It Makes Me So Angry . . . . (Updated)

January 28, 2008 12:56 PM

am not an ad executive. I have never been to business school or even taken a marketing class. I have never written copy or tried to sell anything. I am completely naive as to what it takes to brand and sell a product. I want you all to keep this in mind for what follows.

You see, although I am completely ignorant as to what it takes to market a product, I would assume--based on nothing other than common sense (which apparently tells some people that the ass is a reproductive organ)--that an advertising campaign that makes anyone that is exposed to it want to hunt down and destroy every single person that is in any way connected to the product and its marketing is a complete failure. In other words, if, after seeing a commercial, the viewer is filled with an almost uncontrollable urge to decapitate anyone that owns the product, has owned the product, might one day own the product, or even is aware of the product's existence and disembowel everyone who works at any of the companies that were in any way connected to the production of the commercial, including the ad executives, camera operators, secretarial staff, and janitors, then I would assume that the commercial is, to put it mildly, a failure.

I am apparently mistaken in that assumption, however. That's what I'm lead to believe by the people in charge of the ad campaign for Zoo York--people who presumably have the benefit of years of education. Witness their oeuvre:

Am I in the fucking twilight zone? I could enumerate the reasons why I think this commercial is worse than AIDS, but if you don't already get it, you're a worthless piece of shit, anyway. And if, as a result of seeing this commercial, you actually want to go buy these shoes (that's what this is a commercial for, right?) then I hope you do humanity a favor and split your ballsack open the next time you try to grind a handrail and are thereafter unable to have children.

Update:
As the Rising Jurist pointed out in the comments, the Zoo York ad is actually a parody of the HeadOn! commercials, which I now realize I've seen before but had mercifully forgotten about. Here's one for your review:

I think that my initial criticism applies with equal force to the HeadOn! people: it doesn't matter what your product is, don't create a commercial that insults my intelligence and makes me want to kill you. And I now have something else to criticize Zoo York for: if you're going to parody something horrible, then find some way of making it less horrible, rather than keeping all of the things that made the original horrible while removing any of the things that made the original even somewhat coherent.

And my underlying point to all of this still stands: everyone involved in creating these monstrosities should be executed.

5 Comments

tRJ said:

Your wrath might be more fairly applied to the commercials for HeadOn, which the Zoo York campaign parodies.

January 28, 2008 1:30 PM

Santi said:

Wow, I am shocked that you didn't realize that was a Head-On parody. Do you not have like 5-10 Head-On commercials running per day in Wisconsin? We sure as hell do. And let's not forget their other products:

Active-On: "Apply directly where it hurts."
First-On: "Apply directly where it itches."

You can just guess how awesome those commercials are.

January 28, 2008 3:26 PM

Anonymous said:

i've never seen the head-on commercial, but i think the zoo york parody does a good job. i think if you didn't jump the gun on the earlier outrage, you'd think so too.

January 28, 2008 9:38 PM

Anonymous said:

if you really want to be angry, check out the response to sen. kennedy's approval of obama by NOW-NY. now that is something that will get you mad.

January 28, 2008 9:41 PM

Ismael Tapia II said:

Anonymouse,
Yeah, I saw that, and I agree that it's pretty outrageous. I'm too tired right now to really get into it, but those women really need to pull their heads out of their vaginas.

January 30, 2008 2:46 AM

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