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6 Obnoxious Ads That Don't Even Try to Sell Their Products
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Ubiquitous
Dec 21, 2011, 1:02:08 PM12/21/11
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By: Christina H
There are a lot of annoying ad campaigns out there we all like to
complain about. Some people go into a Hulk-like rage whenever they hear
the Five Dollar Footlong song, or want to apply a chair directly to the
forehead of whoever came up with the Head On commercials.
But at least it's clear what they're trying to do -- get the slogan in
your head so next time you are really hungry for a sandwich and only
have five dollars, perhaps you will think of them. A lot of other
advertisers don't even seem to have that level of sense when they make
their ads, leaving us scratching our heads wondering how their
commercials were even supposed to work.
Here's a few common types of bewildering commercials:
#6. Gross-Out Food Commercials
Everybody knows that one way to make your product look great is to make
your competitor's product look shitty, like when Verizon put out those
ads showing their fat, healthy coverage map compared to AT&T's sad
little lonely dots.
That sort of thing makes sense for most products, so Subway reasoned it
would work when it came to food. They put out an ad starring a fictional
fast food joint called "Burger Town," showing gratuitous close-ups of
its nasty greasy kitchen and the grease being pumped into a truck out
back.
Then they have the smarmy manager really rub it in that some poor schlub
(it could be you!) is putting all this into his mouth.
Only then -- after the average viewer has been put into a general mood
of disgust and loss of appetite -- only then do they bring up their own
product, saying thank God that Subway sandwiches are free of all that
grease! You should eat them! Yeah, a little late.
You see, food doesn't work like any other product. Appetite is a primal
response, not a logical one. Actual hormones and chemicals and shit
start flowing when your appetite is stimulated, or in this case,
strongly turned off. The gross-out grease imagery goes past your brain
and starts putting your stomach in a "I'm not hungry" mood. And that's
when they show you their product.
This recent Wendy's ad isn't so appetite-inducing either:
And while they're not advertising food, Febreze commercials run into the
same problem trying to sell something that supposedly appeals to your
senses (smell, specifically) while visually only showing you
appetite-quashing filth.
TV commercials (in the present, anyway) are only an audio and visual
medium, so you can't smell the sweet Febreze they're trying to sell you,
only see the awful kitchen and cringe at the girl almost touching the
rotting meat with her nose. Sure, there's the logical message they're
trying to get across: "If Febreze can cover up a smell this bad, it must
be quite powerful!" But for a lot of viewers, that message is going to
be overpowered by "SHE'S STICKING HER FACE INTO THAT! OH GOD! GET AWAY!"
#5. Creepy Commercials That Lost Track of the Point
Along similar, but slightly different lines, are the creepy high-concept
commercials. For a recent Toyota Prius commercial, the advertising
agency came up with a concept that "this one person is made up of all
these people. When you see the Priuses available, that metaphor starts
to unravel -- from one person to many, from one Prius to many."
Wow, that sounds pretty deep. I wonder how it comes out visually. How
will they symbolize the ...
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Sorry about that, I think my soul escaped temporarily. Anyway, I wonder
how they made that. Some kind of CG, I'm sure, they didn't make actual
people get together into those awkward pos-
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WHERE IS THE HEAD OF THE GUY ON
TOP?
All right, anyway, you get the point. I don't know why this would sell
Priuses. Maybe when you want to get across a complex statement like,
"From one person to many, from one Prius to many," you should just have
someone say it, because I'm not sure nine out of 10 viewers would be
able to gather that from a creepy alchemical amalgamation of souls
getting up in the morning, getting ready for work and then suddenly
breaking up into its individual components and getting into Priuses.
If you enjoy horror, you might also enjoy this commercial for a King
Kong ride, where a child begins screaming at a King Kong ride and
continues to scream as he ages into an old man through the power of CG.
I don't even think you need pictures to see why that would be creepy,
but here anyway:
The slogan is "The intensity lasts a lifetime," which sounds good as a
phrase, but when put into pictures, becomes a disturbing reminder of our
mortality. I'm sure they're trying to evoke the excitement and wonder of
the ride lasting the kid through all the years of his long and
fulfilling life, but the vibe that's actually coming across is that the
kid drank from the wrong Grail. I mean, he ages into a wrinkled, frail
old man, and then the screen goes to black. What kind of association do
you expect people to make there? Maybe we should just be glad they
didn't show him crumbling into dust.
And of course, one of the classic ads that was trying to get some
attention and challenge people's sensibilities or whatever, but only
ended up giving them nightmares or making them scratch their heads, was
Sony's creepy baby doll commercial.
Its face spazzes out and then it levitates a PlayStation 3. This led to
the PS3's long-standing reputation for being more easily possessed by
ghosts than other consoles, which crippled its sales for many years.
#4. The Audience Representative Is the Stupidest Person Alive
Many commercials try to include a character that represents you, the
viewer. They usually try to make this person somewhat intelligent and
likable, because it's you, the person they're trying to talk into buying
their stuff. This character usually ends up using their product and
enjoying it, and if they did a good job painting that character as
someone you could be, you will go, "That's me! I can see myself using
that product and enjoying it!"
So I'm not sure what these McDonald's commercials are trying to do.
They're pointing out how smart you, the customer, will be for saving
money on the dollar menu, yet they're comparing this level of
intelligence to spending 10 seconds of awkward silence figuring out a
pet name for your girlfriend and finally coming up with "sweet-tea" and
then "sweetie".
Man, only Einstein could come up with something like "honey" or "baby"
quicker than that.
Or holding up this moron as a smart dollar menu shopper, when he spends
the better part of 20 seconds trying to figure out the right answer to
"My sister's new boyfriend told her Sundays are just for watching
football. Believe that?" Whenever someone says, "Believe that?" and
looks angry, obviously the answer is no. Is he really spending 20
seconds considering whether "I also believe Sundays are only for
watching football" would be an acceptable answer?
"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ..."
Sure, maybe someone would take that long to debate whether to be honest
or whether to lie, but this isn't painted as a moral decision. The
commercial lays it on pretty thick that coming up with the right answer
is about showing how smart he is. Like he basically doesn't even know
what the right thing to say is up until the end, and that he is proud
for solving this complex puzzle.
Why would you show the audience this nincompoop and imply that they can
be just as smart as him if they shop the dollar menu?
Or take the 5 Hour Energy commercials. They're basically telling you
that you need their product because you are too stupid and/or lazy to
make coffee, or buy coffee, or put sugar in it, or carry it.
I'm not making a joke, the ad actually talks about carrying coffee as a
hassle you can't be expected to handle.
If these commercials work, it's in spite of their concept. "That guy
sure is an idiot," you might think. "But wait, the ad said something
about tiny burritos and sweet teas for a dollar. That's not bad." But
I'd venture to say they would work better if the guy wasn't an idiot,
and if that wasn't the first thing your potential customer took away
from that ad.
#3. Stupid or Made-Up Suggested Uses For the Product
Most commercials to give you some idea of what you can do with their
product. The Sham-Wow can soak up spills! Comcast can get you more
channels than DirecTV! DirecTV can get you more channels than Comcast!
The Citi Kitty can teach your cat to use a toilet!
Some commercials however, inexplicably suggest things you can't actually
do with their product, or wouldn't do, or both. Like this Nissan
commercial, where a Nissan pickup drives onto the runway as a disabled
jet attempts to land, and takes the place of its front wheel.
They actually put the fake "news report" on YouTube, with fake
interviews and everything, and got a ton of comments arguing about
whether it was fake or not, despite the "Fictionalization. Do not
attempt." warning right in the video.
Another thing the Nissan Frontier can't actually do that they're using
as a selling point for what it can do is push a dune buggy up a hill
when the dune buggy gets stuck.
"Are you showing me something the car can't actually do? Sold!"
Probably the worst commercials in this category are the State Farm
"genie" style commercials, which at least started out making a modicum
of sense, where drivers would get their car stolen or damaged and sing
the State Farm jingle, thereby summoning a State Farm agent to take care
of their car claim. They would then make more wishes for silly things,
like replacement bodies for their significant others, which the State
Farm agent tries to ignore while continuing to do their job processing
the claim.
However, recent commercials have forgotten the whole original point of
getting an agent to quickly take care of your auto claim, and just make
them general genies. In this commercial two guys in danger summon a
State Farm agent to spirit them away to safety, which I'm pretty sure is
neither a service State Farm provides, nor something people are even
looking for in auto insurance.
I know when I compare insurers, I always check out their teleportation
policies.
And for product features that actually have useful applications,
advertisers sure have a way of ignoring all those and coming up with
some function nobody would ever use it for. Like having a smartphone
where you can talk and surf at the same time. There's a ton of ways a
regular person might want to put that to use, none of them being calling
trivia contests from home and looking up the answers.
What, she never won a home computer?
And sure, maybe if your wife calls you and you realize you've forgotten
its your anniversary, you might want to look up something quickly on the
sly, like which anniversary it is ("12 years together, isn't it
wonderful, darling?"), but I don't see what good it's going to do to
google "fine dining" and then immediately have to hit the road in your
car. Is he going to actually find the specific restaurant and make the
reservation while driving?
I don't know if it's a good idea to have talk-and-surf commercials made
by people who have obviously never needed to talk and surf on their
phones in their lives.
#2. What IS the Purpose Of This Product?
Just as bad as giving you a fictional use or worthless use for the
product is giving you no apparent use at all. Say what you will about
eHarmony, at least their commercials are to the point. "Look at this
happy couple that is so perfectly matched! We will perfectly match you
too!" True or not, at least they know what point they're trying to make,
as opposed to, say, Zoosk.
Zoosk ran this bizarre commercial about a woman looking up men on Zoosk,
and suggesting she could go for some "serious romance" with one
prospect. She then imagines their evening together, which apparently
involves them wanting to have sex and being too clumsy to do so. She
then decides on "just a movie date."
Unintentional headbutting, a common dating problem I guess.
This raises a number of questions. Why does she assume that getting
heavily involved with the guy will lead to clumsy collisions and
injuries? How does Zoosk help her avoid those problems? Does it tell you
who is clumsy or not? Or let's just assume she wants to avoid serious
romance for whatever reason and only go on a casual movie date. Zoosk is
the only method that allows you to do this? You can't message people on
any other dating service and specify what kind of date you want to go
on, it just automatically betrothes you?
In another Zoosk ad, one girl talks about a disastrous experience where
her friend set her up with an "athletic type" who turned out to be a
delusional dart-thrower.
Wannabe dart champions, a common type in the dating world.
She concludes she should stick with Zoosk instead. Why? Isn't she more
likely to run into people with inflated self-descriptions that she can't
check on a dating site? At least with a friend setting her up, she could
have had the friend's opinion in addition to the guy's description of
himself. It's somehow better to just rely on the guy's own description?
In both cases they do a good job of setting up a terrible scenario, but
don't do anything to explain what Zoosk would do to help them avoid that
scenario. It's like an Apple ad saying, "It sure is terrible, isn't it,
when your house burns to the ground? Buy a Mac."
#1. Have No Idea Who the Audience Is
For this category, I'm going to call out the much-reviled Lexus December
to Remember commercials, where some rich asshole surprises their rich
asshole significant other with a Lexus for Christmas, while most of us
are trying to figure out how to keep our houses.
They also live in a world where apparently everyone recognizes the Lexus
Christmas jingle.
What's puzzling is that these ads don't apply to anybody. Obviously the
99 percent can't go around buying a car on a whim. But the people that
are so rich they can afford to buy a car on a whim? They're not buying
Lexuses for their whims. They're buying Ferraris and Rolls Royces and
Land Rovers, and if they're trendy, Teslas and whatever the hot new
environmental car is.
Fisker Automotive
Leonardo Di Caprio drives the $100,000 Fisker Karma hybrid because he is
way above Lexuses.
And it's not just a matter of money. Car buying is an extremely
personalized decision, picking colors, seat materials, wheels, options,
etc., even if you know exactly what model they want. Surprising someone
with a car is like surprising someone with a tattoo. It's not likely to
turn out well.
But these commercials aren't for the rich people that can buy a Lexus
with whatever is in their wallet on any given day. These commercials are
for upper middle class people who can just barely afford a Lexus, but
want to believe they are on par with those rich people that can afford
to buy cars as Christmas presents. The actual buyers they are targeting
will be buying Lexuses for themselves. The whole present-buying story is
just a fantasy to show them the kind of high-class company they'll be in
if they buy a Lexus.
But catching up to the Joneses, especially imaginary Joneses, is a
surefire way to end up in debt of the kind that's screwed up our
country, so if anyone's tempted by that Lexus ad, think twice. Use Zoosk
instead.
Or wish for a Lexus from your State Farm agent.
--
"If Barack Obama isn't careful, he will become the Jimmy Carter of the
21st century."
There are a lot of annoying ad campaigns out there we all like to
complain about. Some people go into a Hulk-like rage whenever they hear
the Five Dollar Footlong song, or want to apply a chair directly to the
forehead of whoever came up with the Head On commercials.
But at least it's clear what they're trying to do -- get the slogan in
your head so next time you are really hungry for a sandwich and only
have five dollars, perhaps you will think of them. A lot of other
advertisers don't even seem to have that level of sense when they make
their ads, leaving us scratching our heads wondering how their
commercials were even supposed to work.
Here's a few common types of bewildering commercials:
#6. Gross-Out Food Commercials
Everybody knows that one way to make your product look great is to make
your competitor's product look shitty, like when Verizon put out those
ads showing their fat, healthy coverage map compared to AT&T's sad
little lonely dots.
That sort of thing makes sense for most products, so Subway reasoned it
would work when it came to food. They put out an ad starring a fictional
fast food joint called "Burger Town," showing gratuitous close-ups of
its nasty greasy kitchen and the grease being pumped into a truck out
back.
Then they have the smarmy manager really rub it in that some poor schlub
(it could be you!) is putting all this into his mouth.
Only then -- after the average viewer has been put into a general mood
of disgust and loss of appetite -- only then do they bring up their own
product, saying thank God that Subway sandwiches are free of all that
grease! You should eat them! Yeah, a little late.
You see, food doesn't work like any other product. Appetite is a primal
response, not a logical one. Actual hormones and chemicals and shit
start flowing when your appetite is stimulated, or in this case,
strongly turned off. The gross-out grease imagery goes past your brain
and starts putting your stomach in a "I'm not hungry" mood. And that's
when they show you their product.
This recent Wendy's ad isn't so appetite-inducing either:
And while they're not advertising food, Febreze commercials run into the
same problem trying to sell something that supposedly appeals to your
senses (smell, specifically) while visually only showing you
appetite-quashing filth.
TV commercials (in the present, anyway) are only an audio and visual
medium, so you can't smell the sweet Febreze they're trying to sell you,
only see the awful kitchen and cringe at the girl almost touching the
rotting meat with her nose. Sure, there's the logical message they're
trying to get across: "If Febreze can cover up a smell this bad, it must
be quite powerful!" But for a lot of viewers, that message is going to
be overpowered by "SHE'S STICKING HER FACE INTO THAT! OH GOD! GET AWAY!"
#5. Creepy Commercials That Lost Track of the Point
Along similar, but slightly different lines, are the creepy high-concept
commercials. For a recent Toyota Prius commercial, the advertising
agency came up with a concept that "this one person is made up of all
these people. When you see the Priuses available, that metaphor starts
to unravel -- from one person to many, from one Prius to many."
Wow, that sounds pretty deep. I wonder how it comes out visually. How
will they symbolize the ...
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Sorry about that, I think my soul escaped temporarily. Anyway, I wonder
how they made that. Some kind of CG, I'm sure, they didn't make actual
people get together into those awkward pos-
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WHERE IS THE HEAD OF THE GUY ON
TOP?
All right, anyway, you get the point. I don't know why this would sell
Priuses. Maybe when you want to get across a complex statement like,
"From one person to many, from one Prius to many," you should just have
someone say it, because I'm not sure nine out of 10 viewers would be
able to gather that from a creepy alchemical amalgamation of souls
getting up in the morning, getting ready for work and then suddenly
breaking up into its individual components and getting into Priuses.
If you enjoy horror, you might also enjoy this commercial for a King
Kong ride, where a child begins screaming at a King Kong ride and
continues to scream as he ages into an old man through the power of CG.
I don't even think you need pictures to see why that would be creepy,
but here anyway:
The slogan is "The intensity lasts a lifetime," which sounds good as a
phrase, but when put into pictures, becomes a disturbing reminder of our
mortality. I'm sure they're trying to evoke the excitement and wonder of
the ride lasting the kid through all the years of his long and
fulfilling life, but the vibe that's actually coming across is that the
kid drank from the wrong Grail. I mean, he ages into a wrinkled, frail
old man, and then the screen goes to black. What kind of association do
you expect people to make there? Maybe we should just be glad they
didn't show him crumbling into dust.
And of course, one of the classic ads that was trying to get some
attention and challenge people's sensibilities or whatever, but only
ended up giving them nightmares or making them scratch their heads, was
Sony's creepy baby doll commercial.
Its face spazzes out and then it levitates a PlayStation 3. This led to
the PS3's long-standing reputation for being more easily possessed by
ghosts than other consoles, which crippled its sales for many years.
#4. The Audience Representative Is the Stupidest Person Alive
Many commercials try to include a character that represents you, the
viewer. They usually try to make this person somewhat intelligent and
likable, because it's you, the person they're trying to talk into buying
their stuff. This character usually ends up using their product and
enjoying it, and if they did a good job painting that character as
someone you could be, you will go, "That's me! I can see myself using
that product and enjoying it!"
So I'm not sure what these McDonald's commercials are trying to do.
They're pointing out how smart you, the customer, will be for saving
money on the dollar menu, yet they're comparing this level of
intelligence to spending 10 seconds of awkward silence figuring out a
pet name for your girlfriend and finally coming up with "sweet-tea" and
then "sweetie".
Man, only Einstein could come up with something like "honey" or "baby"
quicker than that.
Or holding up this moron as a smart dollar menu shopper, when he spends
the better part of 20 seconds trying to figure out the right answer to
"My sister's new boyfriend told her Sundays are just for watching
football. Believe that?" Whenever someone says, "Believe that?" and
looks angry, obviously the answer is no. Is he really spending 20
seconds considering whether "I also believe Sundays are only for
watching football" would be an acceptable answer?
"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ..."
Sure, maybe someone would take that long to debate whether to be honest
or whether to lie, but this isn't painted as a moral decision. The
commercial lays it on pretty thick that coming up with the right answer
is about showing how smart he is. Like he basically doesn't even know
what the right thing to say is up until the end, and that he is proud
for solving this complex puzzle.
Why would you show the audience this nincompoop and imply that they can
be just as smart as him if they shop the dollar menu?
Or take the 5 Hour Energy commercials. They're basically telling you
that you need their product because you are too stupid and/or lazy to
make coffee, or buy coffee, or put sugar in it, or carry it.
I'm not making a joke, the ad actually talks about carrying coffee as a
hassle you can't be expected to handle.
If these commercials work, it's in spite of their concept. "That guy
sure is an idiot," you might think. "But wait, the ad said something
about tiny burritos and sweet teas for a dollar. That's not bad." But
I'd venture to say they would work better if the guy wasn't an idiot,
and if that wasn't the first thing your potential customer took away
from that ad.
#3. Stupid or Made-Up Suggested Uses For the Product
Most commercials to give you some idea of what you can do with their
product. The Sham-Wow can soak up spills! Comcast can get you more
channels than DirecTV! DirecTV can get you more channels than Comcast!
The Citi Kitty can teach your cat to use a toilet!
Some commercials however, inexplicably suggest things you can't actually
do with their product, or wouldn't do, or both. Like this Nissan
commercial, where a Nissan pickup drives onto the runway as a disabled
jet attempts to land, and takes the place of its front wheel.
They actually put the fake "news report" on YouTube, with fake
interviews and everything, and got a ton of comments arguing about
whether it was fake or not, despite the "Fictionalization. Do not
attempt." warning right in the video.
Another thing the Nissan Frontier can't actually do that they're using
as a selling point for what it can do is push a dune buggy up a hill
when the dune buggy gets stuck.
"Are you showing me something the car can't actually do? Sold!"
Probably the worst commercials in this category are the State Farm
"genie" style commercials, which at least started out making a modicum
of sense, where drivers would get their car stolen or damaged and sing
the State Farm jingle, thereby summoning a State Farm agent to take care
of their car claim. They would then make more wishes for silly things,
like replacement bodies for their significant others, which the State
Farm agent tries to ignore while continuing to do their job processing
the claim.
However, recent commercials have forgotten the whole original point of
getting an agent to quickly take care of your auto claim, and just make
them general genies. In this commercial two guys in danger summon a
State Farm agent to spirit them away to safety, which I'm pretty sure is
neither a service State Farm provides, nor something people are even
looking for in auto insurance.
I know when I compare insurers, I always check out their teleportation
policies.
And for product features that actually have useful applications,
advertisers sure have a way of ignoring all those and coming up with
some function nobody would ever use it for. Like having a smartphone
where you can talk and surf at the same time. There's a ton of ways a
regular person might want to put that to use, none of them being calling
trivia contests from home and looking up the answers.
What, she never won a home computer?
And sure, maybe if your wife calls you and you realize you've forgotten
its your anniversary, you might want to look up something quickly on the
sly, like which anniversary it is ("12 years together, isn't it
wonderful, darling?"), but I don't see what good it's going to do to
google "fine dining" and then immediately have to hit the road in your
car. Is he going to actually find the specific restaurant and make the
reservation while driving?
I don't know if it's a good idea to have talk-and-surf commercials made
by people who have obviously never needed to talk and surf on their
phones in their lives.
#2. What IS the Purpose Of This Product?
