A Few More Thoughts on Commercials

This is the last post I'll write about commercials- I promise- until the next one that makes me writhe in pain. If you don't want to read there's a funny video after all these words. Don't listen to the warning, it's appropriate for all.

Gambling commercials always make me laugh. I saw a familiar one the other day. A young man is watching a basketball game on his little cot in his upstairs bedroom. He is evidently tense because his knuckles are turning white as they clench the aluminum baseball bat that he is holding. (Apparently this is a common occurrence: watching televised sporting contests with a heavy metal object in hand. Not to mention the fact that he is watching basketball while holding baseball equipment- inconsistencies already abound.) It appears that this lad’s team is losing because his growling gets louder as the commercial progresses and sweat is pouring down his forehead like a melting glacier. The commercial warns against the perils of gambling as the sporting contest comes to a close. The boy’s team has lost, or maybe not covered the spread, or not reached the over- they don’t even specify what bet this kid has made. (For all we know it could have just been a bad bet, and they should be specifying that you should not gamble UNLESS you have done your research.) So the kid has lost, he jumps up in an act of superfluous frustration and in one fell swoop he comes down on his television set with the baseball bat- smashing the thing into oblivion. Freeze frame. The advertisers let that little ditty sink in as they deliver their final epitaph. I don’t remember what it was but it was something in the vain of, “gambling is bad,” I missed it because I was too busy looking at the lines for the night’s NBA games, the commercial had got me thinking.

While being a solid piece of film making- the lighting was good and they took the right angles to capture the kid’s rage- I did find a few holes in this little saga. As is apparent from his aggravation, this was not a once-in-a-blue-moon wager, this might have been the end of a gravely futile losing weekend, or the double down on a previous loss that he was hoping to drag him out of a rut. That’s why the smashing of the television just did not make sense. Everybody knows that if this kid was a serious gambler the first thing he would have done after losing that bet would be to pawn the television in order to pay off his bookie. He would not smash his only observable asset. If this was the case, and he is destroying his last thing of value, then this kid is just stupid to begin with and we should not be wasting our time with him.

Additionally, this kid appears to be about sixteen, at most. Now we will take a leap of faith and give the commercial the benefit of the doubt that this kid was able to find a bookie in the school yard that would cover his bets. If they are assuming that he’s going down to the local gentlemen’s club to lay down money then they are the ones that deserve the business end of a baseball bat. Given that this kid has a playground bookie, how much money can he be losing to begin with? How much “credit” is this kid giving him and if he doesn’t pay up what is going to happen to him? Maybe catch a bit of a beating? It’s not like he’s in deep with the mob and his life is at stake. He’s indebted to an 18 year-old, so why is he getting so upset? He didn’t just lose this month’s rent, his child support payments, or the money to buy gas in order to get to his job that provides for his rent and child support payments. Rather, what this kid really has is an anger problem with a gambling habit. He has been misdiagnosed, and they need to specify this. The moral of the commercial should be stated as, “If you have a serious and debilitating anger problem, don’t watch pivotal sporting events while holding weapons.”

In other commercial news, Sonic is continuing their break-neck advertising campaign and the logic of it still eludes me, but then again I’m not a marketing major. At least once a day some zany little Sonic commercial will come on and I’ll admit they are tolerable- not funny by any means, but they don’t make you scream in horror like some other ads. This is a consistent approximation, if you watch television, you will see at least one a day. I checked Sonics website and there is not a restaurant within 150 miles of any part of Connecticut. 150 miles, please explain this to me.

I can only think of one explanation. You know how an army will bomb a country and attempt to take out their defenses before sending in the ground troops? Well, this is what I believe Sonic is doing. They are going to bombard us with commercials until we are all salivating at the mere mention of the word Sonic or the sight of any hedgehog. Then stores will begin to spring up everywhere, like mutant Starbucks, and we will all be lining up outside them 24/7- sending our friends to get in lines at other Sonics so that we can scoot over there after getting out of the current line. Well, this is just what I think.

But what else could be their objective? My Dad posed the idea that they wanted us to be so overcome by the prospects of Sonic that we would call our relatives who lived near one and urge them to immediately go out there for a meal. Do they want us to be so moved by their commercials that we book a flight and embark on a pilgrimage to one? Are they trying to inspire a real life “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle?” If this is the case then they should combine their advertisements with, say, Southwest Airlines. They could offer a round-trip, meal-for-two package.

I think too much about commercials.