Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Clapback Advertising: The Art of the Response Ad

Episode Date: January 24, 2026

This week, we look at “Clapback Ads.”A clapback ad is a response or retaliation to another commercial.We’ll talk about a Canadian province that took offence to a Vrbo ad.A youth orchestra who retaliated against a big car commercial.And a tech company CEO who got caught having an affair – which forced his company to respond - with humour.We know you want to listen to all the ads in this show. On the off-chance you don’t, subscribe ad-free here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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That's a spicy meatball. What love doesn't conquer. Al-Ca-Seltzer will. What a relief. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. One day, two 19-year-old teenagers named Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller were introduced to his singer named Big Mama Thornton. Big Mama was about 350 pounds, and Lieber said she was the biggest, baddest, saltiest woman he had ever seen. And he and Stoller were knocked out by her raucous vocal sound.

Racing home, they wrote a song for her in just 15 minutes. It was called Hound Dog. When they brought it back to the studio, Big Mama Thornton gave it a go. But it sounded too bluesy. Lieber and Stoller wanted her to growl it. The song, after all, was about a woman who was throwing a jigolo out of her house. So Big Mama got her growl on. The song was released by Peacock Records in 1953.

It was a huge hit, spending 14 weeks on the Billboard R&B chart with seven weeks at number one. It was such a smash. Peacock Records had three printing plants running full time to try and keep up with the demand. The song sold between 500,000 and 750,000 copies, and it would spawn a number of answer songs. An answer song is a song written to respond

or clap back to a previous record by another artist. When Big Mama Thornton's Hound Dog hit number one, long before Elvis took a swing at it, her version spawned no less than six answer songs. One answer song in particular, titled Bear Cat, was sung by Rufus Thomas. Where Hound Dog was written from a woman's point of view, Bearcat was a response written from a man's point of view.

In the southern states, a bear cat was, and I quote, a mean, bossy woman. Thomas recorded Bearcat at Sun Studios in Memphis. Owner Sam Phillips, who would discover Elvis Presley the very next year, rewrote the lyrics of Hound Dog, but kept the exact Hound Dog melody. Bearcat was released just two weeks after Hound Dog hit the charts. Bearcat was an immediate hit. When the first record's record,

or called to order copies, Sam Phillips asked how many they wanted. When they said 5,000, Sam nearly fell over. No Sun record had ever sold 5,000 copies. But when Peacock Records heard Bearcat, it had a different reaction. It demanded that Sam Phillips paid them two cents a record for the fact Phillips had reproduced the exact hound dog melody and infringed their copyright. When Sam Phillips didn't reply, Peacock Records gave Phillips four days to respond, or it would increase the penalty to $0.8 a record.

Sam Phillips knew he was in trouble. The songs were identical. As a matter of fact, the subtitle of Bearcat on the record itself said, The Answer to Hound Dog. The copyright infringement was right there on the label. Sun Records was already in financial trouble, and Sam couldn't risk dragging out a losing battle in court. So, he wrote a big check to Peacock Records

and gave up all claims to the royalties. Bearcat was Sun Records' biggest hit, and it wasn't making any money from it. As a matter of fact, it was costing money. But here's why that answer's song is so interesting. It is believed that Bearcat put Sun Records in such a precarious financial position that it would be one of the reasons why Sam Phillips would be forced to sell Elvis Presley's contract to RCA two years later for $35,000.

Sun Records needed the money, and Elvis was the answer. The world of marketing has its own version of answer songs. They're called clapback ads. The word clapback is defined as a quick reply to a critical remark or unfair treatment. As we'll soon see, there have been some very interesting clapback ads recently. Some are retaliations to a perceived slight. Some are created due to a crisis, and some are just plain fun. You're under the influence.

Verbo is an online marketplace for vacation rentals. competitor to Airbnb. Verbo was created in 1995, and the name originally was an acronym for Vacation Rentals by Owner, V-R-B-O. Not long ago, Verbal ran a new TV commercial during the Grammys, then aired that same commercial in the Super Bowl. That's where it got a lot of attention. The commercials showed disappointed vacationers discovering their less-than-desirable rentals. This looks like an actual farm. Look cute on the app. One couple opens the door to a dilapidated trailer

only to find dogs living inside it. Another finds the rental overrun with chickens. Still another discovers the rental is a tent with a huge pig on an air mattress inside. As the music starts to speed up to a manic pace, it suddenly stops and Verbo delivers its message. Meanwhile, out of Verbo? When other vacation rentals aren't what they're cracked up to be.

