Prior to the Super Bowl, I was made aware of a television ad from Audi. The ad was based on the long ago discredited claim that women are systematically paid less for doing the same work as men. Here’s the ad. It’s one of those times when the PC proselytizing is actually worse than what you expected. Watching it through to the end is difficult because the smug radiates from the screen like a bad odor. It’s not the ridiculous preening that is repugnant. It is the inappropriateness. Who does Audi think buys their cars?
It’s not hard to imagine the room where this ad was screened for the executives at Audi USA. Men and women in snappy business suits talked about how to target the professional female car buyer. Maybe they had data showing that Audi lags in this segment compared to its competitors. Everyone watched the ad, nodded in agreement, felt brave and wonderful and then agreed it should be the big ad for the big game. No one bothered to ask if Audi or the ad agency pays their females less than their males.
This ad, put out by a sneaker company, can only be described as offensive. It’s hard to imagine a more offensive ad. It’s also hard to imagine a more ridiculous ad. We just spent eight years with a black president and his mulatto mafia running the country and we are suddenly in need of a lecture about racism, from a sneaker company? They threw a lesbian and some black Muslim women in there, but the clear thrust of the ad is that whites are not accommodating enough to millionaire black athletes. Thanks Nike.
Of course, these ads are not whipped up overnight. They take months to produce, especially ads with multiple stars. Arranging a day for each star can take months of planning. Ads created for a big event like the Super Bowl are often started six months before they hit the air. In this case, these ads were cooked up last summer and put together in late summer and early fall. That means they were dreamed up before the people in charge noticed that the world had changed, if they noticed at all.
It’s another reminder that the Cloud People were absolutely sure that the noises coming from the Dirt People could safely be ignored. Six months ago when these ads were commissioned, the beautiful people were locking arms, certain they were heading off to the Age of Aquarius, where the Dirt People would no longer be a concern. They were so sure they were on the right side of history, they no longer had to pretend to be civil to the rest of us. These ads are a reflection of the smug, arrogant pricks who made them.
Even accounting for the arrogance of these people, the main reason they thought these were swell ads to run is they have “otherized” themselves, to borrow a term from the multiculturalists. It’s not that these people have lost touch with the common man. It’s that they have deliberately alienated themselves from their country and countrymen. These preachy ads have nothing to do with selling cars or sneakers. The ads are a public act of piety by people who are no longer part of the general culture.
It is why the mass media is becoming increasingly bizarre. It’s tempting to think it is nothing more than proselytizing and propaganda, and that is a big part of it, but some of it is due to the insularity of the people inside the media bubble. To them, having a Valentine’s Day program featuring homosexual couples is not normal, it is aspirational and therefore inspirational. The fact that the rest of us find it grating and a bit offensive never comes to mind. Everyone they know thinks it is a great idea and those are the people that count.
We live in a strange age, probably not a lot different from the late feudal period, when the ruling class was largely unaware of the storm that was brewing. If you were an aristocrat, you may not have a lot of money, but what you had was social distance from the people who were not aristocrats. That distance was your currency. The provincial lawyer or merchant may have been accumulating money and lands, but he was never going to be you and never be in your circle. Making that clear was of the highest importance.
The main difference is that the sword nobility was also a defender of the old order, while the Dirt People of the day were looking to topple over the old order. Today, our sword nobility is hell bent of toppling over what’s left of the old order, simply to prove to one another they are not a part of the old order. Highlighting the distance between them and us is their primary fixation. It’s why Trump is so hated despite being a billionaire New Yorker. It’s because he is a man much more comfortable among the Dirt People because he respects them and crossing that class line is the great sin among the others.
Nothing new guys and gals. In the mid 50’s I was a junior in HS when an insufferably smug history teacher made a disparaging remark about garbage men. One of my friends was the son of a partner in the garbage company and at 16 told teach off. Disparaging the people who do the work in this country is a way of life for some.
There’s a big difference, actually. Fifty years ago the school teacher made the crack because of middle-class anxiety over his position in the middle-class. Today, the guys making ads are unaware that garbage men exist. They’ve never actually seen one. They have known anyone who has known one. The very phrase “garbage man” does not roll off their lips. Fifty years ago the school teacher and garbage man were hostile to one another out of familiarity. Today, no such familiarity exists and that school teacher is just as alien to the people in charge as the garbage man.
