Ad Nausea

I’m a huge sports fan, so I love this time of year, especially knowing that somewhere in the world Tim Tebow is crying alone in complete dejection. Unfortunately, watching sports means watching commercials. As with everything, sports in today’s world are highly sponsor driven. For instance, here’s a transcript from one of this weekend’s football games:

Announcer: “And the receiver broke loose, down past the Baskin Robbins 31 yard-line, now he’s at the Century 21, avoids a tackler at the Perfect 10, and finally down at the Jack Daniel’s No. 7.”
And it’s not just the number of commercials; because television executives think men are unable to remember things that happened more than ten minutes ago normally we are stuck watching the same commercials over and over again. Of course if you are a woman and have ever tried talking to a guy during sports, I can understand why you would think we have short term memory loss. The key is that you are asking the wrong questions. For instance, instead of asking “Did you take out the trash?” or “Did you remember our anniversary?” ask things like “Who won the first Superbowl?” We have limited brain space, and frankly we don’t waste it on petty things like whether or not we might have possibly left the toilet seat up.

Anyway, back to the commercials (which is funny cause that’s what the television announcers say every other two minutes). Obviously, ad people (we call them “people” despite the fact that most of them are humorless robots) target specific demographics, and with sports that means men. The only problem is that these people forgot to ask what men think about, because anyone watching commercials during sports would assume that men get together and talk about either their erectile dysfunction, penis enlargement, or troubles peeing. I’m going to clarify things for everybody: most men do not ever talk to each other about their genitals. It’s not a subject we like to talk about with our friends, much less our doctor (especially since at the moment my doctor is lunging at my crotch with latex gloves).

Medicine commercials are the stupidest commercials of all. They start off showing really depressed people, who are crying because they are sitting on a couch by themselves because of their (fill in the blank): arthritis, depression, sleep deprivation, herpes, premature balding, acne, etc. Then the happy music starts and we are introduced to the medicine, which always sounds like some kind of alien from Star Trek, like Zoltron or Zantog. Then we see the once depressed people happy and doing fun things, like rafting, hiking, sailing, and playing the trumpet; often at the same time.

But during these happy images, the announcer in a very soft, very quick voice, begins to read off the side effects:

“Lumasil should not be taken by women who are pregnant, may become pregnant, have ever thought about being pregnant, or whose mother at one time was pregnant. Talk to your doctor if you smoke, have liver disease, or enjoy Pop-Tarts as these may lead to complications. Side effects include jock itch, diarrhea, constipation, blindness in your left eye, random sex changes, suicidal thoughts, attraction to farm animals, and slow painful death. Do not drive, operate machinery, try to walk, or expose yourself to sunlight until you know how Lumasil affects you. Remember, if you have a runny nose, take Lumasil.”

So the basic message is that this medicine will most likely kill you or make your life miserable. But do you really want to live with a runny nose? Of course if you are like most people, the only medicine commercials you actually pay attention to are the beer commercials. And if you think that beer is not a cure all, then you are an idiot. For one thing, the only side effect beer has is making the world spin way to fast in its orbit, causing you to fall down.

But the most dangerous commercials out there are the jewelry ones. It’s coming up on the holiday season, so jewelry companies around the country are putting out those corny jewelry ads hoping in vain that normal men are actually considering spending that much money on something that isn’t even edible. I mean, have you seen how much these things cost? My neighbors were showing me some jewelry online that they liked, and these things were running into the five figures. Five, as in the number after three (which is my limit frankly). I complain about five dollar Chinese food; I’m not sure how I’m supposed to cope with what amounts to a thousand dollar rock that most people couldn’t tell apart from broken glass.

These ads are dangerous because they give women the impression that there are men out there who actually buy jewelry. Then the next thing you know they want a man who opens doors for them, picks up the check, gives foot massages, and remembers their mother’s name. These men are myths; kind of like unicorns. But when women see these commercials they tend to forget that.

I actually did a study on this in high school I showed men and women a collection of magazine ads for various products and then asked them to recall as many ads as they could. The men normally just drooled on the lingerie ads and then listed off the following ads: “Big Mac, something with that hot chick, and the beer one.” The women on the other hand, proceeded to rip out the jewelry ads and start rambling on about the “Four C’s.” Apparently women judge diamonds by the Four C’s: cut, clarity, color, and carat. Notice that missing from that list is “cost,” which should always be at the top of any list regarding purchases. It’s okay, because I have my own four C’s that are guaranteed to make women happy: “cheap” “Christmas” “chocolates” from “Costco.”