Ben & Jerry’s teamed up with Netflix as a joke to deliver what it describes as “a one-two punch of comedic bedazzlement for both your taste buds and your LOLs: NEW Punch Line ice cream AND the Punch Line Hotline!”
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The promotional video features: Wanda Sykes, Fortune Feimster and Aparna Nancherla, a trio of female comedians from Netflix is a Joke.
Surely, we could all use some comic relief now, not to mention the comfort life of delicious ice cream, and the combination is meant to deliver that in the form of a phone number:
1-866-PUNCHLINE
You may have noticed that PUNCHLINE equals more than 7 digits. To call you only need to punch in these numbers: 1866-786-2454. Of course, I tried it out.
When you get through, you’re given two initial choices of ordering jokes or ordering ice cream. I opted for choice #1. That then leads to a choice of 5 categories of jokes you can listen to.
I listened to choice #4, the ones on quarantine life. Some were better than others, of course, but you can draw your own conclusion by calling the toll-free number for yourself.
Toll-free numbers and the whole experience of using a phone to get this kind of experience reminds those of us who are old enough to remember life before the internet and of the marketing pushes through phones – including the rise of 800 (free calls) and 900 (calls with extra charges) in the last couple of decades of the last century.
The all-female lineup makes me believe the marketing is aimed primarily at women, though the use of the phone indicates the possibility that the goal is also to attract those of a certain age. Ice cream appeals to all ages, of course, but perhaps the real goal here is to draw the television generation into watching comedy online.