Look, I assume every glib is thinking, if we wanted to see Romanian commercials we would have beaten them out of you. Well no need for violence, stout yeomen! I decided that I will enact your labor for you (whether you want it to or not) and present the following. I tried to use a selection which reveal a bit of Romanian spirit, a bit of Romanian flavor. The video quality is not great and mostly there are no English subtitles. But it matters not, as they send their message across just fine.

In case you don’t want to actually watch the video

First we start with Rom Tricolor, a candy bar that is, like many cheap candy bars, mediocre overall, but for some reason you want to eat it. Rom is rum, so it is chocolate on the outside and a rum essence cocoa cream in the inside. This is enhanced by nostalgia, as for me it tastes of childhood. Their campaign was based on a slogan “Romanian sensations since 1964”

Two of the commercials go into communist nostalgia and the good old days when the actual fashion police came a calling, because “We will not tolerate such attire for the socialist youth”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5BsN9BKoFI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A2uL06ewxU

The third is a modern view of certain less than ideal aspects of Romanian culture, centered on the person of the Cocalar – which I have no idea how to translate in American. It is what the English might call a chav. This one is for Q as it briefly contains a female in a bathing suit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKoQbzn1q1c

A different commercial focusing on history is for a painkiller called Algocalmin, which has been since made prescription only in most countries, even banned in some, as it contains a substance called metamizole, which is actually bad. Now in my family we didn’t really use Algocalmin as a painkiller, but there was nothing like it to break a very high fever. Worked like magic for that purpose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GnbfqBGgnA

Next couple are for detergent – DERO comes from “Detergent Românesc” (Romanian Detergent) –which is no longer Romanian, but a brand of Unilever. The commercials are basically a couple talking about the kind of stains DERO removes –ciorba de burta (tripe soup) and coal dust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=qycKgN3HVwQ

It’s just fine if you forgot what a bowl of ciorba looks like.

“I hate ciorba de burta. My father hated ciorba de burta. His father hated ciorba de burta. Where are we going to get these stains?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=ZbfmTi3VMOQ

Now we have one showing the fabled Romanian construction workers in their natural environment, for cheap rotgut liquor with the slogan “Unde’s multi puterea creste” – basically Strength in numbers. (The name is Unirea, or Unification, and the slogan was the one during the unification of Wallachia and Moldovia)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=28&v=hiWCol_MOH4

And finally a commercial recommending buying a TV, so one can more easily tell the difference between a priest and Batman