Another Horrible Commercial: Just for Men - Graduation / Job Interview

Saw this commercial today and completely agree that it's horrible. Dude putting it on YouTube via the video camera is a little bit of a spaz with his commentary, but he's right.

Giving Cougars a Bad Name

Some observations about this pod:


1. Nothing wrong with the whole Cougar lifestyle -- if that's what you're into --- but these d-bags and the unfortunate women they roped into the clip give it a bad name.

2. The 'director' looks like the runt cousin of David Faustino

3. What do you call the dudes who acquiesce or succumb to cougars? In this particular clip, I think Wikipedia gets part of it right:

"it hunts species as small as insects and rodents"

Criticism: Incredibly Awful & Insulting Infomercial for 'Presto'

While watching some Current on TiVo (see this post for full review of Current), I was stopped in my tracks by the worst commercial I have seen in quite some time.

The spot was for Presto, which lets you "send email and photos to people who don't have a computer". I haven't been able to find it on YouTube yet, but the 'view demo' link on the Presto site provides a good approximation for it.

The net message is 'Do you have a weak, feeble minded, lazy moron that you know couldn't possibly understand something as complicated as a computer? Would you like to send pictures to that moron every now and then? Of course you would. Lucky for you that we are selling this ugly grey box for only $150 plus $10/month for 'service'. Nevermind that you could FedEx pictures to your moron twice a month for the same amount of money, Presto is a great deal."

Here are some key frames from the online 'dramatization' of the commercial:

Frame 1: Mom is an easily flustered dullard



Frame 2: Mom is such a moron it would be a crazy time suck to have to try and teach her how to use a computer



Frame 3: Everything could be so much better if Mom had a magic photo box in her parlor



Frame 4: Mom almost has a heart attack because the magic machine from the future is trying to show her something



Frame 5: Mom and Dad chuckle together in relief once they realize the magic box is friendly and doesn't mean them any harm

These People Are Horrible: SalesGenie.com

Full disclosure: I work in advertising and fully believe in democratic capitalism, so I absolutely support the right of shallow, cynical hacks to develop and run corrupting, crap ads. But that doesn't mean I'm not disgusted when I see something so grossly manipulating and exploitative as the garbage that Sales Genie is currently airing. These haven't made YouTube yet, but if you are interested, click the "Watch our National TV Commercial" link on their site and judge for yourself. This is just one of a series of just despicable spots using 'adorable toddlers' who deliver lines like the following in a Cindi Brady-like lisp for extra smaltz effect:

"My daddy is a salesman. How much money he makes depends upon how much he sells. Last year he worked WEALLY hard. But he didn't make a lot of money."

I also believe in the karmic principle that those who "sow evil shall reap evil", and the asshats behind the current SaleGenie dreck can't have enough blight befall them for uncorking upon us such a purely rotten ad campaign.

Update: 8/3/07 - I just learned through AdHole that the offending Salesgenie commercial is on YouTube. Or, see it below.

Alert: Another TV a** clown to avoid

Please, for the love of all that is good in this world [e.g., see this, or this, or, more seriously, this], don't watch the Glenn Beck show. I know his show isn't new, but it took awhile for me to work up the energy to bother posting this. I used to watch a lot of CNN Headline News, but haven't watched at all since they put a-holes like Beck and Nancy Grace on.

Originally posted 3/4/07