Try one where you know what you'll get. The ad was saying Verbo would never rent you something horrible in the sticks. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador instantly took offense to the commercial. Even the provincial premier Andrew Furee called for the ad to be pulled. The backlash was fast and furious. The outcry received national news coverage. It wasn't the trust-verbal message they took offense to. It was the music.

The song Eyes the by the build the boat tonight. The song Eyes the Bye is a cherished and important folk song in the province's history. Its lyrics depict life in Newfoundland, a song that celebrates singing, dancing, and boat building. The song also mentions Newfoundland locations such as Fogo, Twillengate, and Morton's Harbor. It's not just a folk song. It's a strong cultural symbol. And in the Verbo ad, the song was used to suggest that a rural rental will be subpar, almost hillbilly. So the province of Newfoundland and Labrador decided to clap back.

Within minutes of the Verbo commercial airing on the Super Bowl, Newfoundland Advertising Agency Target Marketing and Communications started to brainstorm an appropriate response. Within 22 hours, they had written and produced a brand new Newfoundland and Labrador

Tourism Clapback Commercial and commissioned a brand new recording of the song, Eyes the bys the buys the builds a boat. Eyes the bysa sales her and eyes the baysa catches the fish, brings them home to Liza. Hip, your partner, or Sally Depot.

your partner, Sally Brown, Ogo tolligate Morton's Harbor all around the circle. The commercial was titled Our Song, and showed the real beauty of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Tourism Board posted the ad to their social media accounts, along with the following words, quote, It's a testament to our resilience, to our sense of humor,

to our unwavering sense of community, it's history, culture, folklore, and a guarantee to get next to, Man up on the dance floor, bad hip and all. A song so distinctly ours that you can almost feel the salt air on your skin when you hear it. As Target's president, Catherine Kelly said, the song is a testament to the province's resilience and heritage.

The verbal controversy created an opportunity to capitalize on the attention the ad was getting. To instead highlight the beauty of the province and to tap into the vast pride that exists in Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Within 48 hours, the hour song response at itself became news, broadcast nationally by the CBC and CTV, and was written up in the National Post, Toronto Star, and the Globe and Mail, as well as in media across Canada, the USA and the UK.

earning over $500,000 worth of unpaid media publicity for Newfoundland and Labrador tourism. Verbo agreed to pull their ad from Canadian airwaves. In July of 2025, Coldplay was appearing at the Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. At every Coldplay concert, there comes a moment when the band turns the cameras on the crowd. they put certain audience members up on the Jumbotron, and Chris Martin often makes up a song about them on the spot. Well, at this particular concert, the cameras caught two people in a sexy embrace.

Yeah, oh, look at these two. All right, come on, you're okay? When the couple realized they were on the Jumbotron, they visibly panicked and suddenly ducked out of view, which prompted Chris Martin to say, Either they're having an affair or that's very sharp. From all appearances, it looked like Chris Martin was right. The incident became known as Cold Playgate.

Within 24 hours, the names of the two people caught on the cam were revealed. As it turned out, they both worked for a company called Astronomer. He was Andy Byron, the CEO, and she was Kristen Cabot, the head of human resources. Byron was married and Cabot was recently separated. And, in a weird twist, her ex-husband was at the concert too. When the clip was posted to TikTok, it received 100 million views within days. Both Byron and Cabot resigned from astronomer. News outlets from New York to Australia covered the story.

Thousands of memes circulated. Parodies flooded the Internet. The wife of the CEO immediately took down all her social media accounts. A few days later, at the next Cole Play concert, Chris Martin told the audience that the Kiss Cam was coming as fair warning, and the audience knew exactly what he meant. We'd like to say hello to some of you in the crowd. How we're going to do that is we're going to use our cameras

and put some of you on the big screen. Before that incident, I doubt many people knew what Astronomer was or even did. But after that moment, visits to its website reportedly jumped 15,000%. Astronomer is a tech company. It helps companies leverage AI in their businesses and provides automation for a company's analytics and workflow. The company was now facing a big PR problem. Not many people knew what Astronomer did, but millions now knew it as the Kiss Cam Company, and that wasn't good for business.

