Advertising and Liars

I spent this weekend thinking of topics I wished to expound upon and here I sit, wondering what they all were. On Friday I mentioned advertising and TV Commercials. I have always found TV commercials to be interesting for a number of reasons. I don't think one of them is trying to decide what to purchase but I am sure they have their impact.

Recently those of us in the US went through an election. Elections are always good for terrible advertising. Living in California I was treated to a series of referendum questions that generated ads both for and against. Personally, I feel the ads and went well beyond the legal boundaries but so far no one has been charged, I bet the AG is afraid he will be accused of taking sides in the political battles so it is hands off.

My personal favorite this go round was the redistricting plan. The foes of this plan (read as 'entrenched politicians who don't want to have to get real jobs') portrayed it as giving 3 former judges absolute power to rule the world. Cross them and you would end up in a deep pit with 500 others who dared challange them. Now I haven't been in California too long so I don't know just how bad drawing up the district lines really is but I did see this process in another state and there it was appaling. The politicains would look at a map that depicted concentrations of registered voters by party and pick the areas that would support them and strung them together so they wouldn't be voted out in the next election. I personally felt districts should be look more like a block then a snake all stretched out and bent in odd direction that just ate a couple baby rabbits . I know that ensuring equal numbers of voters in districts makes my simple image impossible and will require that towns be split but simplicity should still be the rule.

I guess that isn't about advertising as much as my disdain for old school politics. Back to the ads, the anti-ads were down right decpetive if not plain old fashioned lies. Yet the politicians got away with it. I read where a campaign in souther California went so far as to put out fliers in the last few days stating that if they OKed a local referendum they would be OKing the eminent domain seizure of their land. This was clearly a blatant lie as one had nothing to do with the other. Shouldn't the perpetrators of these lies and deceptions be held to the same accountability as corporate America? Where is the FCC and local authorities to correct these injustices? Oh yeah, they are part of and sometimes the very politicians putting out the deceptive ads and lies. Seems the loonies are in charge of the asylum Martha.

So far you must be assuming I don't like politicians, actually, I think I would be a great politician and could rise up above this stench and do great deeds while riding my white charger into battle. Of course every politician starts out saying just that don't they?

Back to advertising. Corporate America isn't really guilty of outright lies. Deception is the name of the game, they just try to keep it subtle. When it comes to product ads I find some amusing, like Jack in the Box. The funny adds in this series are too numerous to mention but the Chipotle add was great and the recent one poking fun at celebrity poker has a nice twist with Gary Coleman. If you can't laugh at yourself who can you laugh at?

What I can't understand i how some corporate advertisers allow the ads we see to get made AND aired publically. I picture the ad exec selling some concept and the managers thinking it sounds cool. The ad exec goes out and gets the commercial shot and then shows it to the managers. Don't they realize just how bad the ad is? Are they afraid that after having spent the money making the commercial they will lose their jobs if they can it?

Unfortunately I am drawing a blank on most terrible commercials right now. The only one that comes to mind is Mentos - I will NEVER EVER buy Mentos as long as I live. The commercials are so bad that I have to change the channel when they come on. That just reminded me, I also change the channel when ads for the Kellogs somethin somethin Krunch come on. At first the concept of the guy sitting their eating his crunchy cereal while the boss tried to fire him was cute. Now it is downright annoying. That might be the best cereal in the world but I will never know because the advertising has driven me away. I am still wondering how those ads got made, shouldn't the ad exec being sitting at his big ole desk eating the cereal non-stop from now until the firm crumbles around him because he stopped doing his real work and couldn't hear the phone ring when new customers tried calling?

I need to end this tirade as I am now worked up and need to use the punching bag.