Tag: stupid commercial

Man, What a Stupid Commercial (#018)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Blowing the dust off this ‘ol category here . . . 

Good thing I don’t drink Hennessy, because this is the kind of shit that would make me stop if I did: some hokey campaign or promotion called “Original Odyssey” supposedly meant to feature Asian culture.  First episode, the one being pushed to the moon to help boost the awareness of it, starring two hafus, Henry Golding and Liv Lo.

Yeah, going real super Asian there, Hennessy.

Yes, it’s shitty to go all Asian-on-hafuAsian criticism because Asians in general don’t need any more bullshit piled on top of them, but this is more to criticize Hennessy for trying to do some sort of Asian awareness, but still being racist and superficial enough to only draft guys like Henry Golding to be their spokespeople.  The guy is about as Asian as Chinese food in America and has a fucking British accent.  His wife is half Italian, and between the two of them, they have the gene pool for a single Asian.

But then they go blathering on about just how Asian they are and pretending to make Singaporean rib soup, chasing it with some shitty spirits, and I’m rolling my eyes wondering on whether or not to brog about this or not.  But the frequency in which I keep getting these ads in social media, and the right circumstances hit, here we are, with me hating on a bullshit campaign intending to be for Asian awareness, but coming from a company that doesn’t have the courage to actually feature any real Asians.

It’s like that episode of King of the Hill where the Laotian country club that Khan keeps getting denied membership to, talk about a golf tournament they’ll have where the greatest Asian golfer of all time is slated to show up: Tiger Woods.  It really is kind of like that joke.

Man, What A Stupid Commercial #017

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Plot: family jonesing for some small business ice cream is sad to discover shop is still closed, inspires small business to pivot business model to a delivery system.  Small business owners allegedly uses solely Adobe products to rebrand and expedite their customer-facing identity

Yes, I have dusted off this old series from the days prior to the brog going down for several years, as there will never be an end to commercials that are capable of triggering my ire and unleashing the snark.  It’s not that I ever abandoned this series as much as a combination of brog downtime, the improved avoidance of commercials by virtue of streaming television, plus the baby I now am responsible over which further takes me away from television watching, that has collectively reduced my exposure to commercials outright, but it’s always been a thing I’ve enjoyed blabbing about, because most everyone can agree that commercials suck, and I can typically keep these posts shorter and sweeter than a lot of the other drivel I tend to go on about.

The funny thing is that in spite of all the reasons why I don’t get exposed to many commercials, on Thanksgiving, my father-in-law turned on the actual television to watch some football, and at the time the only game on was Redskins Washington Football Team vs. Cowboys, and it took all of five minutes for the game to go into a commercial break and expose me to a commercial that immediately caught my attention as something needing to be blistered on the brog.

Make no mistake, I am all about supporting small business and ice cream, and the general narrative of the commercial itself is sweet and pleasant.  It’s just the fact that it’s a commercial for Adobe that I find both objectionable and unbelievable that inspires me to write about how much bullshit it turns the entire commercial subsequently.

There’s no fucking way a business can rebrand and change all of their UX/UI through Acrobat and Sign.  Why they advertise it as such is completely beyond me, and in order for this much action to occur, undoubtedly the entire Creative Suite would be necessary to utilize.

But most importantly, what the commercial fails to convey is the sheer unreliability and instability of Adobe products these days, and sure they can eke out a 60 second spot to look all happy and cheerful, but off-camera there’s probably numerous hours lost to Adobe software crashing over and over again in the process of altering the brand of Mila’s ice cream shop, and scenes where Mila herself is ready to throw her computer(s) onto the ground when the constant software crashing has her questioning why she’s even trying to pivot her business in the first place.  Feeling resentment at the little girl who taped a picture to her door and making her feel sad in the first place.  Cursing the monopoly Adobe has on the entire graphic design industry, justifying their position to release subpar software at egregious prices.

Furthermore, without question, after the camera stops rolling, the drone stops responding and crashes back down to earth, and when Mila’s truck turns around to investigate, it too stops responding, and crashes into someone’s house, because that’s what Adobe products do: stop responding and then crashes.

This commercial is false advertising.  Happy Thanksgiving!

When changing the terminology makes things acceptable

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not long ago, my department at work sent out emails for people to sign up for the departmental Slack channel.  Prior to starting working here, I’d never even heard of Slack.  I figured out quickly that it was a chat client, but the most substantial use for it that I’d heard of it prior to receiving my own invitation to join was that people on campus had a specific channel that sent notifications if there were any free leftover food up for grabs anywhere on site.

