Showing posts with label Commercials. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Commercials. Show all posts

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Hop Into This Stylish Death Trap!

I have mentioned commercials before that either 1) no longer make any sense or 2) rely completely upon some misplaced fear to cover their incredibly lousy job of communicating why you need their product. Now I have a new one! Presented by the 2009 Lincoln MKS, I give you a commercial sure to insinuate an ominous death in your future!

Watch the commercial here.

The commercial looks like many other car commercials, which special focus on circuits firing and cool engine combustion stuff represented by neon blue flashing lights. Pretty. My problem is that it's set to a lovely cover of Space Oddity by David Bowie. Yes, the song about the astronaut who dies in space because his space shuttle malfunctions. Why, that's JUST the sort of message I want to associate with your vehicle, Lincoln!

Come climb into the new Lincoln. Never mind that uneasy feeling of impending doom. It's probably nothing. Your circuits are probably just fine.

Can you hear me Major Tom?

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

WHY do I need this product?

We are living in a material world, and I am a material girl. Especially when it comes to accessories and hair products. Show me a model with beautiful hair, and I'll show you $7.99 for that conditioner.

So I appreciate good marketing and clever commercials. They are trying to sell me something, and I will play along because, ultimately, I want to buy it. But I have no patience for stupid commercials. Because of your dumb presentation, I will not buy your product out of spite. Or I will snidely comment, "Well, SOME marketing director just lost his job" as your spot fades from my TV.

All that being said, I will not be buying Lysol Deep Reach Toilet Bowl Cleaner. Have you seen its commercial? It has all the standard Lysol bits about how it kills 99% of germs, but instead of focusing on surface germs that could kill your entire family by mere eye-contact, the Deep Reach talks about the germs that lurk deep in your toilet, past the point where you could ever reach with a brush. Deep Reach kills these germs, even as far back as the s-bend.

Cool.

But my problem is, if you cannot reach these germs, even with a brush, then why the #$*^@ do you need to kill them?! Little Tommy cannot reach his hand back to the s-bend. So who cares whether there are germs back there? There are germs under your floorboards, too. Rip up the floors! Disinfect them! No, you cannot possibly be infected by them, but if they're there they must be destroyed! Introducing Lysol UnderFloor Extreme Cleaner! Cleans where even your contractor could not reach! Look for Lysol Behind-the-Drywall Cleaner, coming this summer!

Come on, people. I'm like shooting fish in the barrel. But before I'll help you make a buck off of me, your commercial is going to have to make sense.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Commercial Confusion

Ok, I no longer get the "coulda had a v8" commercials.

I understood the first one, where the guy is working out on the balance ball and his trainer asks him if he is still eating right and getting all his veggies, and he says "when I can" and she bops him on the head. Ah, she's right! He could have had a v8 and he would have gotten his veggies! There's no excuse for missing them when they are neatly pureed into a handy disposable bottle! What a bop-worthy offense!

But now the commercials make no sense. The latest one is a montage with a guy passing up veggies at all these different functions and his wife (I assume she is his wife) bopping him on the head after each one. After about the 7th pushing away of his carrots and his wife bopping him, the announcer intones "Coulda had a v8" while the wife shakes her head disappointedly at her hapless, unhealthy other half.

But here's the problem. v8 is continuing the theme of saying that you can just get your veggies by drinking a v8, and to pass up such a simple solution is stupid. Hence, the head bopping. But the guy in the newest commercial isn't passing up a v8 or saying he hasn't gotten his full servings of veggies, he's passing up the traditional on-your-plate veggies. Why is he being bopped when he pushes away a plate of broccoli? If he ate his veggies, he wouldn't need to drink v8.

Maybe I'm missing something. But it doesn't seem like a good plan to infer someone who doesn't eat physical veggies is boppable when you sell a product that replaces those missed veggies.