There’s a new advertisement out for a car, and as I’m watching it I see an iMac (the new flat panel sexor ones) and I say “Nice way to me subtle.” They’re only showing it such that a nerd like me who knows what the iMac looks like, and is grossly familiar with Safari, would recognize. As soon as I said it, they turned the camera to show the words iMac on the back. Okay, not so subtle.
It got me thinking about all the advertisements I see in the wrong ad. I mean, the times you watch an ad for insurance, but all you think is ‘Red Lobster’ and from there, ‘Project Runway.’ Which I guess you only think if you watch Project Runway and know what I mean when I ask “What happened to Andre? Where’s our little lamb?”
Right.
Anyway, I started thinking of all the commercials I see where I miss the point because I’m distracted by the ‘subplot’. Like the ones for sponsoring a poor kid in africa? They show a well dressed, well fed fellow telling you about how this poor girl has no food. This is when Ipstenit says “Nice shoes he’s wearing.” And a moment later? That guy says the girl can’t afford shoes. Thus the point is illustrated.
The other type of ads that get me are the ones that are wrong. Like Disney and their ads for online games. They demonstrate it using Safari on a Mac, only I know very well that most of their stuff doesn’t work well on a Mac. Dweebs. Like watching the movie Hackers and how they have all this amazing graphics for hacking.
Let me put this in plain english. Watching computer code is more boring than watching paint dry. It’s text and a hacked up language, where vowels are left out and syntax is king. Mind you, the movie Hackers did a fantastic job of representing a visual interpretation of what hacking feels like, and for that they get points. That and for Angelina Jolie. But their use of a Mac OS 7 to hack is not how you do it. I suppose in 1995 you could have, but I would have used *nix.
Anyway. Commercials within commercials are, by in large, accidents. They’re obviously trying to sell us on an item, but all they do is make us think of the wrong thing. There’s a wine commercial that always gets me, because some jackass is proposing while pouring her a bottle of screw-top wine. Any US Cellular commercial makes me think of the TV show Buffy, because Joan Cusak has fruit punch mouth.
I guess that’s the problem with a lot of modern commercials. They’re trying to grab your attention, but they can’t promise that you’re going to catch the right topic. All those TLC life lesson commercials make anyone think is ‘What weird little statues.’ The list is endless.