This is kind of a paraphrase of something you once said (or maybe it was Derb, or Sailer, or…) about reporters- teaching in the 50’s was a way for blue collar guys to not have to work on the assembly line. Further, Jack, I’d guess the teacher in your example was an exception. I graduated from HS in 1972, and most of my Catholic school teachers were either blue collar guys, or only graduated from college due to the GI Bill. Today’s HS teachers (yours truly excepted) are fully paid up members of the SJW Society. Most don’t have much… Read more »
The teacher abstracted in the form of the teachers union is not alien. The teacher as a person is alien.
‘Sanitation Engineer’ …Please! Both the SE and the teacher support the rulers by their union dues, some of the last vestiges of unionism left after the rulers decreed the dismantling of the manufacturing base. Walker and (I think) now President Trump are going after the lifeblood of the progressives, the mandatory membership in unionism and the enforced automatic deduction of the union dues. Maybe if the SE and the teacher are severed from the hive and again hold what they have earned in their own hands they might hesitate before handing it back over to the collective. Might? Actually in… Read more »
Once they’ve gone down the “moral equivalent of war” and “right side of history” path, how you ever get these people back? The capacity for “when the fact’s change, I change my mind. What do you do Madame?” is gone in these people. What is so disturbing about the Resistance (maybe they will start wearing cool berets and smoke Gaulloises) is, unlike the Tea Party, they can’t seem to articulate what they are for, only what they are against. Even the Vietnam protesters had a very particular ask, “don’t draft me to SE Asia to die in a jungle”. Today,… Read more »
you don’t get them back. you pack them off to south america or africa, or anywhere that is already a shit hole.
Actually, I didn’t find that Nike ad as offensive as you did — I found it hilariously clueless. Watch it again. The basic pitch is, “in sports, everything is a pure meritocracy. Why can’t the whole world be like that?” *ROTFL* I am 100 percent certain that the people who made that ad do not want anything resembling the world that they’re advocating. In fact, I doubt any of the black athletes shown would have agreed to do the ad if the message had been explained to them in normal, non-adspeak terms. Some agent just gave them a vague description… Read more »
Hockey and lacrosse are curiously absent from the ad… Doesn’t Nike still own Bauer?
not a big place to find the superior black athlete at the hockey rink, may be one of the few places where merit still rules
By offensive, I meant offensively stupid. The NBA is a human flea circus that selects participants based almost entirely on genetics. LeeBong is a star because he is a genetic mutant. It is basically a show featuring lottery winners. Heck, they even call their draft a lottery. If we wanted to make it equal, we would bring in learned skills that give a greater number of people a chance to succeed. But as you point out, these people don’t want equal opportunity. They want supremacy and everyone knows it. That’s the offense. They seem to think the world has not… Read more »
Speaking of skills, if only more of them could master the easiest shot in the game: The Free Throw (or whatever it’s called now).
I remember seeing Shaq O’Neill fail at this so many times it was laughable, especially in light of his salary and fame.
You lose credibility by asserting that Lebron “is a star because he is a genetic mutant.” Do you doubt that he is one of the best passers in NBA history? If you do, you again lose credibility. Does one acquire great passing skills by being a genetic mutant? Of course not. It is practice, practice, practice. He is 6’8. Larry Bird, during his playing days, was 6’9. Larry was one of the greatest passers in NBA history as well. Would you suggest that Larry was a star because he was a genetic mutant? Lebron is also widely considered to have… Read more »
Credibility with whom?
Objective reality.
Perhaps not the echo chamber here, but, with a random audience, in a public debate, do you think that you would stand a chance against any individual who knows basketball?
The proposition: Lebron James is a star solely because he is a genetic mutant.
You would get your ass handed to you.
At this moment, 99.997% of men in America are under 6’9″ tall. 99.952% of men are under 6’7″ tall, which is the height of the typical NBA player, according to the NBA. That’s the very definition of genetic mutant, unless you want to argue that LeeBong made himself taller.
Here’s a tip chief. Learn what words mean before popping off in public and making a bigger ass of yourself than is obvious.
Oh, here’s your ass back dickhead.
You wrote: Leebong is a star because he is genetic mutant. Thus, your assertion rests upon the proposition that he is a star because of his height and his height alone. In your last post, you explicitly reinforce the point. I challenged your assertion by adverting to Lebron’s considerable skills as having a large impact upon his becoming the world’s best basketball player. Any person who knows basketball knows that Lebron’s height is not the primary reason why he is and has been the world’s best basketball player. NBA history is replete with players who became stars who were not… Read more »
Here is a tip to you: Read all of that which you wrote.
You are the one who claimed that the NBA selects its players “based almost entirely upon genetics.”
Here is another tip: Don’t be such an adolescent name calling baby.
hahaha the cucky troll gets his big boy panties in a twist over the nba! what a pathetic douche nozzle. i know where you can find lactating african women who will pretend to be your “mommy” (for a price). maybe that will help heal the old wounds caused by your real mommy not giving you enough teat time.
Where can you find such lactating African women? I will be glad to pay you a finder’s fee if you can deliver.
No, you are assuming facts not in evidence.
Then you concede the point that Lebron is the world’s best basketball player for reasons other than being a genetic mutant?
If a man is 5’9″, the average for Americans, but he has three arms, is he a genetic mutant?
Again, do you concede the point that Lebron is the world’s best hoopster for reasons other than being a genetic mutant?
As for your question, how did the man acquire the third arm? If he was born with three arms, something went awry. I don’t know if all birth defects constitute genetic mutations.
I’ll concede that you don’t understand the word “genetic” so our conversation here is pointless.
What’s with the arrogance and hubris?
Do you have a hard time dealing with the fact that reality conflicts with your narrative?
No person conversant with the NBA, and capable of ratiocination, would conclude that Lebron James is a star because he is a genetic mutant and not because of reasons other than being a genetic mutant.
Lebron James’ dribbling, passing, and spacing are not the product of being a genetic mutant.
Genetics plays a very large role in regards to whom makes the cut in pro athletics or olympic sports. Your size, co-ordination, muscle fiber ratios, etc, are all fixed at birth. No amount of training could fix them either. All training could do is refine his innate talent.
It’s no different in the Worlds Strongest Man competitions or being a top NFL quarterback or even a top bodybuilder. They’re largely born, not made, even with the prevalence of PED’s.
These men are largely freaks of nature no matter what.
The point is that James would not be the worlds best BB player if he were 5’9″ and not 6’9″. James and Bird are mutants, Curry is not a mutant, female gymnasts are mutants. You are a mutant, the Caucasian SJW whose defining property is shilling for his maladaptive trait of genetic self‑extinction while paying to fund the lifestyle of others.
Jimmy, the white man who supports Leviathan is the mutant; the white man, particularly the dirt white men, who clamor for their social security, their collective bargaining bennies, their love of Medicaid, their love of Medicare, their love of subsidized agriculture, their love of men in uniform, their love of the state’s privileged purveyors of violence, their submission to the state, their submission to the pledge of allegiance, their submission to socialist anthems, their affinity for public education, and their inability to debate without changing the goalposts are all defining attributes of mutant white men. So, do you pay to… Read more »
“…Jimmy, the white man who supports Leviathan is the mutant… are all defining attributes of mutant white men…”
No…that’s more like the average guy.
Basketball what? Lebron who? Who really gives a fluck. Basketball has no strategy, just a bunch of mutants running up and down a marked off area passing a ball backa forth and throwing into a net, so boring…
The comment I’ve made in other times and places, attributed to the great John Mariucci -“Watching basketball is like watching old men fish “
blah blah blah
Why would we care if we have credibility with some anonymous people somewhere? How many famous basketball stars are 5’6″?
All of them. That are 5’6″ that is. Because in the basketball world they are considered to be genetic mutants.
evidently libertymike is the keeper of reality. so we have that going for us.
I saw the meritocracy angle myself. I think that it accidentally came through. The gladiatorial contests are a meritocracy based on, as ZMan says, genetics but try to translate that into an argument with your HR department about the value of an intellectual merit based hiring system and you will be branded, fired, and it will be in your ‘permanent record’.
I wonder if we’ll see a reverse in these identity politics ads in the near future or if the Left will double down on their messaging and divisiveness. I feel like the Jack Lemmon character in The Out-of-Towners as he adds a new name to his shit-list for every time he’s affronted some way in New York City. No more money from me for Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, Audi, Nike, etc. It’s bizarre all these people and companies coming out to preach so inappropriately. The NFL weighing in on transgender bathrooms, for crying out loud?! Pro-football concerning itself with… Read more »
I took about , what, 25 years or so, for homosexuality to be normalized. The transgender thing is happening at lightning speed- 3-4 years ago it was unthinkable, except in a freak show sort of way; now if you are not on board you are a crime-thinker. Any ideas why?
You answered your own question…
“now if you are not on board you are a crime-thinker.”
Well, meet the Al Capone of criminal thought-crime.
They skipped right base B to T and lumped Q in all of the sudden. What are Bi Rights? The right to be married to a man and a woman at the same time? Q rights will be a fascinating conversation when the time comes.
Maybe because identity politics are cheap. No money required to set dirt people against each other and it doesn’t impact banks or any of the big money players or issues that matter. Plus, the establishment has seen that ambitious minorities and ‘fringe’ people previously considered degenerate can apply themselves with great vigor to achieving the elite’s goals and allow them access to the club to zealously serve in such capacity. Meanwhile real things oriented around lots of money and great social impact are happening in the world that are rarely even touched on in any American media, like wars, regime… Read more »
There’s only one perversion after this, and it starts with a P. Well, I guess there are two; the other starts with a B. Then maybe they jump to N.
I think a key point was that these ads were produced before the November election. The ground just got shifted under the feet of these advertising people. Welcome to the party, dudes. You look a bit like “last year’s fashion”, don’t you? You are “with her”, but she is toast.
Audi is part of VW which of course got caught scamming with their “clean diesel” software. This is an ad saying “we’re on your side” to the left. Just about every corporation that gets caught doing something illegal/unethical now immediately makes itself as SJW as possible, which means the media starts praising them and immediately forgets the crime and forgives the executives.
The entire aborted Hillary presidency was exactly this scam: greedy conscience-less criminals stealing as much as possible as fast as possible but it’s ok, they love perverts.
Yes. This. Surrender signalling, ready for Her.
What VW did regarding its disels was not unethical – unless you think that it is a mortal sin to circumvent the EPA’s edicts.
Check out what Eric Peters at EricPetersAutos.com has to say about the matter.
Quite so. They demand you do the impossible, so they can put the pressure on whenever they want.
Since VW is one of Germany’s most important employers, I think BO was making her knuckle under to the immivasion. This had nothing to do with ‘cleaner air.’
Meanwhile, the one singer who came out for Trump at the Grammy’s saw her sales SOAR. Imagine that. Dirt people might actually have $ to spend on Audi’s and Nike’s too. But if they are paying any attention they will give their hard earned cash to companies that don’t alienate them.
https://apple.news/AiUdQbMj5Tt-l3gkjULINWw
“Singer Joy Villa’s decision to wear a “Make America Great Again” dress to the Grammy Awards may have radically altered the course of her music career as she experiences a stunning Amazon sales increase of over 54 million percent at the time of this writing.”
http://www.infowars.com/maga-dress-girl-dominating-charts-after-54-million-percent-sales-increase/
Businesses, take note.
Another example: I was watching a hockey game last night (on Roku, not broadcast), and saw half-a-dozen showings of a Chase commercial about a white boy and a black girl who were childhood/young adult sweethearts and are now planning their retirement together, as their hair turns grey. Tagline: When you find something worth holding onto, we’ll help you invest to protect it for the future. Who’s the target market for this ad? The massive underserved WM/BF demographic? Hockey fans? Roku owners? HR? Marketing? Ad agencies?
Ah, yes. Again, the fictional, idealized biracial couple. And the answer to your question is this ad serves none of the groups you mentioned. You make Zman’s point precisely. The purpose of this ad is to publicly moralize, like scolding, postmodern Puritans. The fact that the only salient feature of this ad, the racial makeup of the couple, has exactly nothing to do with the product Chase is selling, reveals that this is nothing but an exercise in virtue signaling.
I haven’t seen the ad, since I don’t have television. But I don’t immediately assume that the ad is trying to appeal to a WM/BF demographic. It’s just appealing to a generic American demographic. Biracial couples are quite common — we have a number of them in my little rural Kansas town of 2,000 people — and are no big deal. As I said, I haven’t seen the ad, but I’m assuming the people in the ad are smiling and attractive, since that’s the main thing you really need in most ads. You don’t see 300-pound women of any race… Read more »
Well said!!
