Certain products are sold with commercials that follow a predicatable sort of script. Beer is sold by happy party goers, sports cars by idjits with lead feet and unoccupied roads. And anti-animal-cruelty organizations beg for donations by showing slow-mo videos of sad (typically damaged) animals with a sad soundtrack. Well, as if this ad from the ASPCA wasn’t bad enough, the Humane Society of the US has decided to step it up a notch in a new commercial by adding large-font “thought bubble” quotes along with the sad critters. And of course, the “thoughts” the critters are expressing are not “hey, thanks for your help” or “won’t you please donate.”
Oh, no. Not even a little bit.
And then to top it off, they tack on this little nugget of joy:
Now, unless I really miss my guess, the basic purpose of these ads is to make people not only want to donate to the Humane Society, but to actually get off their butts and do it. But this ad does not have that effect on me. Instead, it makes want to grab a baseball bat and start whacking the crap out of things and people… starting with the damned television, progressing to the nearest animal abuser, moving on to the people who dreamed up this ad, and finally finishing with the executives of PETA (not because they were involved with this ad, but just because they suck so very, very much).
As might be guessable based on the “cat” postings I’ve made, I’ve a fondness for critters such as these. My oldest cat Koshka came from a rescue shelter, and was an abused cat herself (she still has numerous relatively serious psychomologimical issues… she recognizes weapons like knives and firearms, and runs away in stark terror). So you’d think that I would be the precise target audience. But if the result is not me diving for my checkbook, but instead diving for the remote control to turn the channel to something more cheerful like the latest episode of “House” or “Johnny Got His Gun,” I can’t help but think someone might’ve miscalculated.
Gah. It was bad enough when it was fictional.
Partial antidote.
