Monday 17 September 2007

Scenes from advertisements that everybody should hate with a passion #4

See if you can spot where this one goes all implausible:

  1. Man waits in rain.
  2. Woman arrives.
  3. Man and woman greet each other awkwardly.
  4. Man leads woman through rain to car.
  5. Car pulls away.
  6. Woman compliments car.
  7. Car stops.
  8. Man proposes to woman.
  9. Woman accepts proposal.
  10. Woman and man exit car together.
  11. Voiceover man interjects:

The new Kia cee'd with a 7-year warranty—now that's a quality commitment.

See how the voiceover bloke is cleverly ambiguous as to whether he meant a commitment to quality, or a commitment that is itself “quality”?

The latter applies to the jovial little tale depicted in the advert, but the former also relates the company's dedication to being really rather marvellous.

“Lol!” an advertising executive exclaims. “That's both affably witty and expresses our dedication to being really rather marvellous! The punters—sorry, our community will love it! Hooray for us!”

Enter the literary foil of an ardent customer within earshot: “Hang on a minute. That's just a tenuous pun—equally, you're likening the car to a risky, life-altering, poorly thought-out, spur-of-the-moment promise.”

“Stfu! ...Sir.” retorts the bigwig.

“And what's with the stupid name? —all lowercase, superfluous apostrophe... Are you trying to look painfully trendy? ...so that a couple of months after buying it, the owner will try to hack the name off the back and thus invalidate the seven-year warranty?”

“We r veh modrn!!” insists the ad-man.

“Besides, do you really want to depict a woman agreeing to marry a man she's just met, mere moments after covering herself with his cee'd?”

The Kia cee'd—now that's a rash decision.

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