Sorry, but I find that ad disgusting. That and the one about the young couple – one black, one Asian, and a couple of kids who don’t look much like either of them. Too cute./s
And as I recall, the husband is doing the dishes.
What? Black/Asian men don’t do dishes? I’m white, comfortable in my masculinity, IQ over . . . , well, never mind, and I do dishes. Cook what goes onto them now and then. What’s the big deal with dishes?
One of my favorites along these lines was an ad for an outdoor retailer. I think it was Bass Pro. You see a tent in the woods and inside we find a black guy, a white woman and two kids. One kid looked slightly Asian, while the other kid was all honky and looked nothing like mom. It made me wonder if the marketing people had ever been inside a Bass Pro. That and black people are fond of pointing out that they don’t go camping – ever. Comics have been doing gags on that fact for decades. “No black… Read more »
I’ve quit buying from Ass-Probe a long time ago. The guys at their gun counter are assholes par excellence. Not that I own any of those, mind you. Boating accident and all.
You lost an asshole in a boating accident?
exactly, i’ll bet they settled for this Demographic because they just couldn’t show two gay guys swapping spit in their teens and hope to get away with it, …until next year!!
every other ad on tv with a couple or a family now features a mixed race pair, but almost always a light skinned african descendant.
2 birds with 1 stone thinking, i guess.
My favorite ads-not-are the Blue Cross-Blue Shield medical insurance ads that show a late middle-aged, ie. snowy white-haired, but relatively young looking black couple, man and woman, a pair I have yet to see anywhere;-) Close cropped hair on both, no idiotic weaves-braids. They are always romping and open-mouthed laughing, thrilled to have beaten the odds of being shot in whatever neighborhood they actually live in. Not Scarsdale. Where did they find these people? They are always on the covers of the insurance company booklets admonishing us to take important steps to preserve our health by eating right, exercising etc.
It is an image building ad for Chase aimed at everyone. The basic premise is that everyone is for tolerance, diversity, inclusion, or should be. Chase is your bank if you are that kind of person. If you are not, well, you are not so welcome … but we will still take your money if you don’t say anything. We are virtue signalling and want to some respect. That’s all. If some of you don’t like it. Oh well. Too bad.
I don’t think the mixed couple with kids adds are aimed at tolerance and diversity, but of dread of diversity. I read some years ago of a prominent BBC intellectual coming to the realization, through HBD facts, that races of people were so far apart in genetic inheritance that all his dreams were going to nought. The only possible solution was to eliminate race though cross breeding. So much for diversity.
I live in the moonbat state, and for the first time I don’t feel safe here. The loons are in full control and feeling ornery. And of course the institutional incompetence on display re:Oroville dam is also a great concern. But where to go to ride out the great reset that is underway? If the climate weren’t heading into a mini-ice age I would head for Idaho or nearby states. Maybe Colorado…
Solomon H: I, too, live in the moonbat state and it was about two years ago now that I started paying attention to the Magic Indonesian muslim and his cohorts and, yeah, my feeling of safety eroded greatly and continues to do so. That’s the federal level and here in the state, as I’m sure you know, we have a governor that in his recent State of the State address fully admitted that, “under the constitution federal law is supreme and that Washington determines immigration policy”, and would then go on in the next few sentences to basically say that… Read more »
Well, all I can say is “It took you guys long enough to read the writing on the wall.” I left before Barry was elected and I lived in the Moonbat State as well. Other factors were included but I could read the tea leaves and now that place is completely lost especially with Governor Moonbeam at the helm, again. On the topic of budget and not fixing the failed spillway, well, one could point to the several years drought and wonder why it had not been inspected during the dry spell and repairs done as needed but that would… Read more »
I live in the Moonbattery as well, but I am not giving in. I am staying here (so far) and pushing back every chance I get. If Trump is successful in getting illegal immigration and voting fraud under control, you may see this state transformed. The level of cheating here is off the charts, and for some reason it is accepted as part of the landscape. I do not expect the state to self-reform, but a federal push could get it done. Tether compliance to the continuation of the flow of federal funds, and watch this state fall in line.… Read more »
what are the chances the dems rip off prop-13 and jack the property taxes sky high? 100%. and then the prices go down like Hillary at an “ice cream” party
I’ll take the other side of that 100% argument. They will, and have, been nibbling on all sides of Prop 13, but the basic arrangement will stay put. Too many long term property owners around here have too much political juice.
