Mis-Animation

My husband and I were watching "Mad Men," last night (excellent, in case you haven't jumped on that bandwagon), and I started thinking about the business of advertising. I understand from post-9-11, that when times are rough in business, the marketing budget is among the first to be hit. To me, this is a shame. I am not embarrassed to admit that marketing has a lot to do with the purchasing decisions I make. If the packaging is good, or the commercial makes me laugh, I'm more likely to buy the product - plain and simple. But sometimes, I really wonder what those people in advertising are smoking and how their proposals even make it past the boardroom.

The most glaring of these, to me, is the overuse of animation in advertising. And by animation, I mean the kind that personifies an inanimate object. Remember the smashing success of the California Raisins? Well, so do I. But that was over 20 years ago, folks!!! Come up with a new concept. Have we learned nothing in the last two decades?

Last night, I was forced to watch this commercial for Compound-W (I assume it was Compound-W - maybe it wasn't - either way, I didn't care because the commercial sucked). The geniuses at the advertising firm gave life to a wart on someone's finger. And the wart was talking smack or something and then got covered with some kind of liquid, turned white, and apparently died. Gross! This does not inspire me to buy your stupid product. I'd rather pay the extra money to have a doctor remove the wart for me.

This brought to mind two other commercials with animation that I cannot stand (again, please excuse me for not remembering the name of the product, which proves to me that even though your commercial was notoriously memorable, it's still not enough to earn brand recognition). The first of these is that awful commercial with the fungus that lives under the bed of your toenails. That commercial was so unbelievably disturbing that I would interrupt whatever I was doing and leap across the room to change the channel. I do not want to see anyone, even a cartoon, lift up a toenail.

The second was some commercial for diapers (Luvs? Huggies? Again, not sure). These advertisers had the balls to animate a DIAPER! The diaper was turned in profile and had eyes above the hole where the baby/toddler's leg would go, which was apparently the mouth of this character. Are you serious? Do you even realize what diapers are for? And what goes into them? That is beyond disgusting. And unless I have stepped into an Austin Powers movie or something, that is animation gone way too far.

Thinking of these dumb commercials makes me at least appreciate the Geico cavemen a little more. Sure, they blew it with that lame attempt at a sitcom. But it was original. I have to give them that.