But lest ye fear for the future of democracy, I hasten to add that I do not get all my news from Comedy Central. No, while I do think, frankly, that Colbert, Stewart, and their minions provide more insightful versions of the day’s events than their unfunny counterparts, I am also in the habit of getting a more serious take on things from NBC’s Nightly News with Brian Williams.
Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to what has easily been the worst thing about the online version of that show for at least the last month: the commercial.
Yes, you read that right: commercial — singular. You see, for the past five or six weeks, give or take, I have been seeing one commercial, and one commercial alone, ad nauseam between two- to three-minute clips of the regular nightly broadcast and additional web-only material. By my quick calculation, then, I’d estimate that I have seen the same #@&^*! commercial at least 200 times in the last few weeks.
Now, under regular old TV-type circumstances, I know that advertisers like to have their commercials seen as often as possible, but this incessant repetition strikes me as a technical problem for online adverts that is in dire need of fixing. Why? Because I don’t care if you’ve made the freaking Citizen Kane of commercials, there is no way in hell that I want to see the damn thing 200 times. Indeed, by showing an ad so much, you run a significant risk of enraging me (and others like me, no doubt), inspiring my utter hatred and derision towards whatever it is you’re trying to plug.
An analogy might be helpful here:
When I was about 12 years old, my older brother came home for the summer after his first year of college. And he brought with him a new love — no, not some intrepid coed, but rather something far less wholesome and, apparently, much more addictive: Pink Floyd’s rock ’n’ roll opus The Wall.
Yes, as dark and depressing as the album is, my brother was absolutely obsessed with it, playing all 81 and a half minutes at least once daily throughout the long, hot Texas summer. Naturally, my thoughts turned to violence. There just wasn’t enough room in the house for me, my brother, the band, and Roger Waters’ operatic psychodrama. My recurring fantasy was of taking a baseball bat to the CD player just…to…make…it…stop.
In retrospect, as it turns out, I’ve actually grown to like the album quite a lot. I mean, it’s not as good as Dark Side, but you know, when you don’t have to hear the thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, you can begin to appreciate its bleak beauty and artistry.
Imagine, though, if my brother had wanted to listen to, say, Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” unceasingly. Well, if you’ve seen Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, you know what that could lead to: a smashed alarm clock. It would be truly insufferable.
And unfortunately, the ad I’ve been seeing day in and day out several times per day is much more “I Got You Babe” than “Comfortably Numb.” (Oh, would that I could be numbed to its insipid asininity.)
But don’t just take my word for it; see for yourself: some sadist has helpfully posted the thing on YouTube. “Oh c’mon,” you might say, “that’s not so bad.” Well, sure, if you’ve only seen it once or twice. But you try watching this monstrosity, with its weak animation, chirpy music, and obnoxious rhyming, 20 or 30 times, and I think you’ll begin to have some appreciation for the intense, burning hatred I have for its kid ’toon star and all things “Jeep, Dodge, and Chrysler.”
And did I mention, by the way, that it’s just a terrible ad? Even if one isn’t forced to watch it on a loop — i.e., even if you only see it a few times like any other commercial — it’s really pretty hard to defend from a marketing standpoint.
I mean, what, exactly, is the message here? “Chrysler — we’re run by children”? Or “Chrysler — here’s what we might do, if we were run by a cartoon pipsqueak”? In short, whatever they were trying to do in terms of branding just didn’t work. And “didn’t work” is putting it nicely. “Failed miserably” is probably more accurate.
Indeed, when you consider the amount of money that was clearly spent on this pabulum — the animation, while extremely bland, is also highly detailed (check out all the stuff going on in the background, stuff which, of course, you’d only notice if you saw the spot far too many times) — you might get a message that really isn’t one the carmaker wants to be sending: “Chrysler — sure we lost over a billion dollars last year, but we’re still bloated and wasteful enough to blow even more on some crap advertising.”
“A new day!”? I think not, my little cartoon fiend. I think not.