Obamacare
I laugh when they tell me to go to the pest-ridden swamps of east Texas, because there are too many Mexicans in Califa. No Negros in Baytown or Dallas, too, you betcha.
Don’t bother with Colorado, it’s already Californicated. WA, OR, and NV are pointless for the same reason. Your neighbors have likewise damaged ID and MT and are working on TX.
Rats flee sinking ships for good reason, and also for good reason large groupings of rats are termed a problem.
I am in a similar situation. But I think we are looking at the wrong solution when we decide to run away. Every state, even the reddest, has a problem with liberals in the cities. We need to find a way to counter that. I believe we need to outlaw statewide vote by mail and reverse laws that let the two top vote getters in the primary face each other (which gives us Democrat vs Democrat.) The best place to ride things out is the place where you can find like minded people to support each other. There is no… Read more »
Heck, there are leftists in small Kansas towns of 2,000 people. And even out in the countryside. There is no place in the United States of America where there are not leftists. Even people in the most remote, out-of-the-way places have satellite dishes and television, by way of which their minds have been colonized by the Hollywood-New York-Washington axis of evil.
The best you can hope for is that in some of the small Kansas towns, at least the leftists don’t actually RUN everything, as they do in big cities.
Oh and by the way, in these days of SJWs and Black Lives Matter, I actually get a subversive kick out of all the biracial couples I see in restaurants, at movie theaters, at parks or in grocery stores with their kids, at school parent-teacher conferences, etc. The SJWs and race-obsessed Democrats want to divide people from each other and achieve anything BUT the color-blind society that Martin Luther King envisioned. Indeed, among the communists organizing Black Lives Matter and other Soros-funded groups, whites are not worthy to even kiss the feet of black people…. But meanwhile, down here on… Read more »
that’s what Custer said!
Long time Colorado resident here. I agree with someguy’s post–Colorado is a lost cause. Denver has been a sanctuary city for about 30 years. Many of the original illegal immigrants are still not citizens, but their kids born here are full citizens and entitled to vote. Between the influx of Californians and Hispanic immigration Colorado is now a solid Blue state. Were it not for TABOR, which requires citizens to approve tax increases, Colorado would be completely Californicated. I’m planning my exit from Colorado in the next 2-3 years. I’m counting on Trump to tell California to go pound sand.… Read more »
No, not Colo, we are plum full up w/refugees…..we are not a “safe” zone.
Great revolutions are successful because members of the old order betray their class and cross over to the other side. Trump did that. He is our 21st century George Washington.
Try explaining that to one of our ‘History Challenged’ youth, let alone the significance of your user name.
If we are indeed separating into two separate nations within the borders of the ‘Old Republic’ then perhaps we will be looking for an Epaminondas and not a George Washington.
We hope.
Note that they live in the same physical environments. We’re seeing a divergent culture, because they are basically neighbors. Just as one McDonalds is the same as another, so would New York’s Upper East Side be arranged along the same lines as Chicago’s Hyde Park or Boston’s Back Bay. Suburbs of schoolteachers looks are as alike as are barrios, trailer parks, or projects. “Urban renewal”, LBJ’s New Cities model, is population replacement- cultural war and colonization. The working/middle class homeowners were driven out by imported barbarian hordes; gentrification is the next opportunity now that the devalued price gets the desired… Read more »
Please forgive the overlong, rather clumsy post
(I should’ve cut it to public/private union choreography) but I found another juicy tidbit on the professional Othering of mainstreet America.
http://meetup.org
Currently marketing the #Resistance tag.
Their much larger government counterpart would be the mysteriously understated SERCO, who happens to be taking over General Services Admin contracts throughout the Western world.
Perhaps their CEO is the Red Skull?
Here’s the best illustration of the preachy smugness of Audi…photos of their executive team:
https://www.audiusa.com/newsroom/corporate/executive-team
12 men, all white. I love the Mr. Burns finger tapping President. Two women, one black, and she’s HR, so she’s not really an executive.
