Seeping In

I Know You Are But What Am ISP? - NetZero taunts AOL with copycat ads

Seth Stevenson has now identified two ad campaigns predicated on mocking the ads of the competition. The first was the stir between Miller and Budweiser following Miller's "President of Beers" ads; Bud, mocked for trying to be a king in America, shot back that Miller was owned by a South African company. The two companies have continued to joust, with Miller's new referee spots also coming in for mocking by Bud.

In today's article, Stevenson notes the new NetZero ad, which parodies the ridiculous AOL ads that show a mother dumping her child on a stunned executive before demanding from AOL pop-up blockers, spam filtering, a safe browsing experience--all of which you can get without AOL--along with an Orwellian monitoring system so she can abdicate her parenting duties and still snoop on her kids' online activity. In any case...NetZero has created an ad that uses AOL's own words against it, pointing out that it offers essentially the same service for less than half the price.

Last night I saw Jared on my screen, and apparently Subway is in on the act, too. Remember those abominable ads for the new McDonald's Chicken Selects? With their stupid "Keep away from my chicken" tagline? Jared uses the line to discuss the enormous fat content in the new product, pointing out the low fat content in Subway's chicken sandwiches. (There's something about the way Jared says the words "grams of fat" that makes it sound like we'd be eating them straight off his formerly-flabby gut; I think that explains his continuing career as a pitchman.)

Why the rundown? I think all of these ads got their cues from the campaign season we just completed, and I don't see the fad dying off just yet. Wasn't the recent campaign all about using someone's words against him? How many times did we hear the number "87 billion," for example? (And how many times didn't we see Kerry use Bush's claim that he "never said that" about Osama bin Laden against him when there was clear proof he was wrong? Could explain the results, no?)

Of course, this troubles me. First, I don't want to think about the campaign anymore, and the use of these tactics immediately triggers an association chain in my brain that leads inevitably back to Bush v. Kerry. But second, and more importantly, I don't want to see the expansion of these scorched earth tactics to every facet of daily life, and seeing them used in ads is therefore troubling. Granted, NetZero and Subway have a point; AOL's product is without redeeming value at any price point and the Chicken Selects, while tasty, are also a heart attack waiting to happen. But the sort of "They're owned by foreigners!" nastiness employed by Bud is akin to the race- and gay-baiting used by the Republicans in every recent campaign, and to see it operating out in the open and on the airwaves rather than in undercover, direct-mailed, Rove-ian fashion is a disturbing sign that our national discourse is about to drop a few more rungs on the civility ladder. I suppose, as long as it doesn't mean naked body parts on TV or men kissing one another in the streets, it won't bother the "moral values" voters, but I don't remember anything in the Bible about Jesus delivering the sermon of win at any cost or announcing that the greatest commandment is to prey on people's fears and insecurities.