Unintentional irony department: Just noticed the small print on a Viagra commercial which states "this drug does not protect against sexually transmitted diseases". It would seem to me that if they were about FULL disclosure, they should have to follow that statement with: "In fact, if we at Pfizer pharmaceuticals are to be completely honest, if you are suffering from a condition that requires the use Viagra, if you avoid our, or other competing, products, we can almost guarantee your STD risk will, in fact, be greatly reduced (if you know what we mean...). Oh, you DON'T know what we mean? Here's a series of metaphorical graphics to help you better understand..." (the graphics then show a guy on the side of a desert road standing at the front of his car. The hood is up, there's steam shooting from the engine compartment, the car has four flat tires, and the man is holding a piece of broken, limp, radiator hose. He's frustrated, but in one piece without a scratch on him. As he stands there, another similar car goes screaming by with an old dude behind the wheel. It is obvious the old guy is in over his head, slightly panicked, driving too fast, and cannot control the high performance vehicle he clearly shouldn't be driving. He then slams into the side of a cliff and the car explodes in a spectacular fireball)
Anywhoo, when I saw the commercial, this imagery went through my head, and actually made me laugh out loud as I sat on the sofa in my sweats. I dunno, I'm easily amused, and felt compelled to share.
Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Saturday, February 22, 2014
2014: RIP Hipster Culture
The destruction of hipster culture by corporate America is almost complete: a car ad featuring a bearded 28-30 year old with ironic handlebar mustache, desert boots and a vintage blazer (yes, I own some of those clothing items myself, but let's stay on point here). When Toyota America and KFC start identifying you as a target demographic, your days as the underdog, rebel, and counter culture icon are pretty much over. Sorry, but you've been officially assimilated by The Borg, and resistance is futile. Welcome to adulthood. So, what do you have to look forward to, hipsters? Nothing...for about 15 years...and then you'll notice golf, e.d. drugs, and Cadillacs will start being marketed to you. It should be fun. I can see it now: a bearded, skinny jean wearing man with salt and pepper hair, staring lovingly at his wife as she sits at a pottery wheel (it's either a pottery wheel or "his 'n hers" outdoor tubs on an island beach somewhere) when a voice over begins "You just never know when the moment is right, but when it is..." and Bon Iver plays quietly in the background...
So, enjoy your last frosty PBR, as your days going forward will be filled with looking in the rearview mirror and wondering where all your "edginess" went (answer: it left with your 20's...nobody wants an edgy 30 or 40-something. "Edgy" makes for shitty employees and unreliable romantic partners. Upside? You'll have a few dollars in your pocket now so you can drink something OTHER than PBR, AND afford to treat your partner to some cuisine other than something served from a truck parked outside your favorite ironic dive bar).
So, enjoy your last frosty PBR, as your days going forward will be filled with looking in the rearview mirror and wondering where all your "edginess" went (answer: it left with your 20's...nobody wants an edgy 30 or 40-something. "Edgy" makes for shitty employees and unreliable romantic partners. Upside? You'll have a few dollars in your pocket now so you can drink something OTHER than PBR, AND afford to treat your partner to some cuisine other than something served from a truck parked outside your favorite ironic dive bar).
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Been A While...
I don't go on rants as often as I used to. The reasons as to why are many I'm sure (or not...who knows?), but I still do take notice of the occasional annoying/petty/stupid/hypocritical things people and society at large, do. And so, without further adieu, the most recent annoying things I feel are comment worthy.
-There's this radio ad I've heard several times the last few weeks for lasik surgery. As a guy who now wears glasses, I can understand how there might be a market for people who wish to have their vision permanently improved, and remove the need for wearing glasses/contacts. Now, you would think a radio ad for such a surgical procedure would go something like this: "Tired of wearing glasses/contacts? With a short surgical procedure we can restore your vision back to 20/20...permanently." There you go. An ad that tells you what the service is and what it can do for you. Short and to the pont. Clear in its intent and succinct. But that would be too simple and make too much sense, wouldn't it? You see, advertising is all fear based. Rather than show you a useful and life improving service or product, and illustrate how that product can work for you, advertisers like to instill a sense of dread in their target audience that if they don't buy this product, your life will take a turn for the worse. You will smell worse, your penis won't work right, your hair won't grow/lay flat/be wavy/be blond-red-brunette, the hair you DON'T want won't go away and keep growing, you'll get fat, you'll be too skinny and won't gain muscle weight, the car you drive isn't sexy enough, the car you drive isn't practical enough, the car you drive isn't green enough, etc., etc. So, you may or may not be asking yourself, how could you possibly freak somebody out with a lasik commercial? Like this: the commercial starts out with the sounds of what appears to be somebody breaking into a house, presumably late at night. The wife freaks out in a hushed panicky voice, and the husband fumbles around stating "I can't find my glasses!!!" The woman says "Oh my god...they're inside...the children! What about the children???" And the guy states: "I can't see a thing...where'd I leave my glasses????" The wife then states: "What are we gonna do???" Good question lady. Perhaps you could start by calling 911? So, there you go. According to the lasik people, if you don't have their procedure, you will be murdered in your bedroom by a gang of thrill kill psychopaths breaking into your home, and your kids will be either sold off into a Russian white slavery ring, or, dragged down into some sort of torture dungeon. Wow. Pretty grisly stuff, and definitely a good reason to get that lasik surgery! However, what I'm confused about is how this scenario is supposed to play out differently if the man had, in fact, already had the lasik procedure. Would it go something like this: Sound of people breaking in home. Wife to husband: "Well honey, you know what to do." Man calmly, but with a bit of pity in his voice, almost Eastwood-like, "Yep. Be back in a sec", as he knows that the evil doers who just broke into their house have no idea what they're in for...and that is some seriously vision corrected ass kicking. Man goes downstairs and the following is heard: "Oh my god...he's not wearing glasses!!! RUN!!!" Then there's the sound of what appears to be laser beams being fired. "Oh my god! His lasik corrected perfect vision is burning a hole right through my chest! Arrrrrrhhgghgghhg!!!!!" Then there's the sound of hearts exploding and sizzling flesh. "Eat hot lasik death you burglarizing evil doing pieces of filth!!!! Muwahahaha!!!! Get some! Get some!!!!" More laser vision being fired, more hearts exploding with the sound of panicky bad guys meeting a gruesome end as they die horrifying deaths. After the grotesque, but triumphant scene downstairs, the man goes back upstairs, eyeballs his wife, and states: "Poor fucks never knew what hit them...thank you lasik eye surgery center. Now give me some sugar baby..." Aaaaaand scene.
Anyway, this commercial kinda pissed me off because they basically equated wearing glasses to sacrificing the potential well being of your family...which I find reprehensible.
-I woke up this morning at 4am thinking one of a few things had happened, due to the nuclear fusion like illumination burning THROUGH the curtains of my bedroom window. 1) the apocalypse was indeed upon us and all those fundamentalists were right. Oh shit. 2) the last day of Burning Man was being celebrated in my back yard and nobody invited me. The bastards. 3) A small tactical nuke had been set off as Al Queda had determined my neighborhood was a high value target...I'm guessing due to our overly infidel adherence to maintaining our landscaping and pools. 4) The sun had just gone supernova and I had eight minutes to live...which made me contemplate there was no need to get out of my warm bed and take a leak after all. I think I could probably hold out for eight minutes. 5) The mothership had just landed outside my window, the aliens were here, and I was about to get an anal probe. Man...talk about a buzz kill. Hopefully the gray, big eyed bastards would have the decency to buy me a drink first...you now...kinda ease into it. 6) My idiot neighbor had just installed a backyard light that had the equivalent of 14 trillion candlepower. Well, it was #6. Is there any reason to illuminate your backyard with the brilliance of a Class A star? What in the hell are you trying to illuminate back there? You concerned Charlie is hiding in the tree line and are going to need to call in an air strike? Maybe you are anticipating the need to crack a chest and do a little impromptu open heart surgery next to the bbq pit at 3am? "Scalpel. Check. Chest spreader? Check. Clamp? Check? Spatula and tongs? Check. Ok. Lets save a life...and for crying out loud..keep an eye on those burgers...oh, and pass me a cold one...I'm going in." I don't really know how to finish this thought other than saying my neighbor sucks. I think that probably sums it up nicely.
-I would really like to know what goes on in peoples heads as they're driving (actual answer: nothing is going on in their heads other than the sound of waves crashing on the beach, the buzz of a solitary fly, or the sound of an EKG machine when it's flatlining...you know, that "bewwwwwwwwwwwwww" sound). I ask this question because of the following encounter: I was exiting the freeway at an over crossing. The over crossing has an unusually high crown to it, which basically means you can't see oncoming traffic to the left or right until they've crested the rise and are almost right on top of you. So, you have to be careful and really hyper vigilant as you pull into traffic. I look left and right, and left again. No oncoming cars. I start to pull into traffic by making a left turn, and, like a Scud missile screaming across the desert, came a tatted up idiot in a graphics laden Mustang. Because I was actually paying fucking attention to what I was doing, I saw the methed out tweaker maniac coming and promptly stopped my car before entering the lane. This is a crucial point I want to get across here: I stopped before entering the lane, and he was still a good 100 ft. away. So, here now is the scene: the oncoming Mustang's lane is still WIDE OPEN, I'm stopped while he was still 100 ft. away, and there is no traffic obstruction as he approached. So what does this basement dweller of Maslow's Hierarchy do as he drives by completely unencumbered by me or anybody else? Yep. He honks. Apparently this Affliction hat wearing, tattooed neck having, graphics Mustang sporting lunkhead was not the unmitigated asshole I made him out to be, but was, in fact, a theoretical physicist. I say this because the only reason I can imagine that he would have honked when there was absolutely no danger of a collision is because, in that short amount of time, he worked a quick calculation in his head and wanted to let me know that in alternate, parallel universe, we had a collision. In some alternate reality, we were no doubt having a conversation where he was trying to explain to me "Yes, he WOULD have had car insurance had he not spent his last $150 on a new tattoo and would I consider an 1/8oz of weed as fair compensation for my damage" and "Just because he was doing 65mph in a 40mph zone he doesn't see how any of this could be his fault...but he's got the hook up with a bouncer at a local strip club if I'm willing to forget this happened...". Needless to say, I greatly appreciate his desire to expand my physics loving mind into the realm of worlds just beyond the thin membrane that separates them from our own...
Then again, may be it was a congratulatory honk celebrating my professional alertness whilst behind the wheel, and how my vigilant driving posture saved us from having a collision due to his driving with his head up his ass. Maybe his honk said: "Well played my good man! Your strict adherence to actually paying attention to what your doing has paid off handsomely good sir, as your efforts prevented us from having a rather unfortunate collision due to my disgusting, self absorbed carelessness!"
Nah...I seriously doubt it...I think he was most likely just an asshole.
-There's this radio ad I've heard several times the last few weeks for lasik surgery. As a guy who now wears glasses, I can understand how there might be a market for people who wish to have their vision permanently improved, and remove the need for wearing glasses/contacts. Now, you would think a radio ad for such a surgical procedure would go something like this: "Tired of wearing glasses/contacts? With a short surgical procedure we can restore your vision back to 20/20...permanently." There you go. An ad that tells you what the service is and what it can do for you. Short and to the pont. Clear in its intent and succinct. But that would be too simple and make too much sense, wouldn't it? You see, advertising is all fear based. Rather than show you a useful and life improving service or product, and illustrate how that product can work for you, advertisers like to instill a sense of dread in their target audience that if they don't buy this product, your life will take a turn for the worse. You will smell worse, your penis won't work right, your hair won't grow/lay flat/be wavy/be blond-red-brunette, the hair you DON'T want won't go away and keep growing, you'll get fat, you'll be too skinny and won't gain muscle weight, the car you drive isn't sexy enough, the car you drive isn't practical enough, the car you drive isn't green enough, etc., etc. So, you may or may not be asking yourself, how could you possibly freak somebody out with a lasik commercial? Like this: the commercial starts out with the sounds of what appears to be somebody breaking into a house, presumably late at night. The wife freaks out in a hushed panicky voice, and the husband fumbles around stating "I can't find my glasses!!!" The woman says "Oh my god...they're inside...the children! What about the children???" And the guy states: "I can't see a thing...where'd I leave my glasses????" The wife then states: "What are we gonna do???" Good question lady. Perhaps you could start by calling 911? So, there you go. According to the lasik people, if you don't have their procedure, you will be murdered in your bedroom by a gang of thrill kill psychopaths breaking into your home, and your kids will be either sold off into a Russian white slavery ring, or, dragged down into some sort of torture dungeon. Wow. Pretty grisly stuff, and definitely a good reason to get that lasik surgery! However, what I'm confused about is how this scenario is supposed to play out differently if the man had, in fact, already had the lasik procedure. Would it go something like this: Sound of people breaking in home. Wife to husband: "Well honey, you know what to do." Man calmly, but with a bit of pity in his voice, almost Eastwood-like, "Yep. Be back in a sec", as he knows that the evil doers who just broke into their house have no idea what they're in for...and that is some seriously vision corrected ass kicking. Man goes downstairs and the following is heard: "Oh my god...he's not wearing glasses!!! RUN!!!" Then there's the sound of what appears to be laser beams being fired. "Oh my god! His lasik corrected perfect vision is burning a hole right through my chest! Arrrrrrhhgghgghhg!!!!!" Then there's the sound of hearts exploding and sizzling flesh. "Eat hot lasik death you burglarizing evil doing pieces of filth!!!! Muwahahaha!!!! Get some! Get some!!!!" More laser vision being fired, more hearts exploding with the sound of panicky bad guys meeting a gruesome end as they die horrifying deaths. After the grotesque, but triumphant scene downstairs, the man goes back upstairs, eyeballs his wife, and states: "Poor fucks never knew what hit them...thank you lasik eye surgery center. Now give me some sugar baby..." Aaaaaand scene.
Anyway, this commercial kinda pissed me off because they basically equated wearing glasses to sacrificing the potential well being of your family...which I find reprehensible.
-I woke up this morning at 4am thinking one of a few things had happened, due to the nuclear fusion like illumination burning THROUGH the curtains of my bedroom window. 1) the apocalypse was indeed upon us and all those fundamentalists were right. Oh shit. 2) the last day of Burning Man was being celebrated in my back yard and nobody invited me. The bastards. 3) A small tactical nuke had been set off as Al Queda had determined my neighborhood was a high value target...I'm guessing due to our overly infidel adherence to maintaining our landscaping and pools. 4) The sun had just gone supernova and I had eight minutes to live...which made me contemplate there was no need to get out of my warm bed and take a leak after all. I think I could probably hold out for eight minutes. 5) The mothership had just landed outside my window, the aliens were here, and I was about to get an anal probe. Man...talk about a buzz kill. Hopefully the gray, big eyed bastards would have the decency to buy me a drink first...you now...kinda ease into it. 6) My idiot neighbor had just installed a backyard light that had the equivalent of 14 trillion candlepower. Well, it was #6. Is there any reason to illuminate your backyard with the brilliance of a Class A star? What in the hell are you trying to illuminate back there? You concerned Charlie is hiding in the tree line and are going to need to call in an air strike? Maybe you are anticipating the need to crack a chest and do a little impromptu open heart surgery next to the bbq pit at 3am? "Scalpel. Check. Chest spreader? Check. Clamp? Check? Spatula and tongs? Check. Ok. Lets save a life...and for crying out loud..keep an eye on those burgers...oh, and pass me a cold one...I'm going in." I don't really know how to finish this thought other than saying my neighbor sucks. I think that probably sums it up nicely.
-I would really like to know what goes on in peoples heads as they're driving (actual answer: nothing is going on in their heads other than the sound of waves crashing on the beach, the buzz of a solitary fly, or the sound of an EKG machine when it's flatlining...you know, that "bewwwwwwwwwwwwww" sound). I ask this question because of the following encounter: I was exiting the freeway at an over crossing. The over crossing has an unusually high crown to it, which basically means you can't see oncoming traffic to the left or right until they've crested the rise and are almost right on top of you. So, you have to be careful and really hyper vigilant as you pull into traffic. I look left and right, and left again. No oncoming cars. I start to pull into traffic by making a left turn, and, like a Scud missile screaming across the desert, came a tatted up idiot in a graphics laden Mustang. Because I was actually paying fucking attention to what I was doing, I saw the methed out tweaker maniac coming and promptly stopped my car before entering the lane. This is a crucial point I want to get across here: I stopped before entering the lane, and he was still a good 100 ft. away. So, here now is the scene: the oncoming Mustang's lane is still WIDE OPEN, I'm stopped while he was still 100 ft. away, and there is no traffic obstruction as he approached. So what does this basement dweller of Maslow's Hierarchy do as he drives by completely unencumbered by me or anybody else? Yep. He honks. Apparently this Affliction hat wearing, tattooed neck having, graphics Mustang sporting lunkhead was not the unmitigated asshole I made him out to be, but was, in fact, a theoretical physicist. I say this because the only reason I can imagine that he would have honked when there was absolutely no danger of a collision is because, in that short amount of time, he worked a quick calculation in his head and wanted to let me know that in alternate, parallel universe, we had a collision. In some alternate reality, we were no doubt having a conversation where he was trying to explain to me "Yes, he WOULD have had car insurance had he not spent his last $150 on a new tattoo and would I consider an 1/8oz of weed as fair compensation for my damage" and "Just because he was doing 65mph in a 40mph zone he doesn't see how any of this could be his fault...but he's got the hook up with a bouncer at a local strip club if I'm willing to forget this happened...". Needless to say, I greatly appreciate his desire to expand my physics loving mind into the realm of worlds just beyond the thin membrane that separates them from our own...
Then again, may be it was a congratulatory honk celebrating my professional alertness whilst behind the wheel, and how my vigilant driving posture saved us from having a collision due to his driving with his head up his ass. Maybe his honk said: "Well played my good man! Your strict adherence to actually paying attention to what your doing has paid off handsomely good sir, as your efforts prevented us from having a rather unfortunate collision due to my disgusting, self absorbed carelessness!"
Nah...I seriously doubt it...I think he was most likely just an asshole.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Bastards at the Reeses Corporation
Have you seen the advertisements for the new Reeses Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups? I don't see how you could have missed them. They are on almost as much as erectile dysfunction drug commercials (it seems as if Viva Viagra is on in the background every 12 seconds). For those of you who may know me (and for those of you who do not, I'm going to fill you in here), you know how I feel about Peanut Butter Cups. They are only second to the taco as the worlds most perfect food. I love them. In fact, love may be an understatement...it doesn't sound intense enough. Insane, "stalker like obsession" may be a better fit. Got a bowl of miniature Peanut Butter Cups laying around on the holidays? I'm the guy who gets stressed out at the thought I can't just have them to myself and may actually have to share some. Anyway, there's this new Peanut Butter Cup out. Needless to say, I'd like to try it. Guess what? I can't. Not because I lack the 75 cents to purchase one for myself. No. The reason is I cannot find them at the store. The Reeses Corp. is putting on this boner drug like televised advertising assault, instilling in me an obsessive need to try this new potentially life altering product, and yet, and here's the really sick and perverse part, apparently refusing to fill my local grocery store with said product. Isn't that the height of cruelty? Never mind my friends have tried the new Peanut Butter Cup and said it was not that great. DOESN'T MATTER. It's my right as a Peanut Butter Cup aficionado to DECIDE FOR MYSELF their new product is crap. Right? So why are they denying me, their biggest fan, access to their peanut buttery goodness while they waste it on other less appreciative consumers (I'm thinking Midwestern white bread types...the kind of people who find ketchup as being "almost too spicy")? Sure, give it up like a drunken prom date to somebody who cannot appreciate the delicate complexity of your unique flavors Reeses people, but extend a giant middle finger to the guy sophisticated enough to appreciate and revel in your subtle nuance! Bastards.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Sooo....lets type something...
I watch a lot of late night tv. I am up all night when the world is asleep (example, I went for a jog last night at 230 am. I'm wondering if the neighbors think I have a meth addiction. "Look at that tweeker running around the lake at 230 in the morning...tsk tsk...its sad what drugs can do to a man...why doesn't his family get him into rehab?"), so there isn't much to do other than watch tv (occasionally, when I'm feeling really rambunctious, I'll do a load of laundry). If you haven't watched any late night tv lately, you're missing out. Rather than programming interrupted by commercials, it's actually commercials interrupted by programming. And the commercials are priceless. Its non stop dick remedies, all the time. Just ooooooone penis drug after another. Make it harder, bigger, help you pee, increase your urine flow (REALLY??? I thought that's what beer was for?), get your herpes under control, etc etc. Good lord, when did the nation stop obsessing about tits and ass and start focusing on the dangler? Anywhoo, one of these snake oil (Ha! Get it? "Snake"? Right...moving on...) commercials is for a product called Extenze. To cut to the chase, it's supposed to make your dick bigger. Whatever. But here's the priceless part. It's called "maximum" strength Extenze. Maximum strength? Really? Is there a minimum strength? You know, a pill for the guy who feels "Yeah, I've got a nice trouser snake, but you know, another 1/16 of an inch might be nice. I don't want to go all John Holmes, but a little extra so the pants fit right...and that's why I use minimum strength Extenze. When a little is more than enough." It's as if that "maximum strength" label is there to assure the customer "Sir, you're in good hands now. This pill is the most potent dick enlarger out there. It's MAXIMUM STRENGTH, and normally, we wouldn't allow it on humans, as it's only been tested on orangutans, and the first guy who tried it had his balls blow off, but dammit, we're going to fix-your-dick. You deserve nothing less! Or, in this case...um, you know...more. So say goodbye to that third thumb and hello third leg!!!"
Anyway, enough with the constant barrage of Johnson talk. Can't we go back to the tasteless advertising we're all used to? You know, the good God fearing commercials featuring the feminine hygiene products soaked in some mysterious blue fluid?
Anyway, enough with the constant barrage of Johnson talk. Can't we go back to the tasteless advertising we're all used to? You know, the good God fearing commercials featuring the feminine hygiene products soaked in some mysterious blue fluid?
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