Your Trade-In as Downpayment, Liberal Credit Terms

No, not cars. Refrigerators. "See your GE dealer," says the affable spokesman. The spokeswoman is equally friendly and the pair give off a mysterious and almost creepy vibe, like they're going to cut you into little pieces and store you in their new refrigerator that they love so very much. I enjoy the cadence of the old way of speaking. She even says, "none at all" as if "at" and "all" are one word. You almost want to join them for mint juleps on the veranda of an evening, perhaps come summer. They will most certainly offer us cigarettes, as that is the proper and polite custom when entertaining company.

Beyond the fun of the time travel this ad provides, the spot reminds me that Americans have been "living beyond their means" for a long, long time.

Accidentally came upon this while trying to find a GE spot from last night's game that deviated from the usual GE commercial. Employees goofily singing and not staring at the camera in that "so proud to be a GE employee" way. Wait, that's Boeing's template. Whatever. This is more fun.

Lame

Whoever produced this commercial for Mass Mutual must've seen the GE commercial and decided, "That song is nice. Let's use that song in our commercial." The problem is it doesn't work in this commercial.



Compare that with the much better commercial below, which I wrote about here.



Obviously GE had a much bigger budget to produce a much nicer spot, but the song is the finishing touch that turns this commercial into a nice little film. While I like the concept behind the Mass Mutual spot, telecommuting from home in order to spend more time with your family, the song is an afterthought.

A Fan Story

"You don't control the message," we tell the client these days, because one stupid blogger with a beef against you can do damage to your brand in a single post. I don't have that kind of blog power, but Home Depot is starting to piss me off.

I love a good fan. When I’m at Home Depot, I like to look at those giant fans on wheels that stand about four feet high. I’ll imagine how easy it would be to clean an area with that thing on top speed, blowing away everything that isn’t fastened down. But mainly, I just like a nice breeze.

Up until this week, I had a “commercial grade” fan from GE that ran pretty much 24/7. I’m a fan of GE stuff and this rugged fan served me faithfully and quietly. Any motor that runs nonstop for seven years is pretty good, so when it died this week, I determined to replace it with a similar fan, hopefully even the exact same model. Kind of like if a faithful dog died unexpectedly, you might be inclined to replace the pet with one just like it.

A trip to my not-at-all-friendly neighborhood Home Depot (you people have such attitudes) resulted in the purchase of the closest thing I could find. Boxed, there was no way of seeing what was inside, but by the drawing on the box, it seemed to be roughly similar to my recently departed GE fan.

Out of the box, this fan revealed itself for the poorly made Chinese piece of crap that it is. On the lowest speed, it sounds like a small plane is buzzing the house. What passes for metal in China is apparently just shiny chicken wire. And I should’ve been tipped off by the very silly name “King of Fans®.” I can now picture the prototype being tested at the factory. A group of engineers hit the “on” switch and marveled at the noise and the gale force wind. “This fan is the King! It is the King of Fans!” they congratulated one another. Then they named their new company King of Fans. “It will tell of the majesty and glory of this fan, and we will sell them to Americans through their Home Depot. Oh, and don’t let them see inside the box before they purchase.” Then they rounded up some local children and put them to work in the factory so Americans could have cheap fans.

King of Fans® is now a garage fan. Pissed at the Depot, I tried Lowe’s, who had absolutely zero fans in stock, as they apparently think it’s winter season and people don’t need fans now. Idiots. So I had to go back to the Depot, where I purchased an oscillating Pelonis™. All plastic, with a freaking remote control. If I ever use a remote control for a fan, just shoot my stupid, lazy, American ass right there on the spot. Same price (roughly $35) as King of Fans®, but quiet and with a relatively normal name. Oh yeah - and made in China.

Verdict: Not all Chinese fans are the same. And Home Depot sucks. Still.

Catch the Wind

If you watch the Sunday morning news shows, you'll note that the breaks seem to be filled with spots for giant corporations like Boeing, USB, Dow, Archer Daniels Midland, AT&T, etc. They always seem to follow the same formula. Show a bunch of multi-ethnic people all around the world, staring or smiling at the camera while a narrator talks in vague terms about what this company does. Usually, they are "changing the world, one person at a time" or some such drivel. When the :30 or :60 is over, you're still pretty clueless about what the company does.

But thrown in the mix this morning was this :45 spot for GE. This is the sort of commercial that elevates the art of commerical making. I looked up the lyrics and it seems the catchy song is "Catch the Wind" from 60s hippie folksy Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan. The spot tells a cute tale with a great finish while explaining what GE is trying to do.



Don't know much about Donovan, but as far as him "selling out," this isn't nearly the kind of sellout you see from other musicians (Aerosmith, anyone?) and it's sure a far cry from the Stones Rice Krispies jingle of 1964. (Yes, click that Stones link. It's worth a laugh.) My guess is the hippie Donvan said "Wind Power? Yeah - I can get behind that. GE, you say? Wow. They've got lots of cash, don't they? I'm in."

Other cool tunes that were used in ads: Spoon's Jaguar contribution