DMB Digest: Zero is still a percent.
Advertisers, get off my lawn!
I’ve recently turned fifty. And I just want to say, “Nanananabooboo! How do you like me now?! Take that!” [makes a stiff and jilted effort at a celebration dance before hurting back and sitting down].
I made it. Nobody can take that from me. And having found the wisdom of the aged, there are a few things I would like to share with the world. Over the next several weeks, I’m going be firing off some of my best tidbits via a classic “get off my lawn” delivery that I’ve been waiting all my life to bank up enough years to deliver with a whiff of authenticity.
First off, television ads are stupid. In general, all of advertising seems to think saying random stuff that sounds even the slightest bit scientiferic is good enough for advertising purposes.
The gem that stood out to me a few days ago was an ingenious claim made by some advert attempting to prompt vaccinations for something or another. The narrator started by asking, “Are you fifty or older?” Of course I was immediately drawn in, because for the first time in my life, I could answer in the affirmative. “Yes! Yes! God, yes, I’m over fifty! Share your wisdom with me!” The narrator continued, “If so, you are sixty percent more likely to be hospitalized [from contracting such and such disease].”
Wow. Incredible. Over the last several weeks, it turns out I’ve become 60% more likely to become hospitalized when (not if) I contract a virus I’ve not been inoculated against. That sucks, right? I mean, I’ve just turned fifty, and this is the news I’m greeted with? Welcome to the club! Oh, by the way, I hope you enjoy wearing hospital gowns, because you’re gonna be wearing them all the time from now on. Take these shots or else, you old fart! Come here and hold still. It will only hurt for a second!
To be fair, I suppose the statistic doesn’t sound as stupid when you think of all humanity according to an over/under at the point of turning fifty. Sure, statistically speaking, a healthy eighty-year-old is more likely to be hospitalized for a routine viral infection than a healthy twenty-year-old. And seeing how the first fifty years of my life resulted in me being hospitalized zero times for a viral infection, I suppose a 60% increase of zero isn’t too bad.
Having said that, we’ve come a long way since the era of Flintstones segments boasting, “Winstons taste good, like a cigarette should.” We never make blatant lies in commercials these days in an effort to mask dangerous products targeted at the innocent. No way. We would never advertise synthetic food stuffs with phrases like “all natural,” or carbon-emitting energy sources with phrases like “clean coal.” That would be like saying, “your call is important to us” while putting you on hold for fifteen minutes. That would be like creating butt-wiping products that last longer than your plumbing and calling them flushable.
Far be it from us. We would never. Space-age technology has taught us that transparency is the best policy when it comes to promoting a cutting edge brand. Truth telling has never been so sexy. Today we embrace “telling it like it is” as an important “part of a complete breakfast.” It might be the part you get over 2000% of by the end of the day, but that’s still a part. Transparency is a percent of all paid ad spots these days. I mean, zero is still a percent, right?
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