So Astronomer decided to create a response video and hired Ryan Reynolds advertising agency Maximum Effort. Ryan Reynolds Company is very, very good at responding quickly to breaking news stories. The first decision was to respond to the Skinsk, with tongue-in-cheek humor. That was a very brave decision because humor rarely works in a crisis. The standard playbook usually involves issuing a sober, lawyer-vetted statement.

But humor is another thing maximum effort is very, very good at. The next decision astronomer and its advertising agency made was very bold. They hired Gwyneth Paltrow to be their temporary spokesperson. She had been married, married to Chris Martin for 10 years before they split up in a conscious uncoupling.

So, 10 days after the incident, this video was released titled, Thank you for your interest in Astronomer. Thank you for your interest in Astronomer. Hi, I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. I've been hired on a very temporary basis to speak on behalf of the 300-plus employees at Astronomer. Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days, and they wanted me to answer the most common ones. The first question on the screen was,

oh my God, what the actual F happened. Yes, astronomer is the best place to run Apache Airflow, unifying the experience of running data, ML, and AI pipelines at scale. We've been thrilled so many people have a newfound interest in data workflow automation. As for the other questions we received. Next question. How is your social media team holding up? Yes, there is still.

Still room available at our Beyond Analytics event in September. We will now be returning to what we do best, delivering game-changing results for our customers. Thank you for your interest in astronomer. Winston Churchill is often credited with saying, never let a crisis go to waste, meaning that an inflection point is an opportunity to do things you could not do before. By not avoiding the obvious scandal vis-à-vis the questions, And by using humor, vis-a-vis Paltrow's answers, Astronomer was able to reframe the narrative by not being overly defensive.

Boring by the book press statements only make lawyers happy. But leave a bad taste with the rest of the world. Astronomer chose to aim their message at the rest of the world. And because the scandal wasn't about the company's product itself, it didn't cripple astronomer going forward. And the resulting attention gave astronomer a rare opportunity to introduce itself to the world on its own terms. Crisis experts gave that clapback video a big smooch. When we come back, the city of Moose Jaw responds to a madman.

If you're enjoying this episode, you might also like, The Times They Are a Change in, Brands Crushed by Zytegeist, Season 10, episode one. We tell the story of brands that had to change their names after existing for over 100 years. You'll find the episode on your favorite podcast app. Back in September of 2019, a new commercial for Skip the Dishes hit the air. Skip the Dishes, now rebranded as Skip, is an online food delivery service originally founded by a pair of brothers in Saskatoon in 2012. Then it moved its head office to Winnipe. The long-running Skip

Advertising campaign features actor John Hamm of Mad Men fame. In each of the commercials, Ham is trying to become an honorary Canadian in honor of the fact Skip the Dishes was founded in Canada. In this particular

ad, Ham learns that his citizenship request has been denied. Oh, Brandon. It's official. I'm Canadian. And I ordered from Skip the Dishes to celebrate. It's on the way. So your citizenship was denied. What?

But I already bought a Moose Jaw and a Yellow Knife and a Sue San Marie, whatever that is. You can start your own country. New Canada? Brandon, no, I'm a real Canadian. Oh, food's here. Shall I get it? We. We what?

Oh, Brandon. Your American is showing. Skip the dishes. You deserve great delivery. While Ham was having fun with Canadian city names, the town of Moose Jaw decided to have a little fun in return. Mayor Fraser Tollmey filmed this response video. Mr. Hamm, my name's Fraser Tolme and I'm the mayor of the city of Moose Jaw.

I recently heard the sad news about your citizenship application being denied. John, if I were the Prime Minister of New Canada, I would have you swear allegiance to the Moose. our national animal. John, we would do new things in New Canada. Thursdays would be the new Friday. Chocolate would be a vegetable. Maple syrup would be a beverage.

Bacon would be our favorite color and flavor. Spelled with you, of course. John, we could do crazy things here. We could put the moose on the $5 bill. We could have the loony, the tuni, the mooney. This just cannot stand. So I'm going to ask the people of New Canada to sign a petition

to make John Ham a new Canadian citizen. And if we can get a thousand signatures, well, John, I'm going to do the most Canadian thing ever. I'm going to walk up to you, look you in the eye, and I'm going to say, I'm sorry. It's all been a misunderstanding, eh? Why don't you come over to my house? We'll put on a hockey game and we'll order some food in.

Mayor Tolmy is a big believer in promoting Moose Jaw on social media wherever he can. He said the skip the dishes commercial was a great opportunity to capitalize on and to have a little fun. He went on to say, quote, people will be taking notice that Moose Jaw is a fun place to go and visit, a great place to do business, and our locals are proud that we're getting the attention.

His video got over 50,000 views. And guess what? Tourism to Moose Jaw is on the upswing, so he's doing something right. And by the way, at the end of the mayor's video, it also said this was the first time a sitting politician has ever said the word, sorry. When we come back, a different car company gets tuned up by a high school band. When Infinity was launching its brand new SUV, the QX60,

it aired a commercial titled Beautiful Mess. In the ad, a woman is seated in the QX60, surrounded by a youth orchestra. As the orchestra starts playing Richard Strauss's famous composition also Sprock Zarathustra, the music is, well, bad. Eventually, the woman rolls up the windows and closes the sunroof to tune out the music. The ad's description on YouTube said, Quiet the Chaos in style.

Introducing the all-new Infinity QX-60. Take on life in style. That ad struck a negative chord with a lot of viewers. Most people came to the young musician's defense, saying the commercial was mean. One person said, I want to hug every one of those kids and encourage them in any way possible. Another commented saying, Ouch, it's not the kids playing the music that's intolerable,

but the attitude of the adults that feel the need to insult beginner instrumentalists. Someone suggested Infinity should donate the profits from the car to ban programs across the country. But it was a youth orchestra who won the Internet on this one. They filmed a clapback video. In the video, the CEO of the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra, Ken McLeod, jumps out of what looks like a BMW, hilarious, and he opens the door to the concert hall. Have you seen the new Nissan Infinity ad? Can you imagine a big company like that couldn't find a youth orchestra to play the music?

They should have called us the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra. Inside, the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra is playing a flawless and powerful rendition of also-sprach Zarathustra. The New Brunswick Youth Orchestra has an infinity of young talent. More than a thousand children and youth, 15 orchestras. Any one of them could have done the job. In our experience, all kids have talent and can shine on any stage anywhere. Founded in 1965, the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra has trained some of Canada's best musicians for almost 60 years. The orchestra is made up of around 80 musicians aged 11 to 24 who come from all over New Brunswick.

As CEO MacLeod explained, we felt because we're a leader in this space of children and youth, music, that it was our duty, maybe even our responsibility, to somehow respond to this. He went on to say that even though the Infinity ad was tongue in cheek, it promoted the tired old stereotype of youth and bad music. Infinity responded, saying it loved the Youth Orchestra's video, and defended its QX60 commercial saying it was only intended to showcase the vehicle's quiet interior. The New Brunswick Youth Orchestra video was viewed over 60,000 times, and the orchestra received messages from people all over North America

complimenting them for their statement. And by the way, the title of the video was An Infinity of Young Talent. When Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism created a clapback ad to protest the Verbo commercial, it was because the people of the province saw a reflect of their identity in the song, and were therefore deeply offended. Eyes the by is not just a ditty, it is a cherished part of the province's history,

so much so that the lyric from the song has been featured on a Canadian postage stamp. Astronomer found itself in a crisis. It couldn't afford to be defined by the alleged affair, so a humorous clapback ad allowed the company to take back control of their story. When Skip the Dishes With Spending a lot of media money Making fun of Moose Jaw, The City's Mayor jumped on the opportunity

To promote his city. And the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra Couldn't sit still when Infinity suggested Young Musicians are bad musicians. In the world of clapback ads, your response defines you. You can be overly defensive, or you can be smart.

You can be high class or nothing but a hound dog. When you're under the influence, I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terstream mobile recording studio. Producer Debbie O'Reilly, Chief Sound Engineer, Jeff Devine, research, Shay Grindon. Theme music by Casey Pick, Jeremiah Pick, and James Aiton. Tunage provided by APM music. Follow me at Terry O. Influence.

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