Quite plainly, your new ad campaign is the stupidest most poorly acted and conceived series of commercials I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through.
“What would you do if someone handed you the keys to a Pontiac for a week?!” is what you ask people. And then you show the “honest reactions” of people who are granted a basic, four door sedan for a week. Not a year, not for life. A week. Seven days.
And lo, the people go apeshit. APE FUCKING SHIT because they get to drive a car and pay for gas for said car for a whole damn week! Well shave my head and call me baldy…what a deal!
One girl says “I’ll be talking about this for the rest of my life”
Here’s my response. GET A LIFE, PUDDIN’. If someone lending you a car is the greatest story ever, you need to start hitting the streets in search of a personality.
And now the commercials have expanded. The girls get the car for a week and all of the sudden they’re hangliding, white water rafting. The men are buying tuxedos and hitting Atlantic City…
Does this have one goddamn thing to do with Pontiac Vehicles? Are we now to believe that because you loaned me a car I am able to take a week off of work and pay for hanggliding lessons?
What’s going on here?
Pontiac: You are Dumb.
Keep the car. I’ll just use my paid for Dodge Stratus.
Is there anything more rewarding than a jarbabyj rant? Whether it is legitimate, personal ranting against pushy elf wannabes, or more generalized “Your Commercials are stupid” ranting, it is just as warming as that morning’s first cup of coffee.
Well, if someone gave me a Pontiac for a week, the first thing I’d do is take a baseball bat and bust out those goddam stupid driving lights that every other Pontiac driver blinds me with when I’m out on the road at night.
jar,
I’m glad it’s not just me that’s baffled by this. I have a car now. Why would it be different if I suddenly had this Pontiac to drive? Would I drive it to work because I already used up all of my vacation time?
Now, if it was a Pontiac plus $10,000 that would be different. I’d take the week off work, park the stupid thing in the garage, and fly to Aruba.
you know, these have bothered me since they first appeared, but i never got to such a head as to rant about it, nor been eloquent enough to create a rant of any value upon it.
you’ve let a lot of unspoken pressure off for many people with this rant, and I thank you jarbaby. thank you.
[/stupid fancy voice i don’t normally write in]
Cheezit asks while cleaning off his monitor… “Is it o.k. if I use this line the next time some over-zealous salesman tries to sell me something that I don’t want?”
Actually, I think it would be exciting to get the keys to someone else’s Pontiac for a week. I can think of a number of ways I might amuse myself with a new Pontiac:
Revving the engine to redline and dropping it into drive.
Running over the lawn gnomes on my neighbor’s front lawn.
Spray painting little green smiley faces all over it.
Bungee cording the steering wheel, putting a brick on the accelerator, and leaving the damn thing doing reverse donuts in the middle of a busy intersection.
Seeing how it runs on a mixture of Karo syrup and Everclear.
Chopping the top off with a chainsaw and driving through a car wash.
Jumping it into the East River and seeing if it can make it to the other side.
Preach it, jarbabyj. Those ads have really been bothering me. I don’t understand why they’re so happy about driving a car for a week. Like Zette says, there’s gotta be something else in the deal. Maybe their family has been taken hostage, and in addition to the car, they let their family go. Or maybe they get a pet squirrel. Or a truckload of chocolate chip cookies. Because just the car itself seems to ordinary, you know? To justify that kind of reaction.
The lucky winners drive to the West Side and score many boulders of crack and bottles of fortified wine. With the party favors procured, they pick up some young hookers and head to Stone Park, where they indulge in a 40-hour cocaine jag. Fortunately they don’t get a heart attack, so they purchase some heroin to get them on an even keel and they drive to the Joliet riverboats. After some rollicking good times at the craps table, they get bounced for verbally assaulting the croupier. Not a problem - there’s always more fun to be had with a glove box full of crack and horse.
Off they go, the freedom of the highway, on an ill-fated beer run. By now their lips look like prosciutto from the glass-pipe burns, and their index and middle fingers have blisters on top of blisters from where neglected cigarettes have burnt down to their flesh. The lucky winners are starting to nod, and the hookers’ eyes are starting to gleam.
Only four days have passed in the best week of their lives. The next 72 hours are a drug-addled blur, set in dim gin joints and shabby apartments with bare mattresses on the floor. The new Pontiac ends up stripped and upholstery-burned in a vacant lot over by Harlem and Lake. As the week of dreams comes to a close, the lucky winners regain consciousness in the plush bucket seats, cigarette butts and shards of safety glass stuck to their faces. “Aw shit, I forgot to call in to work!” Cue exit music.
That is what the Pontiac commercial makes me imagine. Maybe if it were a Dodge Intrepid ad, the darkness would be averted. I agree that Pontiac is dumb, jarbabyj - that damned commercial makes the demons come, and makes me want to take the bus.
These commercials bug the hell out of me too. They make no sense, they seem to be edited in somebody’s basement, and the whole concept is just dumber than a fireproof match.
And if you notice, nobody given the car does anything driving related. Skydving? Getting fitted for tuxes? Yeah, I always do that in my car. Too bad that last tailor didn’t want to get nekkid in the back seat and strap on a parachute with me.
I am one of these people. I was hoping someone more articulate than me would point out the complete and utter absurdity of this campaign. And not only did jarbaby do this in spades, but saepiroth has already found and posted the perfect words to express gratitute. I am left only to add my thanks as well.
I suppose if someone handed me the keys to a Pontiac for a week, and I knew it wasn’t stolen or anything, and I knew the insurance was covered, then I would drive it to and from work to save a week’s worth of wear on my Ford.
Granted the Pontiac commercials are rather stupid. And maybe I’m stupid for assuming such, but I got the impression that the week was on Pontiac’s tab.
How did you get the impression that the week was on Pontiac’s tab? Do they ever mention that? Or do they say “we’ll hand you the keys”
Also, how does a week’s vacation prove that Pontiac makes a better automobile.
Also, you’ll notice that this pit rant is pretty mild compared to past ones, and I also said i was going to “try” to be a better person. I never said it would work.
besides, I don’t think there’s anything unchristian in my rant. I just don’t like the commercials. Problem? Door’s over there.
Nope! But I never hear them mention that if they give you the keys that you have to spring for the gas either.
It just seems logical that if they want more than a handful of people to participate in the promotion that they would include some more incentive than just the free use of a car for a week.
Apparently it is a much larger promotion than the adds would indicate. See Pontiac’s web site.
Thin skinned?
No problem here, just didn’t have the same reaction to the commercials. Sorry that I didn’t have accolades and pats on the back. I also found it somewhat amusing that you would have a rant so soon after “trying” to avoid it.
I assure you though there was no malicious intent.