Commercial Craze

I have long been fascinated by commercials.

Even as a little kid, I often liked the commercials better than the show. Such was my fascination that it prompted me to explore marketing and advertising, and eventually led me down the path to a career in public relations.

There are many classes of commercials, and over the years I’ve learned a thing or two about advertising and marketing ploys.

Still, I find myself constantly judging commercials, giving each one a letter grade. If it’s so bland I’m bored, it gets an F. If it’s badly done, but gets my attention due to the producer’s incompetence, it gets a D. If it’s mildly entertaining, and I can remember the product name 10 seconds after it’s done, it gets a C. If I laugh in my mind or am made to think hard about a subject, it gets a B. And, if I laugh out loud or want to cry (or whatever the desired response is) each time I see it, it gets a bona fide A.

Very rare things, those A’s.

Then, there are those other commercials. The ones I’m not exactly sure how to grade, since, well… here’s an example –

I was watching this commercial of a bunch of different guys with guitars - in all different parts of the country. One guy is sitting in a honky-tonk bar, strumming his guitar, the other guy is in a barn during a hoe down, one is sitting by the New York subway, and another one is in a jazz club. The camera cuts to each guy, sitting and strumming, the same song.

The tune is set to Viva, Las Vegas! but the words are different. The guys are singing about their wives and how much they love them.

I like Viva, Las Vegas! and the tune IS catchy, so I’m kind of humming along waiting for the inevitable moment when they burst out with VIVA, LAS VEGAS!

And then the camera cuts to the guitar player in the jazz club who proudly bursts out with VIVA, VIAGRA!

I was so mad! I LOVE that song, and now they've forever ruined by tying it to an ED drug.

I know, I know, I should have seen it coming. Guitars? Manly men? Yep, it’s a Viagra drug ad. But, I have to admit (and I’m not proud of this) I was completely blindsided.

I even burst out, “WHAT?!” after I was cheated out of my big singing moment. Brett laughed pretty hard.

“What did you think it was for?” he asked. Apparently men have a Viagra ad sensor, and he immediately knew what it was for, since he swore on a stack of Bibles he’d never seen it before.

“Not Viagra,” was all I could come up with. “Definitely not Viagra.”

There is another ad currently getting on my nerves. It is the new Old Navy ad for their three different jeans – the Diva Cut, the Flirt Cut, and the Sweetheart Cut. Now, I guess they’ve proved themselves, since I am able to remember the cut names while still hating the commercial, but I’m never buying a pair of those jeans.

I don’t like Old Navy anyway. It’s just not my style. It’s inevitably cheap fabric produced for the masses with a cookie-cutter monotony and lack of style I personally don’t find the least bit attractive. If you want to look like everybody else, sure…shop at Old Navy.

Setting my preferences aside, I’ve plenty of friends (especially in college) who love Old Navy. I really didn’t think about the store all that much until they started running these commercials.

The commercial consists of these three girls. I’m going to call them girls; although these are not the type of girls my mom would have wanted me hanging out with at any point in my life. I see the phrase Bad Influence hanging over their heads.

Anyway, the girls already have one strike against them as the camera shows the three of them walking down the street together. There is nothing but air where their thigh fat should be. Their legs have an inverted U shape that makes me sick. A woman would have to be unbelievable skinny to have that shape. It’s almost physically impossible to be that thin.

Secondly, the ad shows each of the girls in some sort of interaction with men. The Flirt Cut Girl is especially guilty, biting her lip, as she sends heavy-lidded fretful glances to the mirror. She slyly sidles up to the guy’s closet and begins humping the doorway. Or so it seems.

For his part, the guys is pulling on his shirt, buttoning it (up…down, I can’t tell) and you’re led to believe that either some hanky-panky just ended or is about to start.

Either way, I’m not seeing what jeans have to do with it.

The girls all wear dark make-up and have a better-than-you attitude that actually just makes me want to shred their jeans, not buy a pair of my own.

I realize, of course, that the people at Old Navy are not marketing to me. They already know someone like me isn’t going to buy their jeans.

At least, not until they make the Chubby Cut.