After a series of shots of people trying to start their cars, only to have the engine do that “rrerrererrerrrr…” thing and not be able to start, a male announcer says: “Nothing is worse than a dead battery!” Um, really? Nothing is worse than a dead battery? Are you sure about that? Not brain tumors, cancer, starvation, nuclear annihilation, radiation sickness, E. Coli, Ebola, the flesh-eating bacteria, sex slavery, torture, terrorism, racism, Nazis, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados, hurricanes, oil spills, economic collapse, etc.? Really? None of those things is as bad as a dead battery, according to these ad creatives? Wow, they must have led extremely sheltered lives, that’s all I can say…
The battery in my car died about a year ago, and I just called my car insurance company, and they sent a tow truck to tow it to a car repair shop, and they replaced the battery. I think the whole thing took about an hour or two, tops, but I had them change the oil and check the brakes and replace the windshield wipers and stuff too, since I was going to have to do that soon anyway, so it may have taken longer for that reason. Then I went out and got one of those battery chargers that jump-start your car just in case the battery dies again. (Actually a Duralast one, by coincidence! The Auto Zone was the closest place to where I live that had one so… That’s how and why I usually buy most things: as dictated by necessity and convenience. And as much as I love advertising,* it almost never plays any part in my decisions regarding what I buy or where I buy it. Unless it’s an ad announcing a sale, that is.)
Anyway, my point is, a dead battery is kind of a pain in the ass, but that’s about it. If you have a decent car insurance policy with roadside assistance or you belong to AAA, and you have a cell phone, they will be along to pick you up pretty quickly, so there’s no worry there. But to say nothing is worse than a dead battery just insults everyone with every imaginable painful or debilitating medical condition, as well as trivializing all the evils of the world. And that’s just kind of dumb; and a little offensive, to boot. (Not that it bothers me, you understand, but I can see this ad irritating a lot of people in this politically-correct country of ours! And so I’d recommend a different approach. But on second thought, I did remember this ad because it’s so bone-headedly exaggerating the level of badness that a dead battery represents in our lives. So maybe that’s all they were trying to do anyway, and if so: mission accomplished!)
* (Yes, I know I tear apart a lot of ads on this blog, but that’s just because I’m so interested in advertising, and it frustrates me when it’s done sloppily or lazily. Or, sometimes, silly ideas come to me when I see a spot and I just make fun of that stuff, even though the ad isn’t really to blame. But then there are times when an ostensibly good ad has elements to it that can be read in other ways that the ad creatives didn’t or never could have considered or conceived of (like the kid in the VW ad bashing a piñata that looks like the flag of the gay community, and all the thoughts of “gay bashing” that might suggest, etc. {I mean, surely the makers of that VW commercial never could have imagined that anybody could have read into that ad what I did just by virtue of that color pattern on the piñata car, but it just so happens that it does look like the flag of the gay community, and the kid is repeatedly hitting it as hard as he can with a stick, so what was I supposed to think? But this was obviously an accident. Still, that doesn’t excuse it if other people notice that too, and get a little mad about it… After all, a Yoplait yogurt ad I saw on TV two days ago was pulled from circulation a couple of hours after I first saw it because some body-image group said it promoted eating disorders,** even though it didn’t suggest that to me at all! But see what I mean?}), since there are other things that go into the making of an ad, like art directors, cinematographers, actors, directors, producers, etc., and other, outside factors that can change the reading of an ad. Anyway, you get the picture: it’s not always the fault of the creatives who thought the ads up. But like with a movie director, if anything seems to be wrong, they get the blame. That’s just the way it is, like it or not. {Of course, in this ad for Duralast, it is the creatives’ fault!} And when you can read those kinds of things into an ad, unintended or not, that really hurts the ability of the spot to successfully function as an effective commercial; and then it becomes a problem. And I try to point it out when that happens.)
** BTW: Here is the story about the yogurt commercial being pulled from running on TV:
