Okay, so this commercial has a couple basically ridiculing 12-step programs and their participants as a way to say that racing with those little go karts is addictive. But does this questionably-tasty concept go far enough in demonstrating that they are actually, truly addicted to racing go karts? Anybody can just show up at a 12-step meeting and claim to be an addict; that doesn’t necessarily mean they really are one! They could just be teasing the real addicts, or they could be cynically making fun of the 12-step program as a way to advertise something. Or, also, they could be trying to lure people with addictive personality disorders to become addicted to something else in addition to their extant addiction problems (which would be reprehensible indeed!). So this commercial brings out all of these ethical and taste issues resulting from such an approach (using a 12-step program meeting as a commercial), but it does nothing to actually prove to us that they’re really addicted to the go kart racing. See what I mean? So they’re really just teasing addicts and former addicts, while not proving anything about the go kart racing’s addictiveness.
But, they could demonstrate how truly addictive their go kart racing is with another strategy, and without insulting addict support groups to do it! How, you may ask? Well, it’s simple: Simply show this couple becoming addicted to K1 Speed go kart racing! So show the couple go racing for the first time during a lunch break from work. After the very first race, they so love it, that they stay to race again and again and again, taking all afternoon, and never returning to work. Then, they go home after the racing place closes, but they cannot sleep for jonesing for another race. Then, they get a phone call saying that they will be fired if they miss work again, but the very next morning, they’re both back at the go kart race track, and they race all day, losing their jobs. And then, with no job left and no money with which to pay for the racing, they are turned away from the racing establishment, and they walk the streets, forced to turn to prostitution to get the money they need for their racing “fix”, obsessed with the racing they are now so horribly addicted to. So they break into the racing business, and when the owner returns the following morning, they murder him and race all day, slaves to their addiction, until the police come and arrest them for murder, breaking and entering, prostitution, etc. Then the final shot shows them rotting away in prison, still mocking the steering wheel motions from the racing to which they have become so pathetically enslaved. And then that would make everyone want to go go kart racing! Right?
So that would show how addictive this go kart racing really is! See how great it would work? I’ll bet everyone would want to race go karts every day! Oh, but they would anyway, because it’s so addictive, just like they said in their ads. And we all know that being addicted to something is great, and that we should all totally want to do stuff that we’ll become raving addicts of, right? You know it, man!
Oh, sorry: was I too hard on this commercial? Well, they were the ones who decided to use addiction as a positive way to sell their product, so in actuality, I was simply being more honest about the whole addiction concept than they were. Oh, and I wasn’t glamorizing addiction, either, like they were. So who is really being more cynical here? (A hint: I don’t think it’s me. You may have noticed when you watched the commercial that the people in the 12-step program seemed extremely annoyed at these two “racing addicts” for exploiting their group like this. I think it would play out like that in real life, too, so at least the ad is being honest about that part of it. But it also rubs in the questionable taste aspect of the whole ad’s concept, and as such, it kinda hurts the spot. I don’t actually think making fun of addiction therapy should be completely off limits for use in advertising like this, but the way they do it here is in questionable taste, that’s all. Well, plus I think my version of the ad would be way more fun, like maybe on Robot Chicken.)
Here’s the addictive activity ad:
