Gad, it's been an awful, scary, maddening, overweeningly stress-filled month so far.

...But enough about ME...

I continue to be fascinated and alarmed by current trends in TV & Radio adverts.
I mean, they are REALLY awful. The most troubling angle from a business sense- and I was nurtured by the Freberg school of advertising- is that which is typified by the Progressive Insurance commercials. The template works like this:
***********
Customer has a catastrophe.

Customer calls repairman.

Repairman stares disbelievingly at the scope of the problem, and wants to get to work.

Customer demands a quote from the repairman, including a quote from 3 competitors.

The catastrophe worsens.

Moral: OUR customers expect competitive quotes from their inquiries to us. They are SMART.
***********

NO. The ULTIMATE message is: Our customers are STOO-PID.
That's what I get. AND, I do not wish to be lumped in with the cretinous rabble which apparently comprises the Progressive customer base.

Hello, little lizard...

Toyota has jumped aboard with THEIR latest ad campaign, with a Typical Married Male
who went out for milk, and was beguiled into buying not one, but TWO Toyotas, a sporty red car, and a black SUV. He proceeds to angst over how to tell his wife, when his REAL problem is how to get the two vehicles home. The helpful Toyota salesman has clearly NOT offered to assist by driving one vehicle for him, so the
hapless dupe must leapfrog the cars home: Milkboy drives the Red car a few yards beyond the Black SUV, then the SUV a few yards beyond the Red car. And so forth.

This commercial is an infinite sadness. I could go all Dobson on their keisters and decry the typical stupification of the American Husband on TV, but that is not my issue. The message I get is:

Toyota customers are STOO-PID.

The list goes on...