Elections
are over, Thanksgiving has passed, and now we are in the midst of the last few
weeks before Christmas. Last month was the season of political advertisements;
this month is the season of Christmas advertisements.
Last
month’s ads and this month’s ads, on first look, seem to be quite dissimilar;
however, they are very similar. All of them are written by high-priced
advertising executives who want to sell advertisements. They sell these commercials to business
executives who want to sell a product to consumers. In the case of politicians,
they are the product and citizens’ votes are currency.
When
you put all of these elements together, commercials can become absurd. This is
not to be confused with the product itself being absurd. Take the chia pet for
instance. This is basically a lawn, growing out of a lump of clay. Some
ingenious entrepreneur thought to himself, “If I make a lump of clay into the
shape of a cow, or frog, or some ex-president, and grow a lawn on it, people will
buy it. I will become rich!” As ridiculous as this sounds, it worked.
What I
am referring to is the advertisements that are, themselves, absurd. One of my
all time favorites, and I have written about this before, is the ambulance
chasing attorney who barks from my television screen, “If you have died from
taking this drug, you may be entitled to a large cash settlement. Call NOW!”
That is awesome, dead people urning large cash settlements.
Another
one of my favorites is Time-Warner cable peddling their internet service. The
commercial touted the connection speed compared to their competitors. They
described their glorious customer service. Then, at the end of the commercial,
as the deal-making detail, they announced that they were including free self-installation.
Yes folks, Time-Warner is not going to charge you to hook up their equipment
for them. Is that not the pinnacle of awesomeness?
Eldest
and I were exposed to one of these commercial absurdities the other day while
listening to Christmas music on the radio. During a commercial break, we heard
an ad for the Greater Rochester International Airport. The announcer gushed on
about coming to the Airport where you could, “park, shop, dine, and fly.”
Flying
I understand. It is, after all, an airport. Planes are coming and going at all
hours of the day and night. If you want to fly, I recommend doing so from an
airport. The other three things, not so much. It makes sense to have a parking
lot around an airport, since people drive to get there. In fact airports take
advantage of peoples need to park and charge high prices to be able to do that.
Parking is not a selling point of visiting an airport. There are many local
parks, where you can park, and get a beautiful view too. You just cant catch a
flight from any of those parks.
Now,
let me point out that to get to shopping and dining areas, you have to go
through the TSA checkpoint. This, alone, is a major deterrent to any misplaced
desire to shop or dine at the airport.
Usually,
shops in airports know they have captive audiences and charge higher prices
than you would find at your local Wal-Mart. But, you can’t catch a flight from
your local Wal-Mart either.
Dining
does not seem to be a major activity of interest for airports either. I have
seen a few restaurants with fancy names at airports, but upon closer
inspection, nothing on their menus seemed worthy of paying for parking and
braving a TSA checkpoint, when you can find food just as good at Chik-fil-A.
Although, you cant catch a flight from Chik-fil-A.
But, it
is Holiday time and ad executives are trying to sell ads, to businesses who
want to sell products. So go ahead if you want, “park, shop, dine, and fly” at
the local airport. Just don’t expect me to join you.
