Allstate’s Hispanic counterpart to “Mayhem,” Soya La Mala Suerte, has a new 30-second spot that puts an unlucky driver at the mercy of a child’s toy won in a claw game. (You know, the merciless machines at Chuck E. Cheese and supermarkets that steal your money, hope, and sanity as you try to retrieve a cheap toy with mechanical claw that looks like it’s an artifact found in the depths of  medieval torture room.)

What was I saying? Oh, yeah. The kid wins a ball that looks like a black cat. (Oooh! A black cat! They’re bad luck! Get it?!?!) On the way home, the sweet-faced child falls asleep in the back of the minivan, and the black cat ball rolls from his tiny little hand to the floor and then to the driver’s side, where it’s lodged under Dad’s brake pedal.

Can you guess what happens next? Well, try. Or watch the clip if the suspense is killing you.
 

 
Soya La Mala Suerte leaves the scene of the accident, cheerfully tossing the black cat ball.

And of course, the ad closes by asking:

¿Estás en buenas manos?

 
At the time of this writing, the clip on YouTube, posted June 25, had 106 views, 2 likes, and 1 dislike. There were no comments, but it’s early still.

In a previous post on Soya La Mala Suerte, I quoted a YouTube commenter, jackrubyuk, who said, “I like this one; he’s more sinister that the Anglo Mayhem. Subtle.” I don’t speak Spanish, but I can pick up tiny bits of dialog and the visuals do most of the work. Even if you don’t understand the clips’ script, you can still tell a difference comparing the Soya La Mala Suerte spots with the Mayhem series.

The commenter was right: Soya La Mala Suerte is more subtle, more ominous. Dean Winter’s Mayhem (which we all love) is goofier, not quite as scary. All the bad things that Mayhem makes happen certainly suck, but they don’t put the characters in the same grade of danger as the characters in the Soya La Mala Suerte ads.

The Soy La Mala Suerte  (“I am Bad Luck”) Facebook page also has a more sinister tone (the threat of the falling air conditioners will certainly strike fear into almost any urban dweller). Even so, the public loves him: At the time of this writing, Soy La Mala Suerte had 124 likes on Facebook. That’s up from 99,284 on Jan. 25, 2012.
 

EARLIER: Soy La Mala Suerte: Billboard

 

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