Don’t know how many markets this ad is running in, but right now it’s in the DC Metro area: Woman walking down the street, just misses getting whacked by a length of lumber. Then she just misses stepping in an open manhole. She’s being distracted by the MD mattress, you know? Then she looks across the street and sees a MD store, and steps out into the street, into traffic, and promptly gets hit by a car (or truck, I don’t know)!! I find this ad very disturbing, and can’t bring myself to watch it. Yeah, I know, it’s just a commercial, but it’s so wrong on so many levels! And why do we have to see the person getting hit?! Naturally, she survives the accident (heh) and makes her way, somewhat disheveled, into the MD store to purchase a mattress.
There’s a growing trend in advertising these days to use one of two basic messages:
Our product will mess you up (a great many sodas, for example). What fun!
Our product will save you from yourself because without it you are a moron (I thought you said to buy a monkey with a cold…).
I hate these commercials, as I do not need to be messed up, nor do I want to be treated like a moron by people who want me to buy their stuff.
In a similar vein to your commercial, there’s a commercial for some junk food that will so thoroughly distract you from life that, for example, if you’re driving a riding lawnmower, you will get knocked off of it, flat onto your back, and not care, while your lawnmower continues to run amok through the park, chewing up picnics and frisbees and terrorizing women with babies in strollers. What fun! I want some of that!
my husband pointed out that commercial to me just the other night. he wanted confirmation that he’d actually seen what he thought he’d seen. both of us pretty much had a WTF?!?!?!? reaction to that scene. it just seems soooooo wrong.
and what the hell is Mattress Discounter’s message, when all’s said and done? “Come to our store so you can be mowed down?”
somebody on Madison Avenue is due for a pink slip.
Perhaps she is distracted because she does not get a good night’s sleep?
The ad that gets me is the one for a bank that has no hidden fees or something like that and opeining an account there inspires people to be completly honest, much to their own detriment.
So open an account here and your life will go to hell.
Fox Sports Net is showing a series of promos for its MLB games by showing different situations in which a couple of guys ask their buddy if he wants to come to the game, buddy says, ‘Nah,’ then something fatal happens to him; one guy is crushed under a pile of lumber, another by what looks like a crate dropped off a crane, and another is attacked by a snake, etc.
Cartoonish violence is one thing, but these adverts as a wee bit OTT; the first time I saw the one with the stack of lumber, I kept waiting for a punchline, like a muffled ‘Bloody hell, should have gone to the Sox game,’ or something…probably a personal bias cos my brother is a carpenter, and he once fell 2 stories when a step on a newly placed set of stairs (in an otherwise shell of a house) gave way. (He survived with just bumps and bruises, no worries…but still…)
Around here those ads either end with text saying “God is a Rangers Fan” or “God is an Astros Fan” … or something along those lines … depending on which game is coming up next.
Then there is a punchline? I have to admit, I’m glad – yes, I would miss it, because usually I have my back to the tele just to listen to the games whilst I work at the comp – although I have glanced up to see what in the heck is going on, but have yet to see any of the punchlines.
