Saturday, May 3, 2014



Today is May 4 and there are only 235 days until Christmas.  That means that most of the Swiss Colony products are already in production and getting ready for shipment.  Nothing says Christmas like a fancy box of preservatives and meat-like products.  It is the birthday of Carlo Rainaldi, Julia Gardiner Tyler and Dennis Weaver.  On this day in 1626 the Indians sold Manhattan Island for $24 in cloth and buttons, in 1893 cowboy Bob Pickett invented bulldogging and in 1979 Margaret Thatcher became the first woman Prime Minister of Great Britain.  In Tonga it is the Crown Prince’s birthday, it is McDonogh Day in New Orleans and tomorrow will be the Lovely Elaine’s and my 41st anniversary (I don’t know how she has lasted this long either).

I wanted to take some time to explain what McDonogh Day was.  I think it is interesting and something that people should know about.  When millionaire merchant John McDonogh died in 1850, he left his fortune to be divided equally between his native city of Baltimore and his adopted city of New Orleans, specifically for the purpose of creating public schools for the “education of the poor of all castes and races.”  The money was used to build more than 30 schools in New Orleans.  This was a man who was dedicated to education and I just thought you might find it interesting.

Once again I find myself wondering what goes through the minds of people when they are creating a commercial for television.  For example, there is a phone company that has a series of commercials that feature a little girl who always has butterflies around her and speaks French, a young nerdish boy and an older brother who seems sort of normal.  The mother appears to be just a mother with no apparent affectations.  Where it gets truly bizarre is the father.  He is a hamster who resides in a plastic ball.  I have seen several different commercials in this series and the same questions keep running through my head.  Who could have possibly thought these were a great idea and what medications are they on?

I understand that you are trying to sell a product, in this case a group phone plan.  You have had other commercials and while they were not necessarily award winners, they at least made sense.  This new series causes me to shake my head and say things like, “Are they bleeping kidding?”  I cannot help but wonder how the process worked for this series. 

The company went to their ad agency and said they wanted a new series of commercials that would sell their new plan.  They probably said something like, “Don’t be afraid to think outside the box.”  That is something people say all the time, but don’t really mean.  It is okay to think outside the box until you do.  So the agency goes to their creative team, tells them to develop a series of commercials and “the client says to think outside the box.”  The team gets together and comes up with something that does not even recognize that there was a box.  They create the bizarre family mentioned earlier, develop several commercials and then sit back and pat themselves on the back for their creativity. 
What puzzles me is how this whole thing got further than the initial presentation.  Somewhere along the line, either at the agency or with the client, someone should have said, “The father as a hamster in a plastic ball has got to go.  It makes no sense, is not funny and needs to be changed.”  No one did!  These are the people I want to meet.  If they thought this series was good, they will love the bridge I have for sale in Brooklyn.

Another commercial I find annoying is the car commercial with the guys wandering through the desert.  A car pulls up and a celebrity offers them water, but one of the wanderers determines that it is only a mirage and lets the car drive off.  Later they stumble onto a party and again the mental giant determines it is a mirage.  Now maybe I am nitpicking, but in reality a mirage disappears as you approach it.  It never actually speaks to you and you never actually get to it.  I am sure that there could have been a better way to approach this than using a mirage.  I am sure that the celebrity would accept their money even if the commercial was a dream or something else.  I am pretty sure he did not say, “I am only doing this if I can be part of a mirage.”  Like I said it could just be me, but I cannot believe that someone created this, someone else thought it was good and they paid, I am sure, a large chunk of money for it.

There are other commercials that I think would have benefited from some thought before they put it on the air.  There is a car company that is touting one of their cars, the sport model F series.  They go on and on about the performance of the car and how well it handles, etc.  The problem does not crop up until the end of the commercial.  That is where they tell you that “the performance mark is F.”  I am sure they are referring to the series of car, but to most of the world if you get an F as a mark, it means you have failed.  I do not want a car that has a performance mark of F.  I want one that I am sure will go when I press down the gas pedal, stop when I apply the brakes and do the things a car is supposed to do.  I would be satisfied with a performance mark of C, but don’t give me one of those F cars.

Our fact this week tells us that a Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn’t give her coffee.  Does this hold true if she drinks tea?  What happens if he gives her coffee, but she doesn’t drink it?  Do Saudi Arabian men withhold coffee intentionally hoping for a divorce?  Think of how many divorces there would be in the US if that was in force here.

Thanks for stopping by and have a good week.

No comments:

Post a Comment