op-ed Ad campaigns erring on pathetic

Author: James O'Brien

Consistently terrible television advertisements haunted my Sunday sports viewing this week. This worried me because, as you may well know, television advertisement excellence is the indicator that most accurately reflects the state of our nation. We may be at code red status. During the first three innings of the final game of the World Series, FOX thrice forced its viewers to watch advertisements featuring naked old people in individual bathtubs who were holding hands while watching the sunset. This was followed up by a voice-over guy telling us that Cialis is great when the time is right. Like most Americans, watching elderly folks sit nude in their tubs does not compel me to ask my doctor about over-priced erectile dysfunction tablets. More importantly, it doesn't make my grandfather want Cialis, either. Grampy's not that into naked old people he doesn't know.

The most irritating and persistent of all commercials were the auto commercials. Chevrolet's "This Is Our Country" ad campaign, which featured the Mesozoic-era musical stylings of John Mellencamp as the back-drop to a patriotic montage, confused me by stating the obvious. I actually started to wonder, "Wait, is it our country?" Chevrolet also aired another great commercial featuring their Chevy Malibu sedan. It depicts several masked men running out of a bank with bags of money. They jump into their car - a car which, mind you, is not a Chevy Malibu - and, immediately, cop cars encircle their automobile. Uh-oh. Inexplicably, however, the cops run past the robbers' crappy car and into the bank. Meanwhile, we hear, "Soon there will be a car you can't ignore. The 2008 Chevy Malibu." Well, I may be overlooking something here, but if I had to choose between a Malibu that gets the attention of Middlebury residents and an invisible car that can rob a bank, I'm not getting the Malibu.

Ford Motor Company's slogan for their trucks is "Built Ford Tough." I wouldn't use this type of slogan for my O'Brien trucks, mainly because it doesn't mean anything. "Ford" is not an acceptable modifier for toughness. I can't gauge how tough "Ford" is, except that it must fall somewhere between the toughness levels of the cast of "300" and that of "Superbabies: Baby Genuises 2." I'll concede that "Built Ford Tough" clearly conjures up a superior level of strength than that of "Built Kia/Daewoo Tough," but I still think Ford should clarify. If they just changed their slogan to "Our Trucks are Tough, We Swear" sales would skyrocket.

AT&T's new ad campaign features an arrogant actor saying that he has friends in more than one place. Believe it or not, he claims that he makes calls to Philadelphia, Delaware, Prague and Chicago! And then he announces that his AT&T service is so excellent that it works in a place where only he lives - Philawarepragueacago. Philawarepragueacago? Apparently advertising firms have concluded that the average American consumer does a John Candy-sized amount of drugs before they turn on their television. Just to be safe, I looked up Philawarepragueacago on Google Maps, and it has a population of zero. If that guy is paying extra for his AT&T plan, someone should tell him he's getting ripped off.

Sports leagues are even more inept at promoting their product. Throughout the World Series, FOX aired spots featuring a spiky-haired Dane Cook getting very excited about the MLB playoffs. Dane seemed amped about the bits of playoff baseball minutiae that FOX told him he should be excited about, but I just didn't share his excitement. At the end of the ad, he screamed, "There's only one post-season. There's only one October," continuing Chevy's great tradition of confusing people by telling them obvious things. I began to wonder if there used to be other Octobers that were somehow eliminated after the advent of Julian calendar. Then, I decided, I'm destined to go into advertising - it's the only occupation where you can go to a meeting drunk and still get your proposals approved.

My favorite head-scratching commercial is one that the NFL ran this week aimed at attracting women viewers. It showed actresses of various races dressed in over-sized football jerseys which look like they were stolen from their boyfriends' closets. These women proceed to get really excited about an upcoming football game. The Asian actress ends up giving the African-American actress a dirty stare because they like different teams. And that's it. Fun for everyone, right? The only problem is that CBS ran the commercial during a football game. The result - women watching the game felt patronized, male fans laughed and the rest of the female population didn't see it because it wasn't shown during "Grey's Anatomy."

I'm not saying you or I could do a better job than advertising execs, but we could probably do an equally crappy one. For better or worse, I refuse to be swayed by their tactics. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm heading to the store in my Ford to buy the new John Mellencamp album so I can play it while I sit in the bathtub talking on my cell phone, but only after I've popped a few Cialis.

James O'Brien '11 is from Medfield, Mass.