I Don’t Buy It

According to a recent $3,500,000 study, people hate television commercials. Apparently, it took some think tank of rocket scientists to tell us something that I would have gladly told them for a cool three mil. Also, according to another study done by “The People Who Have Nothing Better To Do With Their Time,” consumers who own VCRs and digital video recorders actually skip the commercials altogether. Really. Wow. You don’t say? Well, I’ll be a Sea Monkey’s uncle – or aunt.

I have in my whole life only liked one television commercial – the one where Santa rides down the hill on the Norelco razor because it meant that I would wake up sometime soon and find a whole bunch of stuff under the Christmas tree because television commercials told my parents that I just had to have it all, or they would be rotten parents, and if I didn’t have this stuff, I would probably end up in some kind of therapy or hire a lawyer and take them to court for what was rightly mine.

The first commercial was probably before television, like during a clan meeting during the “Ice Age” for snow shovels because primitive people needed to be told what the needed to buy. It appears that part hasn’t changed, but advertising has become more sophisticated and there is yet another group of scientists whose sole purpose in life is to find more ways to convince you that your life would be so much better if you bought that combination chainsaw/radio.

Here is an actual and not made-up paragraph from another a study: “In order to analyze the influences, we introduced an analyzing scheme using eye tracking data combined with the scene description, taking into account the exposed content of information, channel information, and type of information.”

To this, I say, “Huh? How dare they do whatever it is they are talking about!”

It goes on to say that they “experimented” on “test subjects” to analyze cognitive processes performed unconsciously – basically, they are tapping into the “I gotta have it” part of our brains without us knowing it, and I for one don’t like that very much because only I should be tapping into my brain without ever knowing it – which I do pretty often, I think.

And boy, do they start their brainwashing campaign early. Saturday morning cartoons have now been replaced with hour-long infomercials – something I didn’t know until the UPS man started showing up with Ginsu knife sets, vacuums that could suck up a bowling ball, and electric vegetable peelers – C.O.D.

So, on behalf of the American public, I am going to interrupt this normal broadcast to rant – to tell advertisers a thing or two – and I am not even going to charge them a dime (although if they want to pay me a couple of million, that is okay because then I can buy more stuff.)

* Come on – get off of the “feminine hygiene” thing. In fact, we don’t want to hear about hemorrhoid cream, jock itch, or foot fungus either. What if, and I mean this in a totally speculative way, what if superior alien beings are monitoring our airwaves and see these commercials. What kind of impression does that give? Is that the message we want to send to the very beings that may someday want come and invest in a franchise of hot dog stands? It’s bad for business and it embarrasses teenagers.

* Stop using animals to sell us stuff. I will not buy insurance because of a dancing lizard or a duck, nor will I buy a taco because of a dog. It is cruelty to animals as well as being stupid. One day, you are a lizard sunning yourself on the shores of some tropical island, and the next, you are being forced to break dance under hot lights with the director yelling, “Cut” every time you screw up. I know if I were a lizard, I wouldn’t like it.

* There is nothing fun about gelatin so stop telling us there is. If anything, making a gelatin desert is a pain. First, you have to heat the water, and then add the powder, find room in your refrigerator, and then wait for a week for it to turn jigglely. Then, we are all supposed to be euphoric as we watch it shake in our bowl. Well, you know what? That’s creepy. Food should not wiggle unless you are purposely eating something that is still alive – which is also creepy.

* You don’t need to advertise for Mercedes Benz. If you make enough money to own one, and you want one, you will buy one. For the rest of us, it is just reminding us that we can’t afford one, and that is rude. Didn’t your mother raise you better than that?

* Enough of the “Can you hear me now?” thing. Yes. We can hear you because everybody has a cellular phone, which means that there is nowhere left to go for peace and quiet anymore, which is probably why we will never attract space-alien investors. Thanks a lot, boneheads. There goes my hot dog stand franchise.

* If you have to try and sell us something, how about having your commercials make sense. I saw a commercial once where a beautiful woman was riding her horse across a beach at sunset and it was a commercial for ballpoint pens or something like that. I miss the correlation there, unless she was riding her horse to the office supply store because her car broke down and the pens were on sale and she just had to have the pen to write a letter to the advertiser telling them how dumb the commercial was. Not sure.

* Please, and I mean this, please lay off the toy commercials. See, here is something you might not know – kids can’t drive to the store to buy stuff. They must have their parents drive them, see, because children’s little feet don’t touch the gas peddle and they can’t see over the steering wheel. They also don’t have bank accounts, which their parents must also provide. You would think that one of your mega-dollar studies would have told you this. In fact, cut all commercials aimed at children, which includes sugary cereals, hair braiders, designer clothes, and theme parks. Next time my daughter wants one of these things, I’ll have her call you for it. How does that grab ya?

* Quit using statistics. We could care less what four out of five dentists like. Four out of five of us don’t even like going to the dentist.

* Uh, stop using sex to sell your products. We are sick and tired of being told that if we use a product, we will somehow turn into supermodels. I could use the shampoo, wear the underwear, use the breath mint, and drink your diet cola, but I will never look anything like Christie Brinkley. David Brinkley maybe. According to you, the advertiser, we are all too hairy, too fat, too pimply, too wrinkly, and we smell. If you want to sell us something, try self-esteem. That is actually something I might buy.

© 2006 Sharie Derrickson. Previously printed in the Thousand Islands Sun.