Thursday, November 15, 2012

Are You #%^1n' Kiddin' Me #8

I can not stand it when commercials make strange illogical connections between things. Check this out:
 

 
 
Did you catch that? "Gillette wanted to see how far one ProGlide cartridge could go, so they sent me around the world to find out." What? Hang on. Let me get this straight. For the viewer to believe this bit of ad copy, they also would have to believe that the good people at Gillette are extraordinarily stupid. You see, the only way a distance test works is when the product or item in question is worn by travelling said distance. Like a brake pad, for instance. This should be abundantly clear to all thinking humans. Somehow I just can't see executives at Gillette saying to themselves, "I wonder how this razor will perform after a long flight in a jet plane? I know those damn flights sure wear me out!"
 

Turns out, Gillette is actually advertising how long a cartridge will last (5 weeks, impressive!) rather than far it can go. So why send it on a journey with some good lookin' dude? The answer is clear: to make a commercial, of course!

Trouble is, when they (or, more accurately, some ad agency) make this stupid illogical connection, they are banking on the fact that television viewers are too zoned out and tube worn to even notice the insult to their intelligence. Were the people who approved this campaign zoned out too? Maybe, I guess. I kind of hope so, because otherwise they noticed the bad logic and just didn't care. Why not, right? Many commercials do this kind of thing and slip by without us noticing.

Well, on this occasion, I noticed, and I have to say hey Gillette, Are You #%^1n' Kiddin' Me? Using that logic if you really want to impress me with how far your cartridge can go, make it a little heavier and do a throwing comparison! I bet with just a couple of ounces of ballast the proglide could go WAY farther than the competition! Or wait, maybe you could strap one to the next Mars rover! That one would go really far! That would the best razor ever made, I mean, look how far it goes!

 



ARG. I mean, ARG.
R A N T W I C K

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Something Encouraging from the Middle East

I ran across this on YouTube and I found it encouraging. Since encouragement is something we can all use, I thought I would share...
 
 

 
 
Despite how things sometimes appear on TV, the world is not all about religion and politics and fighting. Sometimes people just want to rock out together.

 
Yer Pal,
R A N T W I C K
 
PS - After writing this I returned to the video, read the description and went to the user's channel. I found that this video was posted on the Official YouTube Channel of the State of Israel. Does that make it some kind of propaganda? I don't know... still just seems like a nice story to me. I find it curious though, that as soon as I figured out that it was posted by a government (any government) I became suspicious of motive. That sucks. Hey, look at me: I went from encouraged to bummed out by my own cynicism, all in one short blog post. Maybe that's why I generally stick to bikes and trees...