Pretty much every commercial nowadays is stupid and corny. There are some, however, that reach such a height of stupidity so as to approach absolute absurdity. These are the commercials that warm my heart, and consequently my blood to a point of boiling.
Here's what is baffling about commercials and consumerism in general -- companies make their commercials outlandishly stupid so that people will remember their product, which begs the question, "If it takes a dumb commerical for a person to remember a product, is the product really necessary?" Ninety percent of the shit that is showcased in advertisements is completely unnecessary for a fulfilling life, yet people seem to think that material accumulation will bring ethereal fulfillment.
Here are some exceptionally stupid commercial advertisements which have certainly done their job of making me remember their featured products.
"There's no shame in soft skin."
This comes from the TV commercial where two guys are doing the real kind of wrestling, with those head-cap earmuff things on their heads. One of them has the other in a submission hold and is about to pin him or whatever. The guy in submission remarks to his foe, "Your skin is really soft." The guy on top is like "What!?" But the guy in submission reassures, "No, it's nice." The above-mentioned tagline follows.
Now, there is nothing wrong with this tagline by itself. There certainly is no shame in soft skin. If you have soft skin, good for you. There is shame, however, in 1) watching a commercial for a product that will supposedly give you soft skin, 2) being a big enough dumbass so as to be presuaded into positively wanting soft skin from hearing the non-motivational idea of there being "no shame in soft skin," and 3) making it a point to actually go out and buy the product. That constitutes a shame of the highest order. And if the same course is taken at the behest of a partner, it's even more shameful, because it's basically assuming a bitch role about becoming a bitch.
Bottom line, men don't need soft skin. Even if a partner does desire that, what's the point? What good does soft skin do for a man during his 7-8 hours of sleep every night, his 8 hours of work every day, and the other 8 hours of his apparently pitiful, corporate-ad-directed daily existence? There actually would be no problem with this product if it wasn't marketed so stupidly. Sure, men need to shower every now and then, but to attach such a great novelty as soft skin to such a bare necessity as hygiene is just absurd. Fuck Old Spice.
"Square up to the ball, extend your backswing... and NEVER PAY TOO MUCH FOR GAS."
This was on one end of a row of gas pumps at an Arco station. Accompanying this odd piece of advice was a photo of a white guy in golf attire, gazing happily into the distance, presumably reveling in the joy of paying $3.49 & 9/10 for a gallon of gas, because that's not quite $3.50, and it's certainly not the $3.59 & 9/10 that those greedy Shell bastards from across the street are charging for the same gallon of gas. I mean, damn! With that one whole dollar he's saving on ten gallons of gas, he can go out and get himself a nice piece of NOTHING. But hey, let's say he fills up once a week; that's one extra lap dance at the gentlemen's club every year! Arco could make that their selling point: "Buy 500 gallons of gas, get 1 lap dance ABSOLUTELY FREE!"
The fact that Arco's gas is ten cents cheaper than that of the companies that take credit cards doesn't mean buying their gas makes economic sense. In most cases, you're better off buying gas from the nearest station regardless of brand because you'll end up spending your "savings" on cheaper gas just by getting to it. In addition, if you want to pay with an ATM card at Arco, you get charged $0.45, which in itself eliminates much of what you would have saved by going there in the first place. All gas prices are a rip off right now. If Arco was ten cents cheaper from a base of $0.20 per gallon, their gas would be a steal, but there's just not enough of a difference between $3.60 and $3.50 to call the latter a good value.
And what the fuck do the proper mechanics of swinging a golf club have to do with gasoline? What's the angle there? The best I can come up with is that they're trying to relate the relaxing ethos of golf with not stressing out about paying too much for gas? Who knows. Fuck Arco.
"People are smart."
You may know Ditech as the more commonly known Ditech.com home loan company. Apparently they've done well enough to drop the tacky ".com" and sound like a real lender. Along with their new, more professional-sounding name, their commercials have become more sophisticated and they even have their own slogan, the above quote. They currently have two commercials running that I've seen on a regular basis. The first time I saw one of them and heard "People are smart," I thought, "Hey, that's a nice change from the all-too-common cynicism!" Then I saw the rest of the commercial. It goes something like,
"People are smart, so they've always packaged things that go well together. Like mac 'n' cheese, or those keychain-flashlight-thingies. That's what inspired our home equity loan package that has a low, fixed-rate home loan with a savings account and a credit card..."
First of all, I love the brief history of things humankind has successfully packaged together to make life easier. There's no dispute that mac 'n' cheese is one of the all-time great combination packages. Oh, wait, I forgot. You also need milk and butter to make mac 'n' cheese, unless you buy the kind that comes with that shit runny cheese you have to squeeze out of a pouch. That shit doesn't pass for mac 'n' cheese. Second of all, what the fuck is a keychain-flashlight-thingy, and who the fuck has one? What "people" carry around miniature flashlights in their pockets?
