Fear and Loathing on the 280

There is something I have to get this off my chest. Dogs with sunglasses are not funny. Babies with sunglasses are not funny. Plants with sunglasses, not funny. Big personified punch bowls with sunglasses are just not fucking funny. Driving to the airport I saw the most appalling advertisement I have see in recent memory. There, on the side of the highway, in all its shining billboard glory, a naked baby sat alone wearing big old state highway patrol Ray-ban sunglasses telling me what auto insurance will save me the most money. On a normal afternoon I would have dismissed this trite and tired imagery and gone back fighting traffic while attempting to remove the Air cd that has been stuck in my cd player for two weeks, but I am fed up. Can someone tell me why I keep seeing advertisements with things wearing sunglasses? It has been a common misconception for years that sunglasses make people cool. I blame the eighties. There must be an equally common and longstanding misconception in the advertising world, as I am learning, that putting sunglasses on things not associated with sunglasses is hilarious. I don’t know who to blame. Are people in the industry so hard up for ideas that they have to keep recycling the worst ones? Who thinks that this acceptable? I would love to sit crouched in a dark corner of a board room where presumably highly paid, highly educated advertising executives are coming up with ideas like babies in sunglasses. I can hear it now. “Damnit Chancy we are really in a pinch, your our best man, we need the new visuals for the Peterson campaign by noon.” “Wait just one cotton picking minute! I may have an idea! We are looking to go the funny route, right? I did a campaign a few years back with Johnson and Beck I think it may be right up your alley. Now ask yourself a question ‘What does everybody love?’ Yes, yes anal sex sure, but we used that in the last campaign. What ELSE does everybody love? Babies right? Sure babies. Here’s what we do. We put a big naked baby on the billboard! Brilliant right? But wait, a baby on its own isn’t gonna sell many brake pads. How about, and stay with me here, How about we put... sunglasses... ON THE BABY, it will be hilarious! Babies don’t wear sunglasses. They don’t even wear clothes! ZING! That’s where we get em. How can they resist? Im laughing just thinking about it! You may ask yourself ‘But Chancy, what does a baby in sunglasses have to do with auto insurance?’ I say if you don’t know you should find yourself a different business.” And people buy it!! What kind of dire circumstances do companies have to be in to ok ideas from men and women who as best as I can tell get their inspiration from the artwork that their children hang up on the fridge? I am insulted by the lack of creativity shown in the creation of some ad campaigns today. If I am resigned to be constantly bombarded by propaganda, at least make it fresh. Make it pertinent. Make me believe that your company doesn’t take, me, the consumer, to be some slack jawed, back wood, beenie-baby coveting, oversized Garfield tee shirt wearing, never seen a baby in sunglasses kind of consumer. It’s a brave new world. We are informed buyers. We have more power to choose than ever before. We have become more and more adept at sorting through the endless refuse that big business throws at us. How do these types of asinine images slip through the cracks and get placed as a shining beacon for all the world to see? Did I miss the point? Sure, these images irritate me to my very core. But I guess, when all is said and done I am not sitting here writing to you about some uber-hip, break dancing, cell phone checking, up in the club, malt beverages will get you laid kind of ad. Maybe insulting my taste was the point all along. Maybe deep down inside sunglasses really are funny. Maybe the baby did its job better than I ever could have imagined. It has stuck with me. It doesn’t make sense, and I don’t have to like it. But I do need to call about my car insurance.