Marketing

The other day, we were driving in the car. From the back seat, out of the blue, Julianna's little 4-year-old voice floated forward:

Mommy? You remember that movie, Barbie and the 12 Dancing
Princesses? Well, it's coming to video and DVD.

As I've mentioned before (almost exactly 2 years ago), it strikes at them at a young age.

I think what annoys me most is when advertisers try to evoke an emotion completely unrelated to the product they are trying to sell. I realize this is supposed to work, but who does it work on? I don't know if it's the mathematician in me, but when they try to take a 30- or 60-second commercial and come at you from visceral level, it makes my skin crawl. Yes - I believe that Uncle Ben's Wild Rice will make my sex life more spicy. What is that all about?

Now, I do like the current Plavix commercial. Have you seen it? It starts out showing Jim the Firefighter, with the words,

Jim is a formidable man.

I can go along with that. Though I think Krista likes the last line better:

Because no matter how formidable you are, you're no
match for a Dangerous Clot.

Sounds like a bad comic book.

And I'm not sure how I feel about my favorite classic rock songs being used to further our horrible addiction to consumerism. But, sad to say, I guess I can fall prey to these things, too. Personally, I've always preferred Mercedes over Cadillacs - not that I'm going to be getting one any time soon - but when they started using Led Zeppelin songs in their commercials, Cadillacs suddenly became way cooler. I guess it depends on what pushes your buttons.



Rock 'n' Roll.

I've always like Jags, and Sting singing over those Jaguar commercials is pretty darn cool...

Have you seen the Smoke on the Water Dodge Avenger commercial?



Pure genius.

However, there seems to be something innately wrong with using an 80's rebellion song to hawk medicine for Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder.






Or is it just me?



But, I think if I was in marketing, I could still come up with a better prescription name than Vagifem.







And yes, that is a photo of a stirrup cozy in an OB office.



Yeah, I do hate marketing...