I love this commercial for McGladrey, because it appears to
heap scorn upon a very popular pastime: fishing. Fishing is even more popular
than golf, and they seem to ridicule it. (Are they casting aspersions on it? Are they trying to bait us into reacting? If so, everything is going swimmingly! Ha ha? Oh, sorry…) And I understand their point
here, but isn’t it funny that the golfer can’t believe that the caddy would
rather do anything other than slave away serving his every need? Maybe the
caddy would like to do something where he gets to be in charge every once in a while! And this ad just makes the
golfer look like a jerk who must always get his way or else, while at the same
time making it look like McGladrey is insulting fishing. They might as well
have ended the ad with the tag: “McGladrey: Fishing sucks, and everyone who
does it is a loser.”
I think they should expand this into a whole campaign where
they insult every other recreational activity that’s popular with Americans,
each in its own spot. They could show the golfer talking to another golfer, who
says he’s going hunting soon, and the McGladrey golfer can say: “Hunting? What
are you, some kind of bloodthirsty butcher animal abuser?” Then the tag could
say: “McGladrey: Hunting is reprehensible, and only stupid troglodyte rednecks
do it.” And after that, they could ridicule sailing, with someone inviting the
McGladrey golfer to go sailing, and he declines with a contemptuous and
scornful insult, and the tagline could say: “McGladrey: Sailing is for
pretentious snobs, and only assholes do it.” And then they could bash cycling,
claiming: “McGladrey: Cycling is lame, and only stupid pansies and cheaters
like doing it.” And so on and so forth, bashing tennis, Nascar, car restoration,
painting, etc., until McGladrey has managed to insult every activity besides
golf, and turned everyone against them. Now that would be a winning strategy!
Here’s the angler-abusing ad:
