Too Much of a Good Thing? Ron Burgundy Is…Everywhere

We get it Paramount. You are a marketing genius…you’re also getting on our nerves.

Have you noticed Ron Burgundy is everywhere lately? That was a rhetorical question. With the marketing campaign for “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” in full swing, don’t be surprised to see Will Ferrell’s masterly crafted, washed up 1970’s news anchor persona, “Ron Burgundy,” promoting Christmas hams at Costco or delivering your Sunday sermon.

In the market for a new ride? Ron Burgundy will tell you to ‘stay classy’ in the over 70 Dodge commercials he’s taped pro-bono.

He infamously screech-presented Miley Cyrus her award at the MTV EMAs, congratulated the lead actor in Fifty Shades of Grey for landing the erotic role, took a foam ball to the groin on the Dan Patrick show, and even hosted Canada’s Olympic curling trials. These over the top stunts have been on a steady uptick for months, but the campaign has now reached the over-saturation point.

Unless we crawl under a rock, we can’t hide. Unlike conventional campaigns with one minute trailers, Paramount has partnered with Tumblr, and flooded social media with more than 50 produced videos and gifs.

Ron Burgundy is all over TV, but also in my Twitter feed, a constant theme in status updates, and even if he’s not anchoring my own local news, the local news he is doing still circulates my social sites.

He’s been on Conan what…seven, eight, nine times, it’s not like anyone’s counting. Is it that slow of a comedic season? In case you missed it, Ron Burgundy and the entire “Anchorman 2” ensemble hijacked SNL this weekend. Let’s hope the mediocre performance isn’t foreshadowing the sequel to come.

Not only do I have too much of the actual Ron Burgundy, but thanks to an online casting call, Paramount is auditioning imitators for a “Join Ron’s News Crew” talent competition. So soon we’ll have to watch everyone else’s impressions of him. Don’t kid yourself. You’re probably not good at it.

Hey Burgundy – quit interfering with what I really want to know! Come December 16, you can’t read Huffington Post headlines without seeing an embedded ad replacing the site’s logo. I was dying to find out if Peyton Manning can keep it together in time for Denver to take the AFC West. Instead I got this:

Ok that was funny.

Still, that has to be the umpteenth-million time I’ve heard some version of ‘back to you Ron.’

By now you’re expecting me to tell you “Anchorman 2” came out this weekend so hurry down to the theater and show Paramount how smart they are! But no, we have almost two more weeks of this to go until it opens December 18. Can’t someone just unplug the damn prompter?