Just as bad as giving you a fictional use or worthless use for the
product is giving you no apparent use at all. Say what you will about
eHarmony, at least their commercials are to the point. "Look at this
happy couple that is so perfectly matched! We will perfectly match you
too!" True or not, at least they know what point they're trying to make,
as opposed to, say, Zoosk.
Zoosk ran this bizarre commercial about a woman looking up men on Zoosk,
and suggesting she could go for some "serious romance" with one
prospect. She then imagines their evening together, which apparently
involves them wanting to have sex and being too clumsy to do so. She
then decides on "just a movie date."
Unintentional headbutting, a common dating problem I guess.
This raises a number of questions. Why does she assume that getting
heavily involved with the guy will lead to clumsy collisions and
injuries? How does Zoosk help her avoid those problems? Does it tell you
who is clumsy or not? Or let's just assume she wants to avoid serious
romance for whatever reason and only go on a casual movie date. Zoosk is
the only method that allows you to do this? You can't message people on
any other dating service and specify what kind of date you want to go
on, it just automatically betrothes you?
In another Zoosk ad, one girl talks about a disastrous experience where
her friend set her up with an "athletic type" who turned out to be a
delusional dart-thrower.
Wannabe dart champions, a common type in the dating world.
She concludes she should stick with Zoosk instead. Why? Isn't she more
likely to run into people with inflated self-descriptions that she can't
check on a dating site? At least with a friend setting her up, she could
have had the friend's opinion in addition to the guy's description of
himself. It's somehow better to just rely on the guy's own description?
In both cases they do a good job of setting up a terrible scenario, but
don't do anything to explain what Zoosk would do to help them avoid that
scenario. It's like an Apple ad saying, "It sure is terrible, isn't it,
when your house burns to the ground? Buy a Mac."
#1. Have No Idea Who the Audience Is
For this category, I'm going to call out the much-reviled Lexus December
to Remember commercials, where some rich asshole surprises their rich
asshole significant other with a Lexus for Christmas, while most of us
are trying to figure out how to keep our houses.
They also live in a world where apparently everyone recognizes the Lexus
Christmas jingle.
What's puzzling is that these ads don't apply to anybody. Obviously the
99 percent can't go around buying a car on a whim. But the people that
are so rich they can afford to buy a car on a whim? They're not buying
Lexuses for their whims. They're buying Ferraris and Rolls Royces and
Land Rovers, and if they're trendy, Teslas and whatever the hot new
environmental car is.
Fisker Automotive
Leonardo Di Caprio drives the $100,000 Fisker Karma hybrid because he is
way above Lexuses.
And it's not just a matter of money. Car buying is an extremely
personalized decision, picking colors, seat materials, wheels, options,
etc., even if you know exactly what model they want. Surprising someone
with a car is like surprising someone with a tattoo. It's not likely to
turn out well.
But these commercials aren't for the rich people that can buy a Lexus
with whatever is in their wallet on any given day. These commercials are
for upper middle class people who can just barely afford a Lexus, but
want to believe they are on par with those rich people that can afford
to buy cars as Christmas presents. The actual buyers they are targeting
will be buying Lexuses for themselves. The whole present-buying story is
just a fantasy to show them the kind of high-class company they'll be in
if they buy a Lexus.
But catching up to the Joneses, especially imaginary Joneses, is a
surefire way to end up in debt of the kind that's screwed up our
country, so if anyone's tempted by that Lexus ad, think twice. Use Zoosk
instead.
Or wish for a Lexus from your State Farm agent.
--
"If Barack Obama isn't careful, he will become the Jimmy Carter of the
21st century."
dave
Dec 21, 2011, 5:03:16 PM12/21/11
to
<snipped>
My candidate for most obnoxious and at best ineffective commecial is the
Microsoft commercial in which a white male is bullied by his son into
buying him a dog and then treated with feminist contempt by his wife. This
commercial is shown (at great expense) during a NFL game, where most of the
audience comprises white males. Is a Microsoft commercial in which white men
are degraded make them purchase more Microsoft product? I don't think so.
Note that in other commercials, shown on sports programs, white males are
potrayed in a positive way.
My candidate for most obnoxious and at best ineffective commecial is the
Microsoft commercial in which a white male is bullied by his son into
buying him a dog and then treated with feminist contempt by his wife. This
commercial is shown (at great expense) during a NFL game, where most of the
audience comprises white males. Is a Microsoft commercial in which white men
are degraded make them purchase more Microsoft product? I don't think so.
Note that in other commercials, shown on sports programs, white males are
potrayed in a positive way.
David Johnston
Dec 21, 2011, 5:13:27 PM12/21/11
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