When I was in high school we were taught that the best advertising was the ad that made you want to identify with the person in the ad that was buying the product. That makes a lot of sense. If you identify with someone you want to act similarly. If they buy a product, you will be so inclined.
Today they seem to think that just isn't the way to do it. An ad for yogurt shows a man and his wife approaching a vendor with free yogurt. The man is an idiot and decides he isn't interested in the product because it might be good for him. But he is cajoled into trying it. Then with a mouth full of yogurt (that for some reason he cant swallow before talking) he says that he likes it. But yogurt is a soft easy to swallow product. Why couldn't the idiot swallow before talking? Personally, I will never buy that product. I couldn't identify with the idiot.
Another ad that is particularly offensive is the ad for a new kind of blood sugar tester. In the ad the woman that is trying it is so stupid that the announcer has to finish all her sentences for her. This is a new trend in advertising, having the announcer finish the sentences of the speaker. Am I going to identify with a person that cannot finish their own sentences? Of course not!
Then there is another recent development in advertising, "make the guy look like an idiot in front of his wife". While it may not be the PC thing to say, the money in most households is managed by the male. Maybe it shouldn't be that way, but that happens to be the reality. Now does it make any sense to ridicule the guy that is in control of the purse strings? I don't think so.
Maybe I am in the minority, but if they want my dollar, they should use ads like the Dos XX ad with the "most admired man in the world" The guy that "once had an awkward moment just to see what it felt like." There is a guy I can identify with, and I don't even like beer! But I might try Dos XX if I keep seeing that ad.
Jim Isbell
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