This campaign shows some ass-hat jerking kids around in ways that most utility companies do to all of us all the time, and then they say: “Even kids know it’s wrong to blah blah blah…” Yes, I’ve found that kids don’t like being jerked around either. But did they have to go so far out of their way to disparage the intelligence of kids in such a patronizing manner? Saying “even kids know…” is just insulting, isn’t it? Could this denigration of our children’s intellectual capacity simply be for the purposes of advertising a bank? It doesn’t seem possible that a bank looking for customers would cast aspersions upon the mental capacity of America’s tykes and still expect to generate any business, except perhaps with moppet-loathing Scrooge-types. So there must be something more complex going on here that’s just beneath the surface, subliminally propagandizing us for some ulterior motive.
Is it possible that this ad is a veiled critical indictment of our nation’s education system, using the intellectually-challenged nature of our contemporary tots to illustrate the point? Perhaps it’s intended to be just subtle and layered enough so we won’t actually consciously notice its intended message, but that it will seep in subliminally as we chortle over the risible circumstances presented in the advert. Maybe it’s presenting us with a metaphorical subtext where we consider the limited intellectual performance of our children, and wonder why it is that they aren’t as bright as the could be. But who are we to hold accountable for such a failure of our education system: the teacher’s union? The government? The liberal nanny-state policies that have depleted the education budgets with force-fed “healthy” lunches? The warmongering, poor-hating, heartless conservatives with their “let them eat cake” (as opposed to tofu) attitude toward education? I’m not sure we’re supposed to be able to tell.
Maybe what they’re really doing is presenting us with the problem of a foundering education system, and saying to us all: “Well? What are you going to do about it?” Perhaps they’re not married to either side of the aisle or political party, but rather wish for us to push for bi-partisan solutions to a problem that effects us all: the future of our nation; for our children are indeed our future, and the generation with which we will leave stewardship of this great nation of ours! So what difference does it make, really, that they don’t try to steer us toward a particular solution to the education crisis. They’re simply trying to make us admit that there is a problem. And as anyone in the recovery therapy business will tell you, admitting there is a problem is the first step towards its eventual solution. And so perhaps getting us to take that first step on the road to solving our nation’s problems is all they’re really trying to do here with these ads, like an alarm clock trying to get us to wake up and right the ship that is The United States of America. Well, that and maybe getting some banking customers.
(BTW: That’s all just a joke, so I hope you didn’t take it too seriously. Because after all, we can all surely tell that Ally bank wouldn’t try to help our education system, since they obviously hate America and Capitalism! Otherwise it wouldn’t be attacking our way of life in its ads, right? Of course not! So they’re obviously commies, trying to indoctrinate our children against the free market by poisoning their young impressionable minds with leftist propaganda, like that all corporations are faceless, uncaring and evil and such, and that they will jerk you around endlessly for their filthy profits, as seen in these ads! We must stop them from… Just kidding! Hee hee! But I can take the ball and run with it when I want to, can’t I?)
Actually, I like these ads a lot, because they show us in a fun context what happens to us all the time when we try to get something we need from one of the huge conglomerates that rule our lives through their necessary services such as telephones or electricity or internet, or, yes, banking. But who knows if this Ally bank is any better than any other company at giving its clients the runaround, or if these ads are simply a clever way to trap more people into the evil designs of yet another faceless, uncaring, corporate monolith of avarice.
Here’s one of the ads, this one called: “Automated”:
And here’s another one, this one called: “Ice Cream”:
