Saturday, February 25, 2006

The Brilliance of Advertising

I just saw a fantastic commercial on a show about the most downloaded videos. It's a guy and his kid walking around the grocery store. The kid throws a bag of candy in the shopping cart, and the guy puts it back on the shelf. The kid then throws it back in the cart, but the dad takes it out again. Then the kid starts SCREAMING at the top of his lungs. And I mean visceral, horrible screaming. The dad stands there, stoic, trying to ignore the kid.

The show then intones that this isn't a commercial about candy, and asks the viewer what it's about. The kid continues screaming in the background, running around the store, throwing things from the shelves onto the floor, just being an awful pain in the ass. The dad continues standing there, growing more and more perturbed. The show asks is this a commercial for aspirin? For something else child care related?

Nope. The commercial's message flashes on the screen: "USE CONDOMS."

Brilliant!

3 comments:

RPM said...

It is a brilliant message. This is yet another reason for prophylactics.

Ismael Tapia II said...

What are you saying, katherine? that men don't play an active role in raising children?

SEXIST!

RPM said...

The brilliance perpetuates itself. Brilliant!