I personally have no problem with their executive team’s composition. They can hire who they want. What was hilarious after the SB was the admission by Audi USA that paying women less for the same work is, in fact, ILLEGAL. There was quite the Twitter deluge as Audi had to quickly acknowledge that their ad was basically just self-righteous bullshit.
“The ads are a public act of piety by people who are no longer part of the general culture.” You have *no* idea how far it goes. If anyone thinks the smug, superior preachiness on display was wildly alien to real people, I can tell you from personal experience there were even more egregious sermons/ads that never made it out of the agencies. Because they were too pozzy and absurd and snottily preachy and might backfire. Usually they test ads with focus groups before committing to shoot and air them. The ad people and their clients are free to ignore… Read more »
The new Land Rover ad on Bloomberg, which runs about a hundred times a day, is the gayest gay gay white male thing ever. I guess they are ceding the 4×4 SUV market to Jeep or something. Glad I don’t own one of those overpriced poser vehicles of indifferent quality.
good morning Z, I hope your new ride isn’t an Audi and if you need a pair of running shoes they are not Nike. I don’t need to start a web site to promote this, i just don’t participate in the fraud and i don’t buy lumber from a company that promotes their collective IQ in their business name. I have not been to a movie since who knows when, and i’ve stopped watching pro sports for the most part cuz the associated crap is just nauseating. (Brady/Belichek aside) My life is far “fuller” than i can remember Damn this… Read more »
Brady does not have the testicular fortitude to come out and proclaim that he supports Trump. He should articulate why he supports the carnival barking, eminent domain and big government loving crony-capitalist. Why should Brady demur? He has been asked, numerous times, on WEEI’s morning show, and he elides. It is no defense that a candid answer would “distract” the team. That dog will not hunt. It is no defense that his SJW wife would object. That dog will also not hunt. It is also no defense that he lives in one of the bluest of blue states. Why should… Read more »
Why, really, should any of us?
Lawyer hunts would be tv’s newest, most popular hyperreality show- with the big finale of this week’s judge!
The attraction of working in the media is you get to hang out with the Cloud people (while disparaging the Dirt people) and even ingratiate yourself enough to become one with a bit of luck. It’s an achievable job for many, somewhere halfway between politics and show-business in which you don’t have to lie so much in order to be elected and you don’t have to perform silly routines in weird costumes to be put in the spotlight. There’s some prancing around and some lying, true, but on balance the media person gets a chance to quickly get to be… Read more »
So true- the “Pick me! Pick me!” Syndrome
Someone pointed out a Twitter post to me about the Audi ad.
Apparently someone challenged them on it asking if Audi women employees made the same income as men, and Audi replied that when you took into account the responsibilities carried and hours worked that pay was equivalent, which, it turns out, is the conservative argument against all the “equal pay for equal work” propaganda.
The ad was a virtue signaling event, nothing more.
The Marketing Department (along with HR) is typically where companies park the otherwise useless women and hipsters. But damn, there ought to be a normal reviewing this crap before it hits the airwaves telling half the country that they don’t want to be associated with Audi.
We don’t see many Audis on the road at all. But one of them is driven by a female executive member of our family, and it is her second Audi.
These ads are such rubbish. And those dramatizations of the corporate meetings where mud is being thrown at the wall by suits with furrowed brows are even more hokey than the real thing.
They are everywhere in New Jersey. I’ve looked at them in the past because they used to offer manual transmissions in most models (not anymore). they are just expensive dressed-up Volkswagen.
The social signaling ads even got the attention of SNL who took a brief break from Trump bashing to make fun of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imUigBNF-TE
I never understood it. As Michael Jordan said when asked about politics: “Republicans buy sneakers too”.
the fact that so many business owners are destroying the market value of their companies, shows how out of touch they are. how disconnected from reality. look at what the moron ru(i)nning the NYTimes has done to that’s company’s value! It is essentially BK already, and is only able to stay in business through subsidies from Mexican cell phone customers. Same with the NFL, et, etc, etc. And don’t even start with Simple Jack at twitter…
The latest problem I see is figuring out how to stop supporting some of these stupid companies. Retail is pretty straight forward. They say stupid things, you just don’t shop there. Tech companies are harder. I have to have internet for work and right now that’s Comcast. It’s all I have with them. We canceled DirecTV. What do I do about Amazon? They say stupid stuff but still sell Ivanka’s brand. It really is becoming hard to keep up with this.
