I want to throw a bottle of homebrew beer at my beloved.
No, not my wife Millie, though she probably feels like that with me occasionally, I’m sure. No, I wish to waste an example of my hobby on my big screen TV. Maybe I can find an infected one? Oh, and yes, I do love my big screen TV. I laugh now when I think of how much I cringed when we decided to pony up buckaroos to buy it.
Why do we “pony up?” How come we never “horse up,” or “mule up,” or “donkey up?” I do know that too often we “jackass up” every election year, but more on that in a moment.
On the big screen: Caesar’s Pizza…
Damn, I’m sick of this ad. A whole group of weird people over acting, while mugging for the camera, while singing, “Nobody does it like we do…” Kind of sucks to be the advertiser because, at first, yes, it may have been slightly annoying, but also a bit cute. “Hey, Millie, look, they even hired that mime guy we saw in the park begging for money! Glad he finally got a job. But wasn’t he wearing a trench coat and nothing else before?”
Then it starts. I know what my Communications professor used to call “make goods” when I see them. Caesars was promised a certain share of the market and didn’t get it. So, to “make good,” they not only over play the ad by playing it every break, but they play it again, and again, and again in one break… after every other ad.
Has anyone ever done market testing on this tactic? I suspect not. I’m damn sure, with decent market testing, they’d find it drives customers away.
To rephrase, “Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings…”
“Every time the ad does replay another customer goes away… ”
…and, perhaps, another big screen TV gets sold when the guys who come to fix it say, “We don’t do repairs on machine-gunned LGs.”
Do the Geek Squad guys and gals own bullet proof vests?
Yes, a mild annoying, or even slightly amusing, ad can become a severe test of one’s anger management skills.
Where’s my damn double barrel 12 gauge? I’ll need to clean it after I point and pull both triggers.
Which brings up Mitt Romney’s ad campaign. No one in the country has missed the fact that giant media buys have been going on and; thanks to the Supreme Court and Citizen’s United, we can’t know who the benefactors behind the scene are. As far as we know Hitler’s ghost could be spending all that hidden Nazi gold on Mitt. You know, the cache Indiana Jones never found. Maybe the illegal immigrant, terrorist, Socialist, Muslims are funding Barack, if you buy the foul diaper load FOX tries to sell as “news.”
But everyone with brains knows who will be getting the most money out of the Citizens United decision and who the Supreme 5 were trying to help. Everyone knows who the largest corporations, and maybe at least one country, want to help. And it ain’t Barack.
So now we have something even more obnoxious to look forward to this fall. I think most of the public by Election Day are going to want to nuke their TVs and Hannibal Lector the over advertised candidates.
Or “candidate?”
So on the bright… (?) …side, if all the Richie Rich media buys do overkill what’s always a vast overkill-ed every election year, advertising-wise, maybe it will all may be a lot like my shotgun. You see I do have a double barrel 12 gauge. But that 1800s ball and cap action antique is in wretched shape. You don’t dare shoot it. The Damascus barrel will unravel and go backwards: into you. Even if your name’s not Britney you will be… speared.
So, I wonder… when the richest Richie Rich candidate we’ve ever had shoots his Godzilla-size wads this fall, will it annoy us more than we’re all annoyed by election time? Will the current political Thurston from Gilligan’s Island lose so bad he’ll… Howell?
If that happens I will admit that maybe my griping about Citizen’s United, in this one case, was misguided. Sometimes the worst, most evil and insidious intentions can backfire.
Then, this one time, I will tilt my head upward to the current 5 election decider wannabe Gods on high and say…
“Thank you Supreme Court.”
-30-
Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
©Copyright 2011
Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
All Rights Reserved
On a note almost totally unrelated to your article. Big screen TV’s are one of the reason the demand for electricity keeps going up. Though the energy usage for TV sets has gone down, we keep upgrading to bigger and bigger sets and therefore do not realize that savings. Same with many other appliances. We get bigger items, or ones with more features. The instant on feature means we burn energy even when they are not in use.
Even basic lighting has gone upscale. Where we once had a lamp beside a chair, an overhead when needed; modern homes have all kinds of recessed and decorative lighting, and we have all somehow become afraid of the dark.
Which reminds me, everyone else has left for the day, I should go check on which lights were left on.
On point with your topic. I don’t think much of the advertising industry cares whether or not ads work. Advertising has become increasingly annoying.
I think it is linked in some weird financial scam like the mortgage industry.
For companies that display ads, like TV, radio, magazines, websites, Facebook – it only matters that the ads run and how often – that’s what they get paid on. As long as people buy their paper, go their site, they get paid, and can demand higher prices.
I hate all these TV sets that are showing up in grocery schools, and even my public library, to run ads – if only I had a pair of wire cutters…..