average meme-bred merch gone viral: It appeals to everyone and no one, it stands for everything and nothing, and that is exactly the point. For Trump supporters, it’s a new way to “ trigger” histrionic snowflakes. For those who do not support the president, the bear is a testament to Trump’s brainwashed base, and it might be worth buying as a voodoo doll. And now, as the the holiday season creeps closer, Trumpy Bear has stormed the internet again.Įxceptional Products won’t disclose how many Trumpy Bears have sold and claims to have no target demographic in mind: It may be that some grandmother somewhere thinks that Trumpy Bear is just patriotically sweet and cuddly-a woman in the infomercial does spend time fussing over his flaxen hair and cozying up under the flag she pulled from his innards. By March, YouTubers were posting reactions to the commercial for laughs. By January, Snopes felt the need to assure people that the product was, in fact, real. Since then, Trumpy Bear has made a modest social media splash every time a new pool of people discover him and feel the need to vent their awe or horror. “Some of our customers want to buy it to keep it, and others want to buy it to burn it.”Įlliott Brackett, vice president of Exceptional Products What Trumpy Bear is selling is the existential crisis of the Trump era. Laurel T-shirt is that the product isn’t designed to capitalize on a movement or a trendy culture moment or even a silly joke. What makes him different from a Yanny vs. Trumpy Bear, for all his ludicrousness, is just a viral marketing stunt, another entrant into the meme-to-merch-and-back-again cycle.
And all that can be yours for just two payments of $19.95. They are meant to: If you’re a Trump supporter, Trumpy Bear-who sports the president’s signature blond coiffure and red tie, and is stuffed with an American flag you can pull out the back of his fuzzy neck-is a hilarious gift that is, as the commercial says, “great for all American holidays.” If you’re not, it’s the sort of stupendously baffling object that makes you wonder what aliens would think if they visited Earth today.
When an ad for the “fearless, super-plush American grizzly” ran during Fox & Friends Monday morning, Twitterati left, right, and center promptly lost their minds. You cannot defeat the storm … I fear nothing.'” When the wind’s monologue concludes, the ad offers up campy endorsements of Trumpy Bear from salt-of-the-earth archetypes: firefighters, law enforcement officers, pizza shop employees, and a tough-looking former Marine who gives Trumpy a ride on his motorcycle. A baritone voice intones it: “The wind whispered through the forest, ‘A storm is coming. Trumpy Bear’s two-minute commercial begins with a prophecy.