Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Ads I Don't Like

For no other reason than because it's my blog and I wanna, I'm going to lay upon you, gentle reader, three advertisements or advertising campaigns that really get on my nerves.

Dry pits win.
I can't remember what antiperspirant company put out this weird line of print ads (and it serves them right, my proud ignorance). But if you've been reading a men's magazine of any stripe--Playboy, Maxim, or Esquire--for the last year, you've seen this abominations. In a romantic setting such as a nice restaurant, riding on a horse on a beach, or lying on a carpet before a crackling fire, we espy an attractive woman (a different one in each ad, just like in James Bond films) canoodling with what appears to be an armpit with strange, three-toed feet). In each instance, this bizarre creature is seated, so he's bent, and the feet are where the ribcage should be, and where the arm should be we have no head, just a flat spot like the damn thing's not only hairy in the front but decapitated.

Jesus and mary chain, what the hell kind of bad acid trip in a muddy-field rave inspired this thing? I mean, I can understand a tendency to want to appeal to the average schlub who knows he doesn't look like those eighteen year old pretty boys who pout their way through the pages between the cheesecake on the front cover and the table of contents, but good God, man, who identifies with an anthromorphized armpit? I mean, this set seriously creeps me out.

I mean, when the armpit has its fun in its one night stand and romps off with the next hot model in the next exotic locale, stranding the heartbroken previous hot model who thought she could tame his untamed but dry armpituous nature alone and unfortunately pregnant because he used the line not only am I dry, but I am sterile, you've got to wonder what will those poor children look like?
AAA Insurance.
You might have heard the radio commercials in the "Why would you pay for insurance you're never going to use" campaign. Lord knows I have. Whomever, whoever, or whatever wrote these ought to be handling a run for office somewhere. "When you have AAA insurance, along with a AAA membership...." you get insurance you can use for free towing, discounts when you show your card, and so on.

What the wet sprocket? With the purchase of bleach and bread, I can make a sandwich, but I'm not using both for it. How on earth do they expect to convince a rational person to purchase their insurance by hyping the AAA membership, which is $105 a year for the Gold plan last I checked? Who can trust a vendor who tries to sell you the falcoing insurance for a lot of money to give you the separate advertised features thrown in for a little extra?

Apparently, they're targeting undecided voters, too.
GMC Trucks
Built professional grade, huh? Perhaps you've seen the particular commercial where they tout the individual, 4 inch galvanized steel bolts they use to bolt their truck beds to their frame. They illustrate this by linching a pulley with a single one of these bolts and winching a truck to the ceiling with that pulley while a guy in a lab coat, undoubtedly an underpaid Quality Engineer who should only have faith in the tests and never in the products tested, stands underneath the truck while it's creaking on the line and single bolt.

Then, with the music coming up but before it cuts to the still featuring the latest financing package, a truck roars into the frame at probably thirty miles an hour and skids to a stop, fishtailing it forty degrees over a very stern Professional Driver. Closed Course. Do Not Attempt caption that does its best textual impression of James Earl Jones warning you about skidding in your automobile. Personally, I've never gotten the whole idea behind using footage of the vehicle out of control to sell a car, but I work for a living.

Message: Don't try some small fry fancy maneuvers while driving unless you're a professional; however, standing under your truck while it's swinging from the rafters on a single bolt is a perfectly good way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Chumbawamba, how many half-gassed suburbanites have to die while trying to impress their hemi-having neighbors before this commercial carries the appropriate number of antilitigatory warnings that if you consume hyberbolic acid, you could have a bad trip?

Thanks. I feel better now, but not much.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:29 PM