Critiquing commercials

If there was any easy money in it, and if I could stomach the task, it would be interesting to be a stay-at-home Commercial Advertising Critic.

To say most TV advertising is vile and obnoxious is an understatement and certainly not an original observation. And, with only basic cable and just a few channels from which to choose to watch my mere handful of favourite shows, I am subjected to the same commercials over and over again. I hit “mute” regularly and will even look away in order to avoid certain nauseating and repetitive visuals.

Here are a few of my longtime or recent “favourites” – some of which just happen to feature human and animal posteriors.

1)      Disney. Surprise the kids with a trip to Disney! One little girl needed better direction; her look of “delight” as she spots magical Disney characters through her window makes me think she’s just seen Mickey Mouse being torn to shreds by zombies on the street below. I wonder how many times the director yelled “Cut” before giving up? Seriously – he couldn’t get the child to smile?

2)      Depend “In Colour” adult diapers. An attractive middle-aged woman tosses her hair in a carefree fashion and smiles as she strides along a busy sidewalk. She’s wearing Depends! She’s attractive and confident! Then, the rear shot reveals a shapeless, flat rear (bad) with unsightly panty lines (worse). Sheesh! Anybody who watches “What Not To Wear” knows that panty lines are the devil’s work. The next actor, a handsome older black man (giving “Depends in ‘Colour’” a new meaning), winks at the camera and walks away, but we get no butt shot. Foul!

3)      Charmin. Years of Charmin ursine idiocy have not inured me to the repulsiveness of these commercials. The emphasis is partly on the need to use fewer squares (agreed – use too much Charmin and it will plug up your toilet) but the companion message is… a cleaner bum. “No messy pieces left behind!” The question begs to be asked: Who examines their own or someone else’s rear end for clingy pieces of tissue paper? Wouldn’t this concern, in fact, apply only to animals with fur? Or porn stars? And how to explain “you can enjoy going more while using less” as incentive? Is pooping aplenty so attractive?

4)      McDonalds. I rarely eat junk food or fast food, so these ads don’t influence me. They do occasionally make my jaw drop, though, and not in awe. More like in disbelief at their unmitigated gall. It must truly be a challenge to be persuasively creative when purveying food loaded with fat and salt. Recent shining examples of McDonalds hubris were the Christmas “Dad” ads – in which the ideal Christmas gift for the Dad-who-has-everything is some “quality time” over chicken McNuggets. Or the newest spot, which really does beat them all; it shows a pregnant woman, presumably easing some weird cravings, dipping her chicken McNugget into her caramel sundae. Nothing but the best for this fetus!

I was encouraged recently by a friend’s teenager’s remark that she doubts very much that Olympic athletes eat at Mickey D’s. The franchise’s sponsorship of sporting events would be laughable, if it weren’t so fundamentally dishonest.