Friday, June 24, 2011

Super 8 Motel “Scuba Diving” Ad

Some guy is working late in his cramped office when some glowing peeping tom motel sign comes and invades his life, distracting him from his travails, and perhaps even costing him his job. So there you are, another thing that’s killing American jobs in the Obama presidency! This must be part of his secret commie plot to destroy America, and it’s brilliant, too! After all, who would ever suspect a nosy, talking, ambulatory busybody of a motel sign is behind it all? I never would have guessed!

But that’s not even what I wanted to discuss here. No, I’m more interested in what happens in this ad. So the guy is working in his office, and the Super 8 Motel sign blinds him with it’s glowing visage, and then proceeds to nag him about going on a vacation. The guy naturally declines, obviously not wanting to encourage this sign’s rude, annoying interruptions in any way, shape or form. But then the sign plays the guy: it suggests that this guy should perhaps go on a scuba-diving vacation, since this type of holiday seems to hold some sort of allure for this poor working stiff. You see, apparently, the sign has gone around stalking this guy for weeks, asking all his friends what kind of interests he has, or what his dream vacation might be. And eventually, his friends would have to tell the sign just to get rid of it! So when the guy actually reacts with a brief display of interest, the sign uses a conjuring trick in an attempt to seal the deal: it makes this worker’s office magically fill up with all these sea creatures to try to lure him into acquiescing to the scuba-diving vacation!

But it was all a ruse! For this isn’t about a vacation at all, but rather a ploy to trash the worker’s office with an overabundance of seafood so that his office will stink to high heaven the following day and get the guy fired! And to be sure his boss thinks he did it, the sign also conjures up a snorkeling mask and flippers on the guy. See? It is all a plot to kill American jobs! I knew it all the time!

(This ad isn’t online at this time that I could find, but look for it on TV! You can't miss it! By the way, this is just one in a series of ads like this where the Super 8 Motel sign harasses people into taking a vacation. But they've never actually shown us what the rooms in their motel look like. Could this perhaps be by design, because if we get to see the rooms, we might decide not to stay at their motel? This campaign does kind-of make me wonder that just a little bit...)