If the crazy continues, each retailer and service provider will need to identify its self-identified space in the marketplace. And then, just like network news, the crowd will go left and cannibalize each other while someone like Fox makes a business decision to go the other way and capture half the market. Just like the singer with the Trump dress. This is a series of opportunities dressed up as problems. The self-identification allows marketing opportunities to open up, that otherwise would not be there.
share your Amazon prime account with a couple of other people. that will cut their revenue plenty.
Zman, this post on the commercial reads like a reader of your blog wrote it:
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2017/02/real-message-behind-audis-super-bowl-ad-isnt-exactly-uplifting-one/
Thanks for the link, El_baboso – it’s a great read. Mirrors some of Zman’s points, and highlights a few others.
The shape of things to come: Neo-Scarlet letters and modern -day versions of Star of David patches.
Students wear white pins to remind them of white privilege
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/31183/
A white privilege pin is a form of Catholic indulgence. The believer wishes to clear his conscience from the burden that his senses suggest to him, an intolerable message, that he is through no effort of his own superior to an entire class of people. It never occurs to him, and neither would it matter, that this class of people hold no greater disgust than for his weakness, which they correctly judge to be unnatural and worthy of extermination.
This new paradigm is a virulent virus. Sometimes I feel as though I’m stuck inside a B science fiction film – you know – the one where the virus takes over and turns normals into zombies. I figured out the hypocritical self-righteousness that drives those who are determined they know best and therefore I really have no choice but to succumb to all things right. I just don’t understand why businesses think it’s in their best interest to proselytize anything other than the merits of their products. I will not spend hard earned money with companies that preach to me.… Read more »
One thing we have in common with ancient Greece and prerevolutionary France is the prohibition of certain professions and classes from active involvement in politics. In prerevolutionary France political activity was limited to the nobility, whether of the sword or the robe, as well as special individuals who were named by the king for certain roles, but these did so with the understanding that following orders was a pathway to nobility. People involved in commercial trades were barred. The same thing was true in Greece, but to a greater extent. For instance, doctors, like Hippocrates, were barred from holding office.… Read more »
Interestingly, in pre-Revolutionary France there were quite a few ‘nobles of the sword’ who were broke. This was considered a good thing by contemporary military writers such as DeSaxe because they had a lot to gain from good performance of their duties and a lot to lose from misconduct: The kings commission was their sole income property and promotion was the best chance for the critical mid-level officers to increase their fortunes and be able to make an honorable marriage. Also, when they reached higher command they were often able to ‘supplement’ their income – the most common scam was… Read more »
From what I’ve been able to piece together, Iraqi Army commands in the 2012-14 timeframe were priced so that the commander would break even in about a year.
Some have an earthy way of stating certain things.
I have given up ambev products after that horrendous bud ad during the super bowl. It’s coors, coors, coors from here on out. Anyone else stop using Budweiser?
Budweiser has been on a real roll. The Amy Schumer ads probably caused many men to stop drinking entirely.
What did they do then, go straight to heroin?
No actually Straight water with perhaps a few ice cubes…
“Make mine a double” (actually heard that in a bar when the designated driver thingie started)
I never started drinking Budweiser. Unlike the world of my youth, there are many good beer options. Quality of beer is one thing that has gotten better in my lifetime. I really hated that Bud ad. As if someone could tell he was German just off the boat. Really really stupid. And the notion that because Germans did well here, any other group from anywhere would do just as well. Why not bring in a bunch of tribesmen from Papua New Guinea. I’m sure they’d be successful here.
Ha! What do they call that Vietnamese alcoholic beverage made by dumping fish guts in a hole in the ground, then sipping the fermented results out with a straw two weeks later? A sure hit.
Baseball, Ice Cream and the Fallacy of Targeted Advertising Some people think that the designated hitter rule is the greatest thing since sliced bread, others think it is an abomination. Some people love chocolate ice cream but hate vanilla, and vice versa. So you run an ad showing a designated hitter blasting a game winning home run then licking a chocolate ice cream cone. Win, win? Hardly. You make the sale with the 1/4 of the people who like the rule and like chocolate. The other 3/4 who either don’t like the rule or who don’t like chocolate, or both,… Read more »
Alfa Romeo Giulia. Better ad, much better