Tuesday, April 15, 2008

I CAN SEE CLEARLY THAT THIS AD MAKES NO SENSE: While I'm busting on ads, I want to mention the Claritin one from which I can't seem to escape. It reads:
NOBODY LIKES A WORKAHOLIC
UNTIL THEY'RE WORKING FOR ONE
I get the basic point -- Claritin just won't stop working -- so I guess that in that sense the ad is effective. What I spend most of my time thinking about, though, is the thorough oddity of this ad. First, let's accept for the sake of argument the dubious premise that most people don't like workaholics. Do those same people -- presumably, people who are themselves allergic to work -- like working for workaholics? Isn't a workaholic more likely to demand hard work from the people reporting to him or her? I would imagine that the more logical corollary would be "but they like working for people who are incapable of delegating responsibility," but I guess "Claritin: Can't Delegate Responsibility" doesn't roll off the tongue. Second, isn't the point to say that Claritin will work for us? Then why suggest that, should we buy the workaholic product, we will be working for it? I don't really know what that would entail, anyway. Third, the subtext of this ad is, confusingly: "You are lazy, but you need our product." I guess I'm unaccustomed to gratuitous insults in my ad copy. ETA: Oh, yeah -- Fourth, grammar.

On a totally unrelated note, while standing in line at the deli thinking about all of this stuff, the smoove-jazz station played an uptempo 4:4 version of "Take Five." Unnecessary!

ETA: In a remarkable convergence of my last two posts, check out this non-nonsensical (sensical?) low-fi guerilla ad for a Claritin competitor.

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