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It finally happened. It dawned on me this weekend that the entire advertising world has finally flushed my generation away and doesn’t care what I happen to think anymore!
I can’t help it that I was born smack-dab in the middle of the deservedly-despised Baby Boom generation. Being born into the age group which is responsible for many of today’s financial and social troubles rankles the younger generations who will bear the cost of our gluttonous excesses.
I get it, but please don’t blame all of us!
Yes, my age bracket is officially over the hill, and some of us are getting just as cranky as Clint Eastwood’s character in the movie Gran Torino. Once the average age for your demographic starts with the number six or higher, you may not be a real ghost yet, but your demo surely is to the national advertising gurus.
Though I personally disagree with the logic of major ad executives, many of us oldsters are, indeed, less likely to go out and buy new homes, cars, furniture, appliances, tools, along with fast food and snack foods which we were once able to gleefully consume without having to visit our GI specialist.
To actually find our target advertising market, turn on the TV and watch two different shows.
First, turn on MeTV any weeknight and watch a classic half-hour comedy show. You’ll find ads targeting seniors about Medicare (incessantly), the latest drugs which may cure your lumbago and other common maladies, and those discount cellphone companies which feature cell phones with gigantic numbers on the phone.
For the different segment of my advanced age bracket, watch a televised PGA golf event next week. You’ll see ads targeting wealthy oldsters featuring luxury cars, investment firms to help you manage your massive portfolio, and even more new drugs which try to resolve the myriad of other medical problems associated with being wealthy during your advancing age.
Yes, I’m in the ghost generation now, and it’s a crying shame.
Prior to the football game kick-off on Super Bowl Sunday, I watched the PGA golf event from Phoenix. Though I enjoy the now-famous 16th hole at the TPC in Scottsdale, this year’s golf tournament finally may have crossed my old age line.
The Par-3 16th hole has become quite popular over the years as grandstands surround the entire hole. They are annually filled to capacity with beer-swilling fans loudly cheering the good shots and jeering the bad ones. The usually stoic PGA professionals generally go along with the gag and try to quickly get finished so that they can move ahead to the next hole.
This year, the 16th hole went from a fun golf hole with a loud obnoxious crowd to “We might need to rethink this idea!”
On Saturday and again on Sunday, a golfer scored a rare hole-in-one on the 16th hole in Phoenix. As you might expect, the cheers were thunderous. As no one expected, though, the gleeful assemblage of 40,000 alcohol consuming golf fans decided to throw their cups of liquid courage onto the golf course in celebration of the golfer’s hole-in-one!
Fortunately, the sponsor of the event was a waste management company. They were able to clean-up the mess within five or ten minutes so the golfers could finish the hole and get away from all of the madness.
I guess this should have been expected when you’re hoping that the adults will behave all afternoon as they consume more and more alcohol in the Arizona sunshine.
Though the golf tournament concluded late with a playoff (won by Scottie Scheffler for his first PGA win), I turned over to watch the Big Football Game on NBC right at kick-off time.
Though I definitely was pulling for underdog Cincinnati and former LSU quarterback, Joe Burrow, I also knew that the Los Angeles Rams featured 40-year old LSU offensive lineman Andrew Whitworth. No matter which team won, Louisiana was going to be proud.
Then the first commercial break came. At $5.6 million per 30 seconds, I immediately began to notice that my generation was being left in the dust for this game.
Hey, there’s Dolly Parton! She’s from my generation. I didn’t understand the ad.
After doing some research, I learned that it was supposed to be a “fake” public service announcement saying that you might have purchased a new-fangled 5G phone which doesn’t work because your carrier doesn’t provide service in your area yet. Apparently, the lesser-known carrier does.
T-Mobile executive Peter DeLuca said, “5G has been hyped in the US for almost three years, and phones have been sold for almost two and a half years. So there’s all of these 5G phones that Americans have been buying, but they haven’t been getting 5G.”
Don’t ask me (or most Americans) what the G actually means (generation, I believe) or how it works. Just remember – the prices keep rising, but people keep paying for it. Marketing 101, baybee!
Oh, look! Some other company is wasting millions of dollars with a commercial featuring a game of Pong!
Only later did my wife explain that the “Pong” logo was actually something which you are supposed to hold your cellphone up to the TV so it can magically take you to the company’s website.
The ad was for a crypto currency (which is actually “created” by computers which solve difficult puzzles and are rewarded with fake money – unlike the traditional type of money which the Fed prints in a government building in Washington, DC which may become equally worthless soon).
There were so many geeks shooting pictures of the Pong-logo that the company’s website crashed before it could sign-up everyone for a “free” $15 worth of their crypto currency. The company’s stock price went up about 75 cents on Monday, so I guess they’re happy with the results.
I saw other ads featuring a few others I knew. There’s Jim Carrey (as The Cable Guy), William Shatner (in a fitness commercial), Larry David (a different crypto currency – don’t worry, it’s all perfectly safe!), and Mike Myers as Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies. Though I didn’t think any of the spots were particularly funny, I once again realized that my generation wasn’t the target for the attempted humor by those stars.
OK, I can say that I LIKED (gasp!) the commercial which featured Barbie the doll as she tried to buy a house and then had to deal with a few other evil dolls trying to buy her “Barbie doll” house out from under her. It was clever, funny, and I actually can remember the mortgage company’s name today!
Does that mean the ad was an epic fail if my generation actually liked it?
As for the football game, congratulations to the Los Angeles Rams on their game winning drive in the final minute and a final defensive stand to end the wild but exciting joy ride by the Cincinnati Bengals. The NFL bosses were quite happy with yet another 3-point ballgame, too.
It’s too bad that the talented NBC football analysts of Drew Brees, Rodney Harrison, and Coach Tony Dungy were only given about 10 seconds each to make a post-game comment about the game. After NBC provided over six hours for pre-game hype, the network’s highly-paid experts were allotted a total of just 30 seconds worth of post-game analysis. I stuck around through more commercials specifically hoping to hear what Drew Brees would have said about the Cincinnati Bengals’ questionable third and fourth down play calls near midfield right before the game ended.
Oh, well. At least I slept well knowing that Barbie was finally able to get her doll house!