The other night I was watching TV with my daughter. We were live, so I couldn’t zip past the commercials, something even a freelance copywriter should not admit to doing.
In any case, there was an insipid Verizon commercial that caught my daughter’s attention. It started with a family at an ice cream store. In an attempt to belittle the competition’s sparse coverage, the announcer pointed out the 10 sprinkles on some ice cream. Followed by the contrived dumping of a bucket of sprinkles across the entire counter to indicate Verizon's vast coverage.
My daughter grabbed the remote and rewound the spot to see if there were actually 10 sprinkles on the ice cream.
There were.
I assured her there was also 4 hour pre-production meeting regarding the placement of each of those sprinkles.
“Should we have 3 orange sprinkles and 2 green or should we go with 2 orange and 3 green?” asked the Senior Planner.
“Is anybody else bothered by the placement of the sprinkles,” said the Brand Manager, "It's looking alot like the shape of Arizona. We don't want people thinking we only cover Arizona."
“The pink sprinkle is way too close to the other pink sprinkle. Won’t that imply an endorsement of homosexuality?” said the astute Account Director.
With the wheels coming off the cart, the quick-thinking production manager jumped in, “Let’s look at the back-up ice cream cup.”
My daughter turned to me with a not-so-subtle look of disappointment, “Wow Daddy, that’s really stupid. I know you didn't do that commercial, but is that what you do for a living?”
I snatched the remote from her hand and said, “Let’s check the score on the Laker game.”
“Should we have 3 orange sprinkles and 2 green or should we go with 2 orange and 3 green?” asked the Senior Planner.
“Is anybody else bothered by the placement of the sprinkles,” said the Brand Manager, "It's looking alot like the shape of Arizona. We don't want people thinking we only cover Arizona."
“The pink sprinkle is way too close to the other pink sprinkle. Won’t that imply an endorsement of homosexuality?” said the astute Account Director.
With the wheels coming off the cart, the quick-thinking production manager jumped in, “Let’s look at the back-up ice cream cup.”
My daughter turned to me with a not-so-subtle look of disappointment, “Wow Daddy, that’s really stupid. I know you didn't do that commercial, but is that what you do for a living?”
I snatched the remote from her hand and said, “Let’s check the score on the Laker game.”
4 comments:
The answer is "Yes, and proud of it!"
She could be reaching that age where she thinks everything is stupid. I think it's called adolescence.
brilliant.
Great post. I too hate this commercial. I know there is an alternate ending somewhere too with the clerk asking if they wanted a cherry on top. And for all the airtime this gets, please tell me what bozo doesn't have a cell phone? The only person I know without one is my 'one foot in the grave' mother who doesn't know what a computer mouse it.
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