Snickers 'Snacklish' campaign pays tribute to NYC's Dr. Zizmor

Every once in a while, an advertiser puts its ego aside to salute greatness, and when this happens, every single one of us can be enriched in some way. By this time, you've probably figured out that I'm talking about Snickers and it's salute to Dr. Zizmor, a fixture of New York subway ads for more than a quarter century. As part of the candy bar's pun-happy riffs on the Snickers name, Snickers and agency TBWA\Chiat\Day have done some ads aimed at weary straphangers. While most seem to be lampooning generic ad categories ("Learn to speak Snacklish"), there's one aimed at the venerable Zizmor (renamed "Doctor Feedzmore"), a dermatologist whose Mona Lisa smile prompted New York Times columnist Dan Barry to once compare him to Dr. T.J. Eckelburg, the eye doctor on a Queens billboard who is referenced in The Great Gatsby. Wrote Barry of Dr. Z: "The eyes in his smiling, baby-chubby visage bore like laser beams into our skulls to read our innermost insecurities—about acne or moles or stretch marks or the risqué tattoo that seemed like such a good idea down at the beach that time." What's the word for this kind of praise? Snackperbole?

—Posted by Todd Wasserman