I was flipping through channels last night, and happened upon a couple rather annoying commercials. Actually, the first one wasn’t so much “annoying” as simply an illustration of the nonsensical nature of pharmaceutical advertisements. It was a commercial for some sort of osteoporosis medication, hawked by Sally Field. And as I was watching it, I realized that there's a pattern with these prescription medication ads:
It begins with someone (or a group of someones) going about daily life – drinking coffee, playing golf, hanging out at a party. The drug is casually mentioned in conversation, because, as we all know, prescription drug use is always a fascinating topic of discussion. So it would go something like this:
Two women sit at a table in a sunny kitchen, drinking coffee and indulging in slices of pie (although, since this is a commercial, they neither drink nor eat – the coffee and pie are merely visual props…).
Woman #1: Did I tell you about my embarrassing fungus?
Woman #2 (subtly sliding chair away from woman #1): Yes! What did your doctor say?
Woman #1: He gave me this new dozen-pill-a-day regimen called Fungusbegone.
Woman #2 (with obvious tone of wonderment): Fungusbegone?
Woman #1: Yes! It’s the only dozen-pill-a-day treatment for the possible eventual cure of embarrassing fungus.
Woman #2: But how does it work?
Woman #1: I simply take a dozen pills a day, and within seven or eight months, my fungus is barely a problem anymore. I can even continue to drink coffee and eat pie!
Woman #2 (laughing conspiratorially): Well, sign ME up for Fungusbegone!
Woman #1: It’s ONLY available by prescription, silly!
As the women continue to laugh hysterically at things that aren’t even funny, the voiceover begins to explain the side effects:
Do not take Fungusbegone if you have a history of colds or flu. People taking Fungusbegone should avoid drinking water or swimming. Fungusbegone may cause hives, blemishes, uncontrollable hair growth, temporary blindness, numbness in the hands and feet, difficulty breathing, spontaneous bone fractures, and cancer of the esophagus. Women who are pregnant or who may become pregnant should not even be watching this commercial. Consult your doctor if your fungus takes on a life of its own...
And of course, as all those side effects are listed, the people in the commercial continue to laugh and go about their daily lives – there’s a scene at the grocery store. There’s a scene at a little league game. There’s a scene out in a field with horses and mountains in the distance. All of these little slices of life are supposed to prove to us, I suppose, that taking the advertised medication will in no way interfere with all that horseback riding you were planning on doing before you were so cruelly struck down by a fungus. And it seems like most pharmaceutical commercials follow this basic script.
The other commercial I saw that annoyed me was an ad for some sort of “Oxy Clean” laundry detergent. I really hate ALL of those Oxy Clean commercials, mainly because that man who advertises Oxy Clean always yells. Every time one of those ads comes on, I feel like I’m being reprimanded for not using Oxy Clean – “IT MAKES EVERYTHING WHITE!! USE OXY CLEAN!! LOOK AT HOW WHITE THIS OLD T-SHIRT IS NOW!!” Yikes. Sorry. I don’t want to admit that I’ve never tried Oxy Clean, because I’m afraid the scary man will yell at me…
But the thing that was especially irritating about the Oxy Clean laundry detergent commercial was the implication that laundry is so unnecessarily complicated without Oxy Clean laundry detergent. If you believe the commercial, doing the laundry is practically rocket science. You need some kind of advanced degree to figure out how to measure soap. To illustrate this fact, the ad shows people attempting to do their laundry WITHOUT Oxy Clean detergent, and failing miserably. Liquid detergent ends up all over the floor, powdered detergent flies through the air like confetti – measuring laundry soap is so hard! If only there was a simple way to clean my clothes…
This ad reminded me of a commercial I saw numerous times last year right before Christmas. People wrap a lot of packages at Christmastime, and this particular commercial was for a tape dispenser – it was supposed to make wrapping all those packages much, much easier. And once again, to demonstrate how “difficult” wrapping presents is, the ad made it look ridiculously complicated. People were tossing around ribbons and scissors like brain-damaged monkeys, winding up with dented, crushed boxes and mangled paper. I wrapped plenty of packages last Christmas, and I never needed any sort of fancy tape dispenser to help me out. Plain old Scotch tape works just fine, thank you very much…
So I'm never sure what these ads are trying to SAY, exactly. I mean, are they targeted at really, really stupid people? Or are they trying to imply that EVERYONE is really, really stupid? Why don't they just have that Oxy Clean guy yell at us all in a demoralizing fashion, to shame us into buying their products? "YOU CAN'T DO THE LAUNDRY! YOU'RE TOO STUPID! DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ABOUT GIFT WRAPPING! WHAT A BUNCH OF UNCOORDINATED IDIOTS! BUY MY LAUNDRY DETERGENT! BUY MY TAPE DISPENSER! DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY!!"
I'm looking for my Visa card even as I type... because THIS year, my Christmas gifts will NOT look like they were wrapped by monkeys...
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