If You Are Easily Influenced, Do Not Read This...

Or, How TH Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Terrible Advertising...


I can’t believe it - there has been nothing on this site written about the most holy-of-holies: the Superbowl (I bet you thought that I was going to say Lent, or Ash Wednesday, or that day that you gorge yourself on pancakes… no, wait I think that last one is related to the Superbowl). But I am not going to write about the game, I think that anyone who watched the game will be duly impressed by what was possibly the best 4th quarter of football that has happened in the last 10 years. No, I am going to talk about the ads (and seriously that is what most people are really watching the game for)… except all of those people who are stuck watching local ads for battery stores and some discount pizza shack (thank-you CRTC).

Now, I am not saying that all the commercials are good. In fact this was a fairly weak year for ads, although there were some hi-lights. If you haven’t seen any of the ads then please lookie here: http://www.superbowl-ads.com/. Just in case you were wondering I think that the T-Mobile ad is the best… oh, and I never want to eat another Planter's nut again in my life.

I must say that the idea for this column was taken from a radio segment I heard last week that was talking about how people over-eat around the Superbowl – surprise, surprise – and what was being advertised. Now I took a look at that list I gave you and this is what I came up with:

I am going to the grocery store to by some gum, some Coke and Pepsi, and some Planter's Nuts (which I will never, ever buy again) and some Lifewater and/or vitamin water and/or G2 and some Red Bull-like Amp. Then off to the liquor store to by some Budweiser (a lot since they got on four ads), now after I have gotten drunk and all sugared up then I can stumble over to my computer and make some E-trades and look at some cars online. Hopefully I have made some money with my trades so I can buy that Audi or Toyota that I have always wanted (heck, I might even include that Garmin GPS thing in the car and some nice Bridgestone tyres). I could also go out and buy some Victoria secret stuff for all of my lady friends (I can assume that the women will be crawling all over me since I have so much money from my online trading).

However, I think that my online trade intelligence is nil and since I am probably drunk with all that Budweiser I will have no money left, so I can go to Careerbuilder.com and find a good job to get me out of hock. And with debt in mind I could go to Salesgenie.com and sell all of my worldly goods. I could then phone all of my friends on my T-Mobile phone and ask them to Fedex me some money ASAP. Then when I realize what kind of sh*t I am in I will probably vomit on myself (as I am filled with so much liquid, gum and gross nuts) and then clean myself up with a Tide-to-Go thing.

Nice, what-a-day, what-a-day. There is not one thing on that list that is useful let alone practical. Heck, there weren’t even any store advertisements, no movie ads and no real food ads (healthy or not). Now I like Superbowl ads, but what are we trying to sell people? I think that they should put some ads in for the healthcare system, or maybe a life-insurance company to let your family bury your fat, broke ass.

Well I am beginning to ramble at this point and thoughts like this could get me blacklisted (the Planters people are probably trying to locate me at this moment and make me look at that woman in the ad again… yuck).

With football over I guess I am going to have to find a new sport to watch until the autumn. Curling maybe? Perhaps some wacky European sport? Any suggestions on what I should occupy my sports time with now that the NFL is in hiatus (I guess that there is always the Pro Bowl). Hey, I could always watch the NHL… HA!