"All of Us, Serving You."
This is the slogan for U.S. Bank; or, at least from their recent television advertising, it is. But doesn't this slogan have an undercurrent of condescension to it? Maybe I'm misreading this, but in the current zeitgeist of the obesity epidemic, doesn't this slogan: "All of us, serving you", sound like they're all waiting on you like waiters, as in, serving you food; and additionally, doesn't it suggest that they all simultaneously have to serve you (read: you, as in, an individual) food because they are implying that "you" are so large that it takes all of them to do it, and because so much food is involved that it takes them all to accomplish such an enormous task? It's possible to read it this way, especially with all the never-ending discussions on the news, in politics, etc., about the obesity epidemic, and junk food, overeating, etc. And if it's possible to read an insulting implication into something, then isn't it more fun to assume it's intentionally an insult, and then hold it against them? I think it's an FCC regulation or something, at least when it comes to an advertising slogan, right?
So then they're definitely secretly trying to insult us all by calling us fat! I knew it! And after they wasted all that paper throwing all those paper airplanes, too!* They must have chopped down an entire rainforest to make all that paper for all those paper airplanes, and all just so they can throw them all at once! And then what happens to them after they throw them? Well, naturally they just become litter, of course! So they killed all those trees just to throw litter around everywhere and make everyone else have to clean it all up! What selfish so-and-so's, always making a giant mess and expecting everyone else to have to clean it up! (Actually, when you think about it, this is a pretty good metaphor for banks in general, huh? Maybe that's what they meant us to think of with this whole paper airplanes air force thing.)
Oh, but you know what? Maybe they threw all those paper airplanes in the hopes that we'd all get up and chase them around, or that we'd all have to clean them all up, and that this way, we would all hopefully get up off the couch and finally get some badly-needed exercise! And so this hidden, encrypted insult slogan, designed to make us all feel fat, was really intended to help us all along to get in better shape and ultimately become healthy and happy and self-confident after all! I thought so!
Wow, I feel bad now for ever doubting them with those crass accusations. See: they really are looking out for our best interests after all! Well, I am surely contrite now. And I'll never distrust a bank ever again!
Here's an ad for U.S. Bank that uses this slogan as a tagline at the end of the spot (This ad is begging for a silly, fetishistic misreading sometime soon, by the way! Look at the positioning of that piggy bank slot in relation to the men riding it: ahem.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7vdaGG7jCA
* There is another ad for U.S. Bank I can't seem to find anymore where they have tons of paper airplanes with "U.S. Bank" written on them in the shape of their logo flying through the air all over the country.
