Tuesday, February 8, 2011

No Commercial, I Don't Want to See More


I have to be honest when I admit I feel a bit sad for Go Daddy.com. All they really want to do is make some commercials with the vague promise of the possibility of nude women if you go to their website and think about purchasing a domain (assuming it's not one someone else already owns, or go daddy refuses to sell for under 20k, or a queue of non-existing people are in front of you for it). If GoDaddy.com commercials weren't held back by our modern society's obsession with sex they could actually show the nudity and just get it over with.

But no, we're so obsessed with sex (or the lack thereof) that we have labeled innuendo as king and given rise to a new monster. The "hey, want to see what's coming next? *wink wink* Go to our website to finish the commercial!" In all my years of watching television I've not once EVER gone to the website to see what was next. You know why? I never get past www. You see, what GoDaddy marketing people fail to realize is that they're asking horny individuals to go to their website with an indeterminable probability that women who are relatively attractive will be nude. In other words, they're commercials are selling "maybe porn." Did these people not get the memo on what exactly 40% of the internet is? You add in the countless innuendo hot girl videos on youtube and GoDaddy doesn't even have a chance.

But that's not the real issue. This whole "go to our website to see more" craze commercials seem to be on has become a bit of an annoyance. I deal with commercials and advertisements on websites because I fully accept that they are an integral part of the funding which allows me to enjoy those very things. That's where my emotional investment ends. If I want to watch a car fly off a cliff, I'll watch an action movie. If I want to see a couple finally kiss, I'll watch a romance. And if I want the promise of (relatively) beautiful women woven in Emperor's new clothes garments, I'll go where I'm guaranteed to get that. What I don't need is an extended display of your own commercial through two very different medians, each perfectly capable of supplying me what you promise without the incessant close ups of your product or need to leave what I'm currently doing. Well... at least not all jammed into a one minute video. I can deal with them being spread out over an hour, but crammed into a short period and my mind explodes with product placement over-processing.

The entire point of the commercial, theoretically speaking, is to provide positive information on your product that will entice the viewer to seek out more information and purchase it. But these days that's not enough. You've got to have a horrid jingle, rip some 60's and 70's music, make everything really intense, and hurt someone. Why? Because without it people wouldn't have any idea how to buy shoes.

Then again, this can only lead to one inevitable event:

"Look, it's a bird!."
"It's a plane!"
"No, it's Superman!!!!!"

"Nope, wrong again. Three months ago Superman was annexed by a large faceless corporation. These days I'm known as... EnronMan. Fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. Wait a second, is that money? GIVE IT TO ME! NOW!!!!"

2 better thoughts:

Rachel [f.g.i.] said...

I completely agree with you.

A very funny(and insightful) rant!

Fletch said...

The great irony is that GoDaddy is probably the domain seller for 80% if the porn sites out there.

Then again, if they actually did show Danica Patrick and whoever-that-other-chick-is-that-I'm-sure-is-famous-but-I-don't-recognize naked, their lame advertising might actually work. But their claim of "web content is unrated" is just as lame as the scads of DVDs that sell "UNRATED!!!" content; you can only polish a turd so much...

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