PSA.

War is Bad Stuff. Don't like it. Also, the President is an idiot. Really, I know I should have a whole somber entry about the impending war and how much it sucks and how scared I am and how much I loathe the president, but really, everyone else is already saying the exact same thing. I have nothing fresh or original to say about it. It sucks, I'm scared, and, more than that, I'm pissed.

I did like this entry from Defective Yeti about the President's address last night. Good stuff. Now, I'm going to move on and complain about something trivial like I always do.

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Market THIS.

As you probably know, I watch a lot of television, and, because I don't have TiVo, I end up watching a lot of commercials too, most of them bad. Really, really bad. Painfully bad, even. It irritates me to think of the massive amounts of money being spent on bad advertising.

Do the bad commercials work? Will a colorful butt montage really sell more toilet paper? Does an Iggy Pop song really make 30-something adults want to scurry out and buy a car with hopes that it'll help reclaim their wild youth? Do advertisers really think we're that easy? Are we that easy?

Most commercials seem so, so far off the mark that you have to wonder if the ad agencies have just given up entirely. This morning Kenny and I saw a commercial for Michelina's� frozen entrees. The woman in the commercial was so overcome with delight over her processed dinner, that she started singing and doing the Macarena. The Macarena, people. What the hell? Who green-lighted this outdated, and guaranteed-to-anger, crap?

I imagine a bunch of tired, 60-year-old men sitting around a board room table trying to pitch ideas to sell Michelina's� to the younger generation. What's popular but not edgy? What's cool but not threatening? What is it that all the young marrieds love these days? Wait, what was that thing they did at my niece's wedding a few years back? Perfect! All young people like to dance!

Jesus. Even when the Macarena was popular, everyone hated it. Why the hell do they think the world's most tired fad will sell frozen food? Give me the fucking ad budget, I can come up with something better in my sleep and have enough left over to buy a really cute pony.

Ha, and then there are the commercials so stupid that you can only laugh. Chevy's new ad features the jingle "I Want a New Truck" to the tune of "I Want a New Drug". Hahahaa. You know you have problems when you pull out Huey Lewis and The News. Really how long ago was that song popular? 1984? The first time I saw this commercial I just guffawed. They're trying to sell big, manly, full-sized cowboy trucks with Huey Lewis? Weird. It'll probably work too.

Claritin� has also gone the tired, retro-80's route, by using the song "Walking on Sunshine". Nice one. The really pathetic part is, they didn't use the original version, oh no, no, no. That wouldn't do at all. Instead, they used a blanded-down, peppier, cover version, making it the most honkified song on earth. Why take an already soulless song and suck more soul out of it? Why does it have to be double homogenized to shill allergy medicine? I just don't understand. I wonder if Katrina and The Waves get any sort of royalties from it? Doubtful.

I guess it's better than the Snotty Zyrtec� girl, who's allergy medicine wasn't apprrrroved for pet dander, so it was either "guet rud of it, or guet rud ouf ROOfus!" God, I hate her.

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Beef Warms Your Soul.

Ha, have you heard this radio ad? Beef, it warms your soul. Being that I don't actually eat beef, I'm thinking the only way it could warm my soul is if I were freezing on a prairie somewhere and the only means of survival involved slicing open a cow so I could crawl inside to keep warm. Even then, it would really only be warming my body as I'm certain my soul would be coldly traumatized.

Yay. "Popular Beef Ad Campaign to be Featured Again". Well, fantastic. I think Cattlemen's Beef Board really nail it home with this gem:

"While television advertising creates anticipation for enjoying beef, print ads motivate consumers to eat beef more often, concentrating on the visual appeal of beef with mouth-watering beef photography."

Beef? Beef. Beef! MMmmm BEEF PHOTOGRAPHY.

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Here's a great entry by Magpie's Nest about the wacked-out ways companies market to kids.

Here are some beef pin-ups, courtesy of the Alberta Beef Magazine.

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