Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Old...
(Update 10-19) - It gets worse. Can you possibly understand why anyone would want a computerized toothbrush? Here's a link to the Oral B ad (another example of Flash bloated advertisments by the way). When I was a kid, we used chewed up willow twigs and liked it!
Well, it's official. I've wandered way beyond the limits of desirable marketing targeting. Very little except Buicks, Depends and Polident even try to market to me. Most background music sucks. There's stores in the mall, I can't even enter because the "music" is too loud and too bad. Salesmen (and I'm old enough to call them salesmen, not salespersons) in electronic stores look at me with pity in their eye and try to direct me to Matlock tapes and Lawrence Welk cassettes.
The counter-jockeys at the local Miky D's hashhouse offer me a cup of senior joe when I ask for coffee. Half the magazines I subscribe to offer Sansabelt pants and shoes with ugly velcro straps on them as the main ad on the back cover. I found the surest way to befuddle my coworkers (I work in an Internet company where most workers are half my age) is to bring my MP3 player to work - they're surprised I can deal with it - even though it's probably four years old. Hell, I've got computers that are older than some of the people I work with. Don't believe me? Look up M-100 or PC-1500.
While I enjoyed loud 8-tracks back in my day, I think the kids with cars and loud stereos with cheap speakers that vibrate like a tin can, are just stupid and I have little desire to wander Best-Buy while losing my hearing. The pants of the "guys" shopping for video games look like they took a crap and forget to do it in the bathroom. And who on earth needs a cell phone ring of music that sounds like 5 cats drowning in a bucket of dirty water.
The thing that set me off tonight was the new V-Dub commercial for the New Beetle Volkswagen. Some background here - my very first car was a Beetle - and it was one that didn't need water. My current car is a Beetle - at least from the outside. From 1975 to 1985 I drove a Thing and yes, I'd still be happy with my 40HP and I don't need a 100 amp alternator to run my radio or 350HP to get to the local five and dime. Offering an electric guitar has got to be the most stupid way to sell a car I've ever run across in my oh-to-many years of being bombarded with marketing. I figure what - there's gonna be five or six guys max who run down to buy a VW with an included guitar. With any luck, they'll play it in the rain and be electrocuted before I have to listen to them.