I didn’t feel that a chat client was remotely conducive to work productivity, so I ignored the invitation and didn’t have any intention of signing up.  Frankly, in my career, I’d been admonished in the past and conditioned to think that chat clients were counterproductive in the workplace.  Seeing as how I like my job these days, I decided to not join in on something that I thought would be counterproductive, so I just let the invitation go ignored.

And then I got a follow-up email a few days later from management, that was sent directly to only the individuals who had not yet signed up for the departmental Slack channel, imploring them to do so.

This was my reaction to being told that I was supposed to join Slack.

Upon logging into the client, I started toggling around the work-sanctioned channels to see what all the fuss was all about.

I saw more gifs than I did human-written words.

I logged off Slack, and haven’t opened it since.  I do not feel at all that I’ve missed out in any capacity of essential information or anything pertinent for me to do my job.

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Love it but hate it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: Nintendo reveals Switch, the gaming console that allows you to play games handheld as well as on television

The technology behind this is truly game breaking.  I’m very much in awe at Nintendo’s ambitions and forward thinking when it comes to the gaming industry.  Microsoft and Sony aren’t even remotely in the same stratosphere when it comes to competing with Nintendo visions, because they’re too busy fighting each other, churning out products that require a hundred updates a week with a video game occasionally playable.

I’d love to read or hear about the creative concepting behind Switch; and the moments when they realized that it wasn’t impossible to feasibly create something that could be played on televisions as well as through handheld capacity.  On top of that, it’s designed to be a very social gaming system, that allows for lots of multiplayers, as long as controllers are available.  It probably was something really inspirational to be a part of.

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Have you ever tried to repair a broken window??

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So in this Chase Bank commercial, Drew Brees’s son kicks a football in the yard; but because he’s the son of Breesus, it’s implied that he has some genetic football talent passed down onto him despite the fact that his dad is a quarterback and not a Gramatica.  That being said, the ball goes sailing at a high velocity, to such a magnitude it breaks through several houses walls and windows, much to the chagrin of Drew Brees himself.  Bewildered neighbors stare at the carnage caused by the lead food of Brees Jr.

But no problem, because Drew Brees is an NFL quarterback, Drew Brees is rich as shit.  And thanks to his handy new Chase banking app, he’s able to parlay chunks of his shit-rich to his various neighbors whose homes have incurred damage at the leg of Junior.

I’d like to point out the part where Drew Brees wires $200 to one of his neighbors for a broken window.  Because I am currently dealing with a similar situation currently, however I cannot say that a young place-kicking prodigy kicked a football through my window.  No, it was just a freak accident involving my landscaper, a mower, and an errant stone in my yard that went sailing into my glass, shattering it.  It is not a big deal at all, considering it technically happened last year, and I’ve just been too lazy to deal with it until more recently.

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Man, What A Stupid Commercial #016

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis: Caucasian man, flying to/from presumably Korea calls flight attendant over to ask if there’s anything he can be given to deal with back pain.  Korean flight attendant suggests Bayer in perfect, accent-less English, to which man immediately shoots down as he explains that he is not having a heart attack, but back pain, furthermore goes to stand up and pantomime how much his back hurts.  Flight attendant elaborates that it’s Bayer Back and Body Pain, and when she checks back with him upon completion of the flight, he’s seemingly amazed that he does in fact feel better.

The bottom line is, the commercial is kind of racist.  Or at least the way the scenario pans out, it really portrays whitey as naïve honky who immediately dismisses the sounds coming out of a Korean woman’s mouth as gibberish, as if there’s no possible way that this chink could be speaking in his native tongue.

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Man, What A Stupid Commercial #015

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Synopsis: attractive wife in her little black dress tells husband to hurry up, before walking off. Husband’s finishing touches include application of Brüt cologne. Upon application, a shriek is heard from the adjacent bedroom, and wife re-enters the bathroom and is suddenly pregnant. Camera pans to Daschund dog, also pregnant, and then a pregnant goldfish in its fish bowl. Tagline read: LET YOUR MAN OUT.

I know the underlying message is that Brüt makes the wearer SO manly, that surrounding females of all species have no choice but to have their wombs aggressively and magically inseminated and suddenly end up in their third trimester.

But you know what’s not funny? Unwanted offspring.

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