neorants

[ The following was originally posted on Tue, May 16 15:59:58 2000, LONG before the recent site overhaul, but is posted here in case you're just tuning in ]

It’s been a long time since my last rant, but this subject has been brewing in my mind for some time now. I am sick and tired of these stupid commercials that try to come off intelligent, but just end up being downright stupid! I can’t so much as turn on the TV anymore before I get bombarded by some moronic “young adults” dancing around against a completely white background to some not-at-all-cool-no-matter-how-much-the-record-labels-try-to-bring-it-back-into-style swing music!

“Crazy!” “Cool.” “Crazy!” “Cool.” “Are you a jean or a khaki?”

What the heck kind of question is that supposed to be? If I see one more GAP (tm, sm, registered, copyright, we will send our lawyers after you if you don’t add this crap after our name) commercial asking me some stupid question after such a mind-numbing dance number, I swear I’ll start answering their questions out loud. “Neither, I’m a deranged lunatic out to kill your CEO!” I’ll say. And I’ll only be half-joking. Push me the other half, ad execs… please.

These days, it’s all about name recognition. Companies don’t even try to sell their products in ads anymore, they’re just out for mindshare. Fine, but at least come up with something clever, like the Taco Bell dog, or the Geico insurance commercials. Wait a minute, nevermind. Those commercials actually attempt to sell something! What a novel idea!

Maybe I just don’t get it. I mean, there must be a huge percentage of people out there who find it much more helpful to base their buying decisions on how trendy a company’s commercials are. I mean, any company that can hire a bunch of washed-up actors and greenscreen a dog onto a surfboard in a commercial touting “Performance Fleece” surely deserves my hard-earned cash! Nevermind that nobody at all knows what makes this wondrous fleece “perform.” I mean, why sell a product when you can put some old lady on the screen with big glasses and have everyone run around her singing “Performance fleece?” It’s a stroke of genius! It’s “quirky,” and people like “quirky.” After all, it gives their brand a personality.

Nevermind that the personality it gives the company is of that weird old lady down the street whose house smells just slightly off. You know, the one who spouts off stuff like “I knew a groundhog once, he was a fine young lad,” at the top of her lungs, as if that sentence forms some semblance of a rational thought?

I’m just not cut out for advertising. I could never think something up as clever as having a bunch of people float and dance around in front of a zillion target symbols. Note that I mean Target in the generic sense, and not in the company trademarked sense of Target… oops, I mean… target, with a lowercase T, yeah, that’s it. I mean, it takes a mind far more developed than mine to come up with that stuff. What’ll they think of next?