Advertising Made Miserable...

 

FOR GOD'S SAKE, TURN IT OFF!

Television Advertisement Awards

Number One
July-August 2007

 

 

 

And the nominees are...

Hyundai Motors
Mine's Cheaper, But The Same

"Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better" whistle the performers of a sickening interpretation of this intolerable show tune, sorrowfully employed as background music for this embarrassing example of television advertising. To emphasize that little difference exists between a Lexus and a Hyundai SUV, a parking lot juxtaposition of the two vehicles leads to befuddled female passengers simultaneously erring in the selection of which gas hog they climb into. As this inconsequential drama unfolds, practically every square centimeter of your skin will want to crawl as far away as it can from your television. The focus is placed on the cabin of the Hyundai where the confused passenger recognizes her error while the male driver regards her with with what appears to be a bad B-grade movie actor's astonishment. The ladies correct their mistake, migrating to their appropriate transports with plucky resolve. Back in the Hyundai, the occupants exchange inexplicable facial expressions and are driven out of the scene with the satisfaction only a cheaper SUV can bestow. A snooty announcer smugly reveals that some probably unscientific survey indicates what by now should be glaringly obvious: most can barely tell the difference between these two highway nemeses. Unfortunately, no survey tells us whether most can recognize really, really bad advertising as presented in this commercial.

Ditech
People Are Smart

It all begins with "People Are Smart." This strange, contextually orphaned mantra arises from a collection of crudely illustrated Ditech spots whose advertising philosophy seems bizarrely rooted in the notion that if one can somehow convince homeowners they are being complimented by substandard artistry they'll suckle to this institution's financial teat like a piglet to it's sow. A gallery of weird color-challenged animations is dished out, replete with disturbing imagery that seems to have emanated from a crack house full of graphic arts dropouts. Suspendered clerks, magicians with turbans, humanoid forms floating from parachutes with increasingly bulging pockets and a host of other aberrant depictions materialize from behind bordello-red curtains or against turquoise or partly-cloudy sky backgrounds, raising serious questions about what exactly is troubling the creators of these ads. And they're all framed at beginning and end with the evidently indisputable claim that "People Are Smart." If they are, they'll turn off this commercial.

Viagra
Viva Viagra

Imagine, if you can, sitting around with your buddies who, along with you, are afflicted by erectile dysfunction. You and the other dudes noodle around on the musical instruments of your choice when, suddenly, you begin to sing, using the same colloquially unidentifiable accent adopted by most vocalists who exhibit little talent, intoning the praises of Viagra by massacring a cover version of Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas." In series, your similarly tone deaf compatriots individually contribute to this drug worship, adding their own musical testimonials. Blossoming within your loins is a desire to dash home with something larger than good memories of your time yodeling modified sixties popular music in the backwater bar you seem to have commandeered. Without hesitation, and seriously pumped by the dosage of this Pfizer product working its magic in your gullet, and elsewhere, you and the entire group bolts out the door. You park your keester and other recently enhanced personal items on the seat of your Harley Davidson motorcycle, blow musical kisses to the boys, rev your V-twin engine, kick up dust and race home to join mama in releasing the tensions that a good belting out of a lyrically improvised "Viva Viagra," and a tablet of this wonder pharmaceutical, can arouse. No need to imagine as this ridiculous scenario plays out in this musically challenged ad and no need to worry about four hour erections here. Really.

AARP
We Need More Life Insurance

"Laaaary," begins the aging femme fatale of this interminable exercise in nagging and fear-mongering, "we need more life insurance!" She proclaims this to her emotionally restrained hubby, who has committed the cardinal sin of encountering her seated at a kitchen table littered with brochures, orange juice, cups of coffee and buttered toast. Flush with information, some that has clearly arisen from the usual day-to-day gossip ("I hear the average funeral costs over $6000"), she proceeds to rattle off a series of concerns that is evidently common among those in advertisements that dwell upon this subject. In a stunning show of accusatory expertise, our heroine points the bony finger of fault at her spouse, for whom, so far, mum's mostly been the word. She poses a seemingly insurmountable dilemma with the cliffhanger question, "But where can we get insurance at our age, and with your health?" From behind a finished wood partition comes our life insurance savior, systematically dismissing any and all hesitations one might have about this racket, real or imagined. Once back in the kitchen, consternation has evolved into relief with the epiphany that AARP can bestow all of the blessings that come naturally from faithful paying of monthly premiums, and that such nirvana is easily achieved with a simple telephone call. Our strong but generally silent husband with the unnamed health problems reassures the kvetching wife that he has already contacted the insurance middlemen at AARP. This is a downright annoying and dreadful ad that screams for cheaper funerals if only to help the participants in this travesty on their inevitable way.

Hewlett-Packard
Celebrities Use Notebooks and Laptops For Celebrity Purposes

It's good to know that scintillating celebrities use their HP computers for notably more important tasks than do the great bulk of the relative riff-raff that makes up the remainder of humanity. Headless torsos, presumably belonging to those who stand in the limelight, gush about their various stupendous digital accomplishments amid gesticulating arms and hands that conjure computer generated legerdemain before our mystified eyes. Older versions of this nonsense merely identified the pontificator after we've been subjected to their conceited litany of HP assisted miracles, and then with ridiculous qualifications such as "galactic artist" or "interplanetary composer." Newer ones, no doubt sensitive to the suggestion that the torso of the "interplanetary composer" could easily belong to any terrestrially bound schmoe, finish with our celebrity crouching or bending in such a way as to permit a glimpse of their face. One wonders why, after having been peddled with altered states of reality created with the HP product, anyone would believe that the face shown is, in fact, real. If these commercials are intended as some digital age form of humor they fall breathtakingly short. Extreme discomfort is generated by the Christmastime incarnations of the ad, featuring no less a fat Santa Claus torso ho-ho-ing about stored disco songs, lists checked twice and delivery schedules.

Orbitz.com
Boo-bee-boo

Unexpected but blessed and timely indications regarding a myriad of travel circumstances are apparently available to those who elect to use Orbitz's services. This feature is irritatingly represented by a number of ads that showcase users of this technologically simple and unimpressive capacity as being subjected to the sudden and grating materialization of a halo, accompanied by an extremely obnoxious reverberated "boo-bee-boo" noise and adorned with, among other things, people on stair step exercise machines, entire hotels, thunderheads with active lightning, and evidently delayed aircraft, still in flight and circling patiently around the Orbitz subscriber's head. These wondrous appearances are practically dismissed by their hosts to those who quizzically inquire about their purpose. This odd revolving menagerie persists in position as a selection of humorous exit strategies are exercised by the afflicted travelers and their associates. There is something about this maddening advertisement that transcends artistic license and treads squarely on the viewer's intelligence, clumsily trying to pique our interest in cell phone notifications of travel delays or lodging room availabilities with stupid computer graphics, dopey audio signatures and even more idiotic, and not particularly funny, miniature plays. One cannot even point to the ditching of the "Take On Orbitz" gameshow scenarios that previously oozed from this outfit as a multiplicative improvement because mathematics demands that zero times zero is still zero.

Dairy Queen
Disembodied Lips

Something that possibly may have worked for the Rocky Horror Picture Show definitely does not for a national chain of soft serve purveyors. Gigantic bright red lips with pearly white teeth hover in dark space practically drooling over a plethora of Dairy Queen products, from burgers to sundaes, mouthing the announcer's words with eerie perfection. In one case, this grotesque oral cavity is so worked into a lather over selecting between inexpensive specialty sandwiches that the choppers fly free of their fleshy surroundings, woefully engaging in a brief and unamusing exchange. Interestingly enough, there doesn't seem to be any need to enhance otherwise sinfully enjoyable ice cream (and related) offerings with a set of lips that seems to make enjoying the ice cream, well, sinful.

Assurant Health Care
Two Case Studies

The depth and breadth of Assurant's health care coverage presented in this lone and singularly bland commercial boggles the mind. We are introduced to a pair of unmemorable people via photographs, thanks to a smooth voiced announcer with eyebrows that, if clipped, could clothe the naked hordes of some underdeveloped nation. Our first unmemorable example is "healthy," we are told, but astoundingly cannot seem to fathom why in heaven's name the health insurance industry keeps raising his rates. Number two in this gala parade is a woman who, astonishingly, doesn't believe health insurance is affordable. Our furry-browed announcer assures us (get it? Assurant?) that the two people held up as poster children for health care coverage can be fully protected by a company that produces a television advertisement whose quality is on par with that made by a rank amateur. There is, however, comfort in the knowledge that, while the content of this fishing sinker of an ad is forgettable, considerations of why the announcer's pants fit him in the curious way they do, are not..

Yoplait Yogurt
You're My Little Fluffy One

Help! A unseen monster has invaded and it sounds like a drunken Maurice Chevalier crooning an horrific, mentally debilitating ditty entitled "You're My Little Fluffy One" to a pink fuzzy slippered female gleefully consuming whipped yogurt while oscillating to and fro in a swing. Perhaps this appeals in some perverted way to women who enjoy wearing moronic bedroom fashions and listening to fatuous, poorly rhyming lyrics like "My little fluffy wuffy one that makes my mouth go, 'yum!'" Dimmer bulbs probably wouldn't get the association between the hideous song and the fact that the yogurt has become "fluffy" due in large part to its being whipped, but only the dimmest bulbs could actually sit through this crapola without, at best, cringing or, at worst, vomiting.

Procede Hair Product
You Want Hair

Here's a commercial that stands the trend for the mercifully shorter television advertisment on its end. This relentless, bloodthirsty pitch for the attention of those who either face, or are experiencing, baldness shows about as much mercy for them as The Fugitive's Lieutenant Gerard did for the innocent Dr. Richard Kimble. Unabridged, this seemingly endless march of newly carpeted turning heads, hands stroking freshly sprouted hair and satisfied customers admiring sweet success in front of bathroom mirrors asymptotes to a needling macabre as the female narrator stops at nothing to lure unsuspecting chrome domes into Procede's lair. A fascinatingly animated and weirdly coiffed hairdresser provides a break from the brainwashing, curiously distancing himself from direct involvement with this elixir but exhorting, "c'mon guys, get off the drugs," evidently employing a thinly veiled slur against competing methods. Those who have no need for this product will realize at least an inch of growth of their own hair before this drumbeat is silenced. The sheer length of this dalliance into torment is astounding for the utter lack of information presented and might, in and of itself, lead to hair loss.

Fruit of the Loom Underwear
The Fruit of the Loom Quartet

So many things are wrong with this deranged series of advertisements that it is difficult to select a problem on which to concentrate. Leaving alone for a moment the anthropomorphizing of the already twisted brand name's signature collection of produce resulting from a play on the words of its own trademark, and overlooking the creepy and morally inadvisable situations in which this strange harvest repeatedly becomes embroiled, the utter lack of any kind of affection for people in fruit suits this wisecracking, country-singing, leering group of otherwise socially useless creatures generates is enough to justify a campaign to eliminate both fruit and underwear. The colorful gadflies have accumulated an extensive rap sheet, from loitering in a fire station full of briefs-clad emergency personnel to bordering on sexual predation at an undergarment fashion show to waxing sentimental, or as sentimental as an apple can wax, in a faux music video. This is definitely one serving of fruit that should not be consumed on a daily basis.

Nutrisystems
I lost 29 pounds

Anti-fat advertising serves television viewers a regular diet of tubbies turned Twiggy, but Nutrisystems has found the magical formula to amplify the irritation when they trot out their supposed success stories. "If you can eat, you can lose weight" sputters "Kelly," a woman who, according to the aggravating graphics, sported a near planetary girth before delving into the Nutrisystem program. She and various other women pose in skimpy swimsuits, silly evening gowns and ridiculous high heels, extolling the virtues of this questionable weight loss method and gurgling about the doubtful claim that their husbands actually now find them to be "hot." "Kelly" delivers her lines with a southern accent that is the stuff of nightmares and lurid motion pictures about cotton belt simpletons. But the ladies don't hog this chow line as a similar atrocity is committed using the likes of former football luminary Dan Marino and seventy-seven year old Coach Don Shula. Along with a spate of other unknowns, the guys paraphrase the essential sentiment expressed by their female counterparts, though in a suitably butch fashion and without bikinis and high heels, at least not in the rendition we see on the screen. "My wife says I'm not as disgusting as I used to be," brags one fellow, evidently invoking the male translation of being found to be "hot." All of these apparitions are paraded against a brilliant white background, interspersed with before and after comparison photographs of the participants, snapshots of supposedly delectable meals and various enticements to compel viewers to subscribe. After having sat through these awful ads, one would probably conclude that obesity is not necessarily that bad.

And the Award Goes To...

Yoplait Yogurt for
"You're My Little Fluffy One"

A big stinking "Ugh" to whoever designed this gruesome debacle. It's bad enough that we get closeups of the pink fluffy slippers sported by the swing lady, but we are also subjected to brief encounters with some fluffy yogurt frenzied dame gallivanting in a fluffy bed full of fluffy pink flowing sheets. This hormone bottle full of syrup of ipecac must have overcome some Yoplait executive operating under the delusion that projectile vomit and whipped yogurt are ultimately indistinguishable. The occurrence of this ad leads to something of a race with time and sanity as one struggles to mute the audio before the first mind–numbing strains of "You're My Little Fluffy One" tortuously fill the air. This ad, oh so deserving of our award, is one that demands you keep a supply of expectorate bags next to your remote. "Ugh!".

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