2/18/07
An interesting commercial aired on the Chicago all-news station this morning after “Face the Nation.” It was one of those public service commercials that one hears at times when no real advertising can be sold. Since I didn’t commit the PSA to memory, I can’t quote it, but it featured a child’s voice and it went something like this:
Don’t worry about me. I can make a peanut butter sandwich. I can scrounge around in the dumpster for dinner. I can watch my little brothers and sisters all weekend. I can sleep with a baseball bat next to the bed just in case there’s trouble.
After the pre-adolescent was done tugging at the listener’s heartstrings, one of the several announcers who do these types of ads came on to ask us listeners (again, not quoting, but I’m close):
If you go to jail, who will take care of your kids?
Perhaps because this is a question I have never contemplated, this question struck me as rather odd. Surely, this was a misplaced ad. The kind of low-lifes that have to consider their children’s accommodations should their parents become guests in maximum security public housing don’t seem like the type who would be listening to news radio, let alone to “Face the Nation.”
Then it hit me: This was perhaps the most ingeniously placed ad in the history of media.
Who, after all, wastes any portion of his Sunday morning on the callow codswallop that constitutes the content of shows like “Face the Nation” and “Meet the Press”? Well, yours truly and, since you are a visitor to this blog, probably you. But who else? Yes, that’s right: politicians. Even those Washington pols who piously proclaim their eternal fealty to church and the Good Book when campaigning in the Bible Belt wouldn’t dream of missing “Face the Nation” for something so ephemeral as a visit with the Lord. And where is this nation’s largest concentrated pool of potential felons? That’s right: in Washington among our public servants.
So the ad that I heard this morning was clearly and efficiently aimed. Yes, it would have been more to the point if, after the pre-pubescent had done his number on our emotions, the stock announcer had said something like:
If you have to do spend some time communing with nature in Oxford, Wisconsin, who will take care of your kids? Do you want your kids scrounging for discarded chocolate hazelnut biscotti (exceedingly chocolatey and nutty) behind Starbuck’s for his breakfast? Do you want your kid to have to watch his younger siblings because you will no longer be able to afford the live-in help and the feds provide no day care at their facilities? Do you want your kid having to sleep with a baseball bat next to his bed to fight off those enraged “business partners” whom you will no longer be able to buy off with yet another sweetheart deal? .
So think before you decide to shake down that defense contractor for a twenty year old Rolls Royce. And if it’s already too late for that, contact your local federal prosecutor and cut the best deal you can. It’s for the children.
Hmm...perhaps sometimes, especially when dealing with politicians and the corporations that support them, subtlety isn’t such a bad thing.
An interesting commercial aired on the Chicago all-news station this morning after “Face the Nation.” It was one of those public service commercials that one hears at times when no real advertising can be sold. Since I didn’t commit the PSA to memory, I can’t quote it, but it featured a child’s voice and it went something like this:
Don’t worry about me. I can make a peanut butter sandwich. I can scrounge around in the dumpster for dinner. I can watch my little brothers and sisters all weekend. I can sleep with a baseball bat next to the bed just in case there’s trouble.
After the pre-adolescent was done tugging at the listener’s heartstrings, one of the several announcers who do these types of ads came on to ask us listeners (again, not quoting, but I’m close):
If you go to jail, who will take care of your kids?
Perhaps because this is a question I have never contemplated, this question struck me as rather odd. Surely, this was a misplaced ad. The kind of low-lifes that have to consider their children’s accommodations should their parents become guests in maximum security public housing don’t seem like the type who would be listening to news radio, let alone to “Face the Nation.”
Then it hit me: This was perhaps the most ingeniously placed ad in the history of media.
Who, after all, wastes any portion of his Sunday morning on the callow codswallop that constitutes the content of shows like “Face the Nation” and “Meet the Press”? Well, yours truly and, since you are a visitor to this blog, probably you. But who else? Yes, that’s right: politicians. Even those Washington pols who piously proclaim their eternal fealty to church and the Good Book when campaigning in the Bible Belt wouldn’t dream of missing “Face the Nation” for something so ephemeral as a visit with the Lord. And where is this nation’s largest concentrated pool of potential felons? That’s right: in Washington among our public servants.
So the ad that I heard this morning was clearly and efficiently aimed. Yes, it would have been more to the point if, after the pre-pubescent had done his number on our emotions, the stock announcer had said something like:
If you have to do spend some time communing with nature in Oxford, Wisconsin, who will take care of your kids? Do you want your kids scrounging for discarded chocolate hazelnut biscotti (exceedingly chocolatey and nutty) behind Starbuck’s for his breakfast? Do you want your kid to have to watch his younger siblings because you will no longer be able to afford the live-in help and the feds provide no day care at their facilities? Do you want your kid having to sleep with a baseball bat next to his bed to fight off those enraged “business partners” whom you will no longer be able to buy off with yet another sweetheart deal? .
So think before you decide to shake down that defense contractor for a twenty year old Rolls Royce. And if it’s already too late for that, contact your local federal prosecutor and cut the best deal you can. It’s for the children.
Hmm...perhaps sometimes, especially when dealing with politicians and the corporations that support them, subtlety isn’t such a bad thing.
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