Progressive Application

In the third part of my series on stupid car insurance ads, I have to mention one by Progressive. The ad itself isn't that bad - a guy is in some sort of store and apparently car insurance and all of its features (customer service, etc) come in boxes. It is sort of lame, but serves a purpose of showing all the great stuff that comes along with insurance from Progressive. What is idiotic and confusing about it is the cashier. First, she is totally annoying - calling out his savings over the intercom and adding on the free services included with a little too much enthusiasm. She also has on the worst makeup I have ever seen that wasn't on a drag queen. Thick black liquid liner that looks like it was applied with a Sharpie marker and bright red lipstick that only vaguely stays within her lip line. She looks like a completely crazy person who wishes it were still the fifties. Weird, inexplicable, and very unnattractive. It totally ruins the commercial - I mean, if the features of your product are overshadowed by the apparent insanity of the person selling it, the effectiveness of your commercial is probably going to be undermined a bit.



addition: I ahve just seen a new version of these ads where the crazy lady is announcing different options Progressive has - like safe driver discounts and pet injury coverage. I think covering your pets in case of an accident is great, but the makeup is still awful.

Secret (Insurance) Agent

There seems to be a theme for car insurance companies to have stupid commercials that barely relate to the product. Yesterday I talked about the dumb dancing Geico commercials (guess what, dancing like an idiot IS easy), and today I want to talk about Esurance.com. I don't like their animated superhero/spy girl commercials. The first one at least made a little bit of sense - she was being chased by bad guys and had to buy a car quick to get away. Being able to buy and print her insurance on the spot made her transaction with the car go faster and so she was able to get away. This was stupid in terms of the cartoon factor, but at least it served to really highlight the featres of the product. Then the commercials chose to stick with this character in different situations, and now is has evolved into just a bunch of random vignettes with robots or monsters or whatever, and nothing has anything to do with car insurance except that she keeps talking about it. Dumb. I guess they are trying to go with the feeling of a continuous story like the old coffee commercials, but they have failed at establishing any sort of coherent story line. And of course, those coffee commercials were stupid, too (even thought they did have Giles from Buffy).

Cave Disco

I liked the Geico cavemen commercials. I thought they were very funny - especially the ones in the therapist's office. But what is with the new series, featuring random bad dancing? These very vaguely make sense when the caveman says "I bet Geico thinks this is easy, too", but most of the spots don't have any talking whatsoever and so they are just stupid 30 second shots of cavemen dancing. I figure these are from the same mind that thought a sitcom would be a good idea, and we all know how well that turned out. I say either stick with the existential crisis theme or drop the cavemen altogether - the gecko is still a good mascot.

Warm Delights, Cold Comfort

I have a little bit of a problem with the commercials for Betty Crocker Warm Delights. They feature a variety of women (pregnant in the kitchen, single by the tv) sitting at home alone eating these little cakes. Now we all know that these products are marketed to women - who else is typicaly going to eat an entire cake? And yes, I have eaten my share of these, especially while pregnant. My question is - can we please try to jazz up the situations we might find ourselves in while eating these for the commercials? We know that pregnant or tired moms will indulge in chocolate, as will lonely ladies who are dateless on Saturday night (I've been that too). But does it have to be rubbed in? Beer commercials don't show fat guys sitting on their boxers watching baseball in their lazy boys while they don a six pack. Instead they feature glamorous situations with hot girls so the guys feel like maybe they will be cooler if they have that brand of beer. Can't we have a little suspension of reality too? We know the types of situations when we are likely to sit around shoving chocolate cake in our mouths, and they aren't the most glamorous, but would it kill the ads to gloss over that a little? After all, nobody loves gloss like tha ladies.

Bribery.com

I have written before about an ad I liked for Hotels.com - the one featuring two shampoos. Well, there is a new one out there, and this one I think misses the mark. In this new ad a family is checking into a hotel and someone makes a comment about leaving a review on Hotels.com, and the bellman says "I think you will" while opeing a suitcase full of cash. this is not funny, and in my mind, completely undermines the whole principle of a site where regular people leave reviews for hotels. Subtle, ambiguous hints that maybe hotels are going out of there way to garner good reviews is funny. Outright bribery not so much. How can we trust the customer reviews if Hotels.com is actually telling us different places might be bribing the guests? I think they just shoot themselves in the foot with this spot. But hey, that's me. And I can totally change my mind if someone wants to show up at my door with a bag of cash.

The Bold Look Of Kohler

I absolutely love the commercial for Kohler where the guy who is supposed to be fixing/ installing the shower is actually taking the shower. How cool is that thing? With all the different body sprays and the digital system, that is the sweetest shower I have ever seen. I totally want it. And not just because I had surgery and am looking at nothing but sponge baths for the next week.

If The Government Followed Pointless Procedure – Oh, Wait…

I like the Nextel ‘if firefighters ruled the world’ commercial for its sly take on bureaucracy and the often ridiculous workings of the government. However, if they are so efficient and straightforward, why are they still bothering to use the stupid walkie talkie feature on their phone? I pretty much think that is the dumbest feature to add to a phone anyway, so using with people in the same room is just beyond brainless. It totally cancels out my appreciation for the witty set up for the ad.

Sneak A Pic

My first thought when I saw the commercial where Ashton Kutcher is in a dressing room and a bunch of girls use his camera to take pictures of themselves was that it was weird. My second thought was that it was vaguely creepy seeing as he is married. Now I have seen a second version where he is at a party and the girls are taking pictures while he takes a phone call. It is still icky in terms of the whole 'seducing a married guy' thing, but now they show him saying into the phone "it's happening right now. They don't think I know" in reference to the pics. And that I find amusing.

Yum, Minty, Kind Of

I have recently had this persistent tickle in the back of my throat that kicks in every night just as I lay down to sleep. Most irritating. Last night it finally occured ot me that it isn't really a cough and so I should try a histamine blocker instead of couch medicine. And fortunately we had some Benadryl quick dissolving strips laying around. These are great. They are like those breath strips that seem like little pieces of plastic and then dissolve on your tongue, burning a minty sensation into it. And since it is Benadryl it typically knocks me right out, which is also wonderful because then there isn't any issue of snoring keeping me awake. But I did notice one strange thing, and that is the flavor - vanilla mint. Now this is not the type of product where there is a vast selection in flavor, a la gum or toothpaste. Benadryl is pretty much one taste suits all, so I'm wondering why they picked vanilla mint. Why not just regular mint? Or peppermint? Because it seems to me that the section of the populace that likes their mint mixed with vanilla is most likely only slightly larger than the section buying the disgusting sounding lemon mint toothpaste. I'm just not sure what the motivation was here in terms of R&D - ' okay, guys, let's take a flavor that pretty much everyone likes, and add something slightly weird to it so that it only sort of tastes good and leaves a weird aftertaste.' Great idea, Bob. It is so refreshing to have a product that you can take without water require you to have some water on hand to wash the peculiar taste out of your mouth. Good call.

Idol Gives Blech: Part Deux

I also hate when people who have larger bank accounts than I could ever hope to see have the balls to ask me to donate to charity. How about I donate my time, which I have plenty of, and you donate the money, Mr. Millionaire? If you want to beg, please don't do it in thousand dollar suits - let's see the people who actually need help, cause i'm pretty sure Michael Chiklis doesn't need any extra cash. Or meals. It is tacky and I feel sorry for all the poor (literally) souls who will be separated form their hard earned money just because Jim Carrey asked them for it. Clearly they have never heard the expression - lead by example. When they put their money where their big fat mouths are, then maybe I will answer their pleas for contributions. Also, what the hell was Bono doing talking about being American. Yes, he does a lot of charity work and can probably lend a nice perspective on that. But the guy is Irish - he doesn't know jack about being American, and I don't think for a second that touring here is going to give someone the right idea. And I'm not all that thrilled about Michael Johns leaving either, although I was relieved it wasn't Carly. All in all this week was one big pisser.

Idol Gives Blech

Okay – first off I want to say that I am in favor of charity work and donating time and money where it is needed. But this program is really just a whole lot of rigamarole so celebrities can feel good about being completely self absorbed the other 364 days of the year (or 365 since it is leap year). If American Idol really wants to raise money for charity then let’s dispense with the self congratulatory fanfare and just start charging for votes. Believe me it would not stop the 30 million people who vote for the show from expressing their love for their favorite singers, but it just might eliminate debacles like the whole Sanjaya incident. Even if they only charged $.20 per call, figuring on 30 million votes and 16 eliminations they would raise $96 million. And none of us would have to sit through a two hour pat-on-the-back borefest. It also might save all the idiots out there who vote for everyone (despite the fact that is the same as not voting at all, duh) from their own stupidity. Or it might cost them a lot of money – who knows. It’s just a thought.

Walking and Talking

Another Verizon Wireless ad has gotten under my skin lately. This series of spots features people walking and talking about what they are going to do now that they have unlimited minutes or whatever plan the ad is for. The girl is okay, except that I don't really understand the whole "I'm going to call Mike and Jim and Brad, Hi Brad, not Brad" thing. Does she not have to call him now because she saw him or what? Weird. And besides being kind of loose, she is also wearing a skirt that is 4 inches too short. It is a nice suit and she is very pretty girl, but the length of her skirt makes her legs look heavier than they probably are. The other ad shows a guy doing the walk and talk and one of the things he plans to do is "be that guy" talking on his phone while he's on the treadmill. Great. Cause what we need is more dipwads out there being rude and obnoxious in public. So I'm not really sure what vibe Verizon was going for with these ads, but they've landed on a 'more minutes will let you be the asshole/ho you have always wanted to be.' I can't imagine that was the plan.

Pay Attention, People

Here is something to watch for. You know the Verizon Wireless commercial where the daughter tells her dad she got an 'A' in advance physics and he says something like "that's terrible" beause he is distracted by how high the cell phone bill is? Well, the next scenario features his son driving straight through the garage door and the dad doesn't notice, again, because of the phone bill. But if you watch very carefully you will notice that as the dad is sitting at the kitchen table reading the bill you can see the kid driving past into the garage. Now you might say to me, 'well, so what?' and I would reply that I it is a bit strange that there is no door in between the garage and kitchen, no?

A Room With Shampoo

There is a new Hotels.com commercial that is bizarrely fabulous. It features a man commenting to his wife that their hotel room has two shampoos, and she jokes that maybe they are trying to get him to leave a good review. And his response is so incredibly strange – first, he says that “it’s working” in such a horrified tone of voice – like he just can’t possibly fight the affect of two mini shampoos on his free will. Second, he immediately starts pouring the shampoo on his head and rubbing it in to his hair – while he is fully clothed and just standing in the room. So weird and absurd – I love it.

The Sunny Side

I have always liked the anti smoking commercials for thetruth.com , and the new versions for the sunny side of truth that feature singing and dancing (sometimes with cartoon animals) are even better. They add a nice whimsy and increase the sarcasm and irony, and of course we all know how much I like sarcasm and irony. And singing and dancing. And I'm not too big a fan of smoking either. So I guess these are right up my alley in lots of ways.

AI: Results

Yay. And I totally forgot to watch because I was learning the secrets of Paul McKenna who promises to make me thin. Oh well. Still yay!

American Idol

My daughter really enjoyed Brooke White’s performance. At first I didn’t think much of it when she started yelling what sounded like “janese” after Brooke sang, but when she grabbed my arm and started strumming while doing it I realize she was in fact trying to sing Jolene. Since her favorite two years ago (at the age of only a few months) was Taylor Hicks, I think this bodes well for Brooke.
And, wow, Dolly sure looked weird. Although she hasn't really ever been the spokesmodel for natural beauty so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

American Idol

My husband and I are both very interested in learning what excuse Stumpy, aka Ramiele, has for sucking tonight. She can't possibly still be "sick," but maybe she had a traumatic encounter with an extra hot cup of coffee and scorched her sub-par vocal cords. Regardless, she will in no doubt sing badly, be poorly styled, and still manage to take a more deserving contestant's place on next week's show. If she is going to be this year's Sanjaya the least she can do is change up her hair every week. That at least made him entertaining. Of course, he also had a personality.