I admitted last time that I don’t go to a lot of movies. And I don’t watch much on TV either, other than sports. And occasionally stuff on Discovery/History/Nature. And Scrubs. And PTI. With those last two, we’ve discovered the benefits of DVR. A significant upgrade from the old VCR recordings we might have done, DVR allows us to record lots of stuff, watch it when we want, and skip the commercials.  Which is a strange thing to say, because today it’s commercials that I want to talk about.

It would seem obvious to me that commercials should be aimed at making the viewer think that a product is desirable, that by using it your life will improve, and that the people in the commercials are clear evidence of that. Accordingly, we see before-and-after pictures of people who have lost weight, removed body hair, botoxed their faces, restored the finish to their cars, etc. So why, then, do beer companies compete to show us whose consumers are the STUPIDEST?

Yes, I know, they’re meant to entertain, and some are truly funny. But come on – guys will spend all this time and money to build a secret revolving wall so they can steal their next door neighbor’s Bud Light? Wouldn’t the beer be a heck of a lot cheaper? Or shouldn’t the reward be something better than Bud Light anyway? That brand seems to take great pride in portraying its customers as the dumbest, doesn’t it? Guys going to a wine-and-cheese party, and hiding beer in a big thing of cheese? I suppose we’re not to take this literally, and I get that, but still …

Miller Lite had some great ads many years ago, really funny “Tastes Great / Less Filling” spots that probably did a lot to make that brand successful. And I guess we should expect today’s commercials to be dumbed down just as the rest of TV seems to be. But some of them just annoy me. Maybe I’m not the target audience, though. Hmmm.

Would lousy spots prevent me from buying Bud Light? No, but the taste of the product would. There are, however, a couple of advertisers whose series of commercials that are so bad I have sworn never to partronize them. The first are the obnoxious ambulance-chaser lawyer ads. Don’t these guys realize how ugly they are? The second is the local car dealer who insists on plastering his annoyingly cute daughters all over town – billboards, TV commercials, etc. Poor kids – probably 10 years old, and already destined for rehab!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Al. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.