It's so nice of Ditech up there to notice that we people down here like to combine things to make our lives easier. We've labored hour after hour trying to make mundane combinations like mac 'n' cheese and keychain-flashlights work out for us, and our struggles are not in vain, as we have "inspired" Ditech to create the glorious combination of a home loan, a savings account, and a credit card. Praise be to Ditech!
Ditech's other commercial starts off with the same line and continues, "so when it comes to a home loan, they don't want smoke and mirrors, they want a great rate, unless of course they're a magician, or an illuuusionist, which is just a fancy word for magician." Yeah, kind of like how "Ditech" is just a fancy version of "Ditech.com." Oh the irony!
"I love it when you talk car."
This commercial is for some new shitty Subaru wagon that only crones will buy and inevitably drive 10 mph under the speed limit right in front of you when you're trying to get somewhere in a timely fashion. In the commercial, a guy is driving the wagon and his presumed wife is sitting in the back seat naming off all the features of the wagon. After she finishes talking, the guy says with a sensual tone, "I love it when you talk car." At this point you realize that the woman in the back seat is really a prostitute, and the guy has paid her $20 to name off all the features of the wagon so that he may satisfy his odd crone-wagon fetish. Fuck Subaru.
"Dropped calls can ruin a conversation."
AT&T has always had the most consistently annoying commercials of any company, even when it was Cingular. Originally it was the "more bars in more places" sham where it shows 5 graduating bars in different contexts, like 5 graduating buildings. After the first viewing, it's like, "Oh, well that was creative." But after a year and countless slugs of stupid to the head, that concept is STILL being used for their commercials. Yeah, we got your point the first time, assholes. Make your advertising staff earn their money with a new campaign for god sake.
Apparently AT&T thinks recycling concepts is a worthwhile strategy, as evidenced by their most recent campaign, which boasts the above tagline. In an early edition, a woman with some nasty bitch-tits calls her husband with the amazing news that "WE'RE PREGNANT!" which she utters with a level of sophistication that rivals a screeching chimpanzee. However, before she had the chance to grace her husband's ears with the news, the call was unexpectedly DROPPED. Son of a bitch! No worries though since, according to AT&T, this sort of thing happens rather often other networks -- so often apparently that the lady carries on as if she has NEVER EXPERIENCED A DROPPED CALL IN HER LIFE: "Honey? Oh, you're speechless? Wow... way to step up there, Rick." It seems like someone using a network that has a lot of dropped calls would know better. I guess it's just that people who don't use AT&T are dumb.
Another edition features future hall of fame pitcher Roger Clemens. He calls his wife to ask if he can play one more year for the Yankees, but he makes it clear to her that it is all up to her: "Just say the word no and I won't do it." Unfortunately for Roger, his call is dropped right before his wife can respond with her emphatic "NO!" Not realizing his call was dropped, he interprets the silence as a yes. Filled with joy at her approval, Roger tells his people, "Guys, I'm back! She's so happy, she's speechless!" Hey, AT&T ad writers, YOU ALREADY USED THAT PUNCHLINE YOU HACKS. Writing in a celebrity for your ad doesn't protect you from creating a disaster of a script, assholes.
The newest AT&T commercial that I've seen is the one where the grandma is text messaging her "BFF Rose." This commercial may seem humorous because of the marrying of old and new: the grandma with text messaging and -- get this -- text messaging pidgin! Ah ha ha! Oh, AT&T, you clever demon, you! Actually, this commercial is not humorous at all, it's tragic. Yet another instance of a corporation trying to latch onto the culture created by its patrons and acting as though they've been right there in it the entire time. Fuck AT&T.
"Join us."
Cheetos might have the stupidest television ad campaign of all time running right now. I've only seen one commercial for it, though I presume there are or will be more. This commercial is set in a laundromat late at night, with only 3 or 4 people inside. A certain young woman is doing her laundry like normal, but this this old hag starts bitching at her for some reason. The young woman is agitated by the mere sound of the hag's voice (and who can blame her?); the fact that the content of the hag's remark is composed of bitch only makes matters worse.
Standing flustered after being caught in a bitch storm, the young woman decides to eat some Cheetos. Suddenly, she notices Chester Cheetah, of all imaginary characters, sitting a few feet away at a small table opposite a modest old man. Mr. Cheetah inputs, "Those are her whites in the dryer, aren't they?" The young woman smiles devilishly and dumps a handful of cheetos into the hag's spinning laundry. She looks back toward the table in search of Mr. Cheetah's approval, but the chair which he had occupied is now EMPTY. The screen is then filled with a huge "JOIN US" and a web URL is given, though I refrain from placing it here because its contents are despicable and likely the cause of my present affliction (nausea).
I don't care to count how many things are wrong with this Cheetos commercial in particular and its ad campaign in general, but I will attempt to divulge all such negative marks, and then perhaps I will count them retroactively. The obvious element in this commercial is that of a complete fucking copy of Fight Club. What's that? An imaginary friend that tells a person to perform childish, delinquent acts and happens to form an underground society which organizes more elaborate acts of the same nature? How original! The only thing separating the acts depicted in Fight Club and the acts endorsed by Cheetos is the fact that Fight Club's delinquency had a purpose, whereas the Cheetos version is just about being a huge dick in the name of some shitty cheese-flavored snackfood.
Cheetos is probably the only food in the world that incorporates cheese and still tastes like shit. Honestly, what doesn't cheese taste good with? Yet somehow Cheetos has still managed to make a food based entirely around cheese taste bad. For Christ's sake, how do you fuck up puffed corn and cheese? Corn and cheese has to be the easiest combination on earth to get right. Doritos got it right, Mission got it right, Fritos got it right. Even Garden of Eatin' got it right for God's sake! But not Cheetos. And is there a more annoying snack to eat? Not only do they taste like shit, but you can't do a damn thing after eating them until you wash your hands up to your elbows with soap and warm water for at least 30 seconds.
The ripping off of Fight Club does not stop with the commercial though. On the website which I refuse to link to, there are outlined several "rules" for joining and participating in this dubious snack-centered pseudo-cult. The one feature of this "revolution" (yes, they actually describe it as a revolution) which deviates from the Fight Club knock-off motif is the man outlining the rules, who, surprisingly, is not Chester Cheetah. A visit to Cheetos' flagship website offers some insight into this abnormality. It would appear as though Mr. Cheetah is currently preoccupied with his work at "The Wild Spot." His job looks rather boring, however. He has to stand in the same spot all day long and repeat the same 7 sentences every time someone clicks the "play" button next to him:
Get those clickin' fingers ready -- you just landed at The Wild Spot! What, you dont know what The Wild Spot is? It's only the biggest, best, and cheEEesiest place to go wild on the web! Oh, and keep your eyes open for the "wild spots." When you see 'em, click 'em! You never know what's gonna happen! That's why they called wild spots, you dig?
Cheesy indeed, Mr. Cheetah, cheesy indeed. His spot on the commercial must have been merely a cameo. Incidentally, the fact that his jaw seems terribly immoble is rather concerning (animal cruelty?).
By now I've forgotten what else, if anything, I was going to say about this atrocity of a commercial. I count seven things wrong with it. Fuck Cheetos.
"Think about it."
I have seen several commercials in this ad campaign of Hyundai's, and I've hated every single one of them, but one commercial in particular particularly pissed me off. The patronizing voice of the narrator enters with a bold and challenging claim:
Instant gratification has us in a stranglehold,
Really? I didn't happen to notice myself impulsively buying a Hyundai, but go on.
so much so that we don't want to fix things anymore, just replace them.
You have a point there. I really feel like just replacing your commercial with something that isn't completely asinine, like King of the Hill. Damnit, I'm on the channel showing King of the Hill.
Don't like your nose? Get a new one. Don't like your job? Get a new one. Don't like your spouse? Well... get a new one. Whatever happened to commitment, to standing by our decisions?
Preach it, sistuh! First of all, "fixing" your nose and "replacing" your nose is the same thing, so that example is invalid. Second of all, what is wrong with getting a new job if you're unhappy with your current one? You can't "fix" your job, asshole. Lastly, it's quite apparent that the spouse example was meant to be edgy because of the almost apologetic "well..." as if to say, "Well, we know this is going to sound harsh, but sometimes the truth hurts." This is another invalid example. Nobody gets in a fight with their spouse and suddenly thinks, "I am unhappy with my spouse. I will get a new one right away," as if instant gratification is even possible in such a scenario. Only a dumbass would get married and then suddenly want a new spouse without ever trying to "fix" the current relationship. This example only fits for a Britney-style Vegas wedding, but this is not what the commercial is referring to because it clearly shows an image of a bride in a formal wedding gown, as opposed to some drunk bitch in a miniskirt.
As for commitment, I think Hyundai is single-handedly breathing new life into the concept, as I'm sure people all across the country are forming new commitments to never become Hyundai owners after seeing its condescending commercials. Fuck Hyundai.
© 2007-2008 Pflanzenfaser