Posted on 04/27/2020 8:12:34 AM PDT by Kaslin
A new kind of television advertisement has crept into our collective consciousness here in the age of virus. In an effort to show that they care, and you know, sell stuff, major corporations are inundating the airwaves with saccharine-sweet, super-sincere TV spots that are not a little bit dystopian. Indeed, the virus, it seems, is inescapable even when we cut to a few words from our sponsors.
You’ve all seen them. They include phrases like, “In this time, more than any other,” or “As we all rise to the challenge,” or “Stay safe, stay home.” The last one is particularly infuriating. I mean, I am home! I’m watching freakin television! Where do you think I am, a sports bar? I’m just trying to tune out watching “Friends” over here.
In a Dunkin Donuts ad, employees in one store are making masks. An AT&T ad like dozens of others is a for-profit celebration of frontline responders. There is ad after ad after ad of cozy indoor shots of parents teaching kids, people cooking, virtual happy hours, all of it.
And they aren’t even honest. A lot of families are at each other’s throats. What there should probably be is more Peloton divorce ads about couples who now hate each other, or some single guy sadly taping together used pizza boxes for the recycling.
It is honestly enough to make me long lovingly for the days “Mike Bloomberg for president” ads were more prevalent than grains of sand on the beach. Remember that? It was about 14 years ago, I think. But annoying as they were, those ads weren’t as cloying and Orwellian as the 30-second spots reinforcing lockdown orders while selling products.
We all know already about the shutdown. It’s not a public service to constantly remind us that we have barely left our houses for two months. One of the big reasons people watch TV is to escape this weird reality for a few hours, to settle into the world as it was, not as it is. But the next thing you know it’s back to hospital rooms and facemasks on the screen, stirring music swelling beneath. Just stop.
You know what I want from TV ads right now? I want pretty people with good, strong teeth pushing products that can dramatically improve my life. I want jokes, and celebrity cameos, contests and yelling. I want some affirmation that someday life will be back to normal, not constant reminders of the current drudgery.
A great danger in a long-term slow-motion crisis is that a narrative can start to set in across the culture. Increasingly. that is reinforcing a victim narrative. After all, there is little some Americans crave more than the mantle of victimhood. It is a message of powerlessness in which all we can do is heat up a can of baked beans and wait for the dictatorship of expertise to give us the all-clear.
Television ads play an outsized role in crafting that narrative. This is in part because TV viewership among Americans is so fragmented that we don’t watch the same news, or the same shows, but we do watch the same ads. It is one of the few forms of television that can still saturate society. Please saturate it with something other than shilling while putting on a coronavirus pageant.
There is a danger of wallowing. Yes, our lives have temporarily changed, but no, coronavirus need not be at the center of our every waking moment. In fact, if we let it be, we will all slowly go insane. So please, big companies and advertising companies, just cut us a break. Let us think about something else. I’ll buy it, whatever it is. I promise.
“Did he say anything about the opening of salons?”
Salons and barbers still closed. Dentist’s open. Masks in public not mandatory. I will still wear one in a store just because it so easy to do. Not sure what if anything stated on travel ban. Some business’s can open at 25% capacity not sure how that is practical. Counties with 5 or less COVID cases ( many in Tx) can be less restrictive. I agree with that not sure how the counties will react however.
Thank you.
We’re all in this together;
so you’re on your own
I can’t wait for some new Arby’s ads.
They have been so funny and irreverent recently. They could sell a whole hell of a lot of roast beef if they could get people laughing again like we used to do at their ads. And I think they could get away with it better than any other national advertiser if the writing is good and if the ads are well-timed.
The 1st couple times were fine. After that, basta (enough)
Yea we were eating dinner while watching episode 3 last night.
First we found out the two FBI guys used to date each other then 20 mins later the freak is getting a BJ from some male prostitute.
i went into the kitchen and never finished the episode.
Apparently this is now the new “normal” with television shows.
sad..
Oh man.....
unbelievable
That is actually pretty scary...
ugh
Now THAT would be funny!
I click them off, barf, barf, barf.
I don’t know what’s worse, the sappy crap, the crappy sykpe views of people’s living rooms, the new-found worship of grocery workers (who can’t tell me what’s on sale or not or whether something is in stock) or the notion we should be giving ourselves medals for obeying big brother and staying inside like we’re all soldiers storming Normandy beach.
Actually what bothers me the most is the anthropomorphization of free-floating RNA.
You’ve become dour.
The people who created these advertisements, are highly paid, ESSENTIAL workers who don’t give a damn about the mere peons who are out of work.
Well...;)
I like the old “Columbo” episodes.
“Dour”...
There’s a good word... not used a lot anymore, but a good word nonetheless...
Pretty much
It’s stupid
Like blacks in medieval history shows
Roma Downey making Semitic characters tropical Africans in her retelling
“I like the old “Columbo” episodes.”
A great series! It’s available on one of the streaming services now.
There are a lot of older ones that I didn’t list. The original Hawaii Five-O is another.
I remember Danno saying to McGarrett “We made a horrible mistake [whatever it was]”. McGarrett said “We don’t make mistakes. We just have great learning experiences”.
There is a terrific youtube video of these, showing how they all start with “soft somber piano music” then go to the “in times like these”/”challenging times,” blah blah. Then they all end with the “we’re in this together,” and many have a finale of people clapping with uplifting piano music.
I contacted a friend-—actually, the woman who does all my branding for the “Wild World of History” curriculum and website. As a marketing person on the board of Penn State’s business school, she is appalled by the lack of creativity in these. She said it was like the ad teams were in their basements and just threw something together from the internet.
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