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.