How Do You Like Me Now?

I love this ad for the Kia Sorento:



I know that it is supposed to just be a daydream for the toys, but I like thinking that after we are all asleep the toys go out and live it up. Imagining some wild, seedy nightlife for the sock monkeys out there to engage in in the wee hours of the night amuses me. Which is probably sick (these are children's toys after all, shouldn't they be nurturing and wholesome?), but I find it funny.*

It's kind of how I picture all the adults who are on children's shows acting after work. They spend all day being supernaturally erky and chipper, so afterwards I always figure they hit the dirtiest bar they can find in their goth makeup and spend the next five hours cussing and drinkng and generally engaging in any no perky, non chipper debauchery they can find. Just to balance it all out you know? Otherwise don't know how they don't crack under the pressure of those false smiles.

So I'm cool with my kids' toys hitting the town after lights out - they deserve a little fun too.

*Oh, and the music is good. I like that too. (How Do You Like Me Now, by The Heavys)

Vampires Are A Niche Market

These Volvo/Twilight commericals make me want to barf. what are they advertising - cars? The New Moon movie? Stupid. Can we please leave the whole Twilight overexposure limited to things that are actuall relevant? They should really back off a bit or they are going to get a huge backlash before the final film. Plus? overexposure aside, I think this is taking product plcaement too far. i don't mind when real products are in tv or movies - having someone drinking a random "cola" can rather than Coke was always distracting to me. using real products makes it more realistic, and I find they fade into the background better than the mocked up fakes do. But doing tie ins with a movie and then bringing it into commercials that aren't even clear about what they are advertising is just annoying. And seriously? I don't care how dreamy and ethereal and shiny Robert Pattinson/Edward is. Somebody wash that jackass' hair!!!

Dude, That's A Girl Car

The new Chevy Traverse is clearly a chick car. It looks like a totally normal crossover vehicle, but I have never seen such a specifically targeted ad campaign before, so it must be for women only. In case you haven't seen the commercial, it features a woman in the car stopping on the street because it is raining shoes. She quite understandably gets out of the car to gather up as many as she can, and utilizes the storage space in her Traverse to hold as many shoes as possible. Not exactly a man friendly spot. nor is it especially the most effective either, since every time I see it I think it is an ad for DSW Shoe Warehouse rather than for a car. It also assaults my sense of logic, because while I would totally be grabbing shoes with abandon if they started raining from the sky I would A) wait for them to stop falling in order to avaoid being clonked on the head by an especially heavy wedge or impaled on a stiletto, and B) make sure I was getting pairs of shoes. Imagine how frustrating it would be to get home and find your whole treasure trunk of shoes contained only lefts. Anyway, with the female focus of this advertising, I'm left to wonder why the Traverse is so specifically for women, as well as why, if intended solely for us girls, they didn't give it a girlier name. Like maybe, the Chevy Epicene.

I Knew There as Reason I Wanted More Kids

I love the commercials for the Volkswagon Routon with Brooke Shileds begging people to have babies for love rather than German engineering. Very funny. And since I'm currently in the market for a minivan (just can't squeeze three carseats in an SUV), I wish that just being pregnant could guarantee you'd get one.

Repetition Makes Irritation

Saab has a new commercial that repeats the same phrase about recycling energy from the exhaust three times. Saab has a new commercial that repeats the same phrase about recycling energy from the exhaust three times. Saab has a new commercial that repeats the same phrase about recycling energy from the exhaust three times. Annoying, isn' it?

Uno Electric Bike

And I thought Segways were cool.

get more information here or Google uno electric bike

Sissy Boy Truck

They have brought back the Toyota Tacoma commercial which shows two guys eating in their car and one of them places a drink on the dash, whereby the driver puts a coaster underneath it. The intended message is that the tacoma is more luxurious inside than your average truck. The message delivered is quite different, however. First, by placing the drink on the dash, it seems as though the truck doesn't have cup holders - a feature found on pretty much every vehicle, and one that most people enjoy and would be sorry to lose. Not a good selling point (and false since according to one discussion I found there are 9 cupholders in the tacoma). Second, the finicky owner sends a message that only sissy boys who worry about water rings drive this truck. Probably a worse selling point. Thirdly, the guys are sitting in a driveway eating - why don't they just go in the house? Not really a selling point at all, but stupid nonetheless.

Holi-Dumb

The Hyundai Holi-Duh sales even has to be one of the stupidest ideas ever. Are you calling us stupid for not buying your cars? Great way to get me to buy one. And who came up with this cast of characters 'duhhing' their way trough the Christmas classics? The guy whose sideburns are clearly drawn on? Crazy wide eyes? And of course, my favorite - the old man who is at least one hundred and twelve and who can't even lip synch the duhs with everyone else. These commercials get a big Duh from me but not in the way they are hoping. More in a "oh they got cancelled? DUH!" way.

Nature loves a sing along

I like the new Jeep Liberty commercial where the guy is driving along and various animals leap into the car and begin singing along to the radio(see it here). It would be stupid or a little too precious, except for the addition of the wolf leaping into the sunroof and eating one of the birds. The driver’s look of disbelief is great. He doesn’t look upset about the apparent death of the bird – more puzzled that the wolf would mess with the back up singing. Very funny.

Toss me an explanation

There is a new commercial for Suzuki advertising that their cars have the #1 warranty. It features people driving around in Suzuki cars and throwing a set of keys to each other. There are several things that confuse me about this: first, the people are already driving around, what do they need keys for? The people playing are actually all passengers, so maybe they need keys so they don’t have to bum rides from whoever is driving, but still, they clearly aren’t hurting for transportation. Secondly, what does any of this have to do with the warranties? Nonsense is irritating.

intro

Okay – I’ll be the first to admit it, I watch way too much television. I could give lots of excuses: I have two kids, (19 months and 1 month) and while I love playing with them, holding hands while my daughter jumps on the couch is a lot less boring when I can watch Project Runway also. Or how about: I absolutely love reading but it’s pretty hard when you are feeding one baby while simultaneously trying to chase the other around the dining room table. Another good one: I’d love to go to the park everyday but its cold and snowy out there (this one doesn’t work as well in July). But the honest truth is I am solidly addicted to the television. From 8am Buffy reruns to the 10 pm version of Law and Order, I pretty much have the idiot box on all day. Which means that I get a chance to see a lot of commercials, a lot of times. And I can’t help wondering why people get paid for some of this crap. I mean obviously most commercials are stupid are annoying or boring or just plain forgettable. And some are truly inspired and funny and I actually enjoy watching them over and over again. The current careerbuilder.com campaign where office workers are surviving in the jungle: brilliant. The ones I will probably comment most on are the ones that fall just shy of the mark – they have smart or clever premises, but their execution is lacking. Unfortunately it is all too indicative of most people’s current attitudes towards their work, and it is a shame that whoever created the initial idea wasn’t committed enough to see it through to completion accurately.

The prime example of this is a commercial that ran several years back for the Nissan Sentra (www.NissanUSA.com/Sentra). This ad featured two crash test dummies fighting over getting into the car with the tagline “everybody wants to drive it.” Clever, it caught your attention, there was only one glaring problem. The dummies were fighting over the passenger side door. Maybe the crash test dummies were British, maybe it was a sly allusion to the fact that they just can’t afford the premiums on their insurance anymore after the number of wrecks they typically get into so they had to be passengers. What it said to me was “no one wants to drive it.” Whoops – probably not the message intended. But I bet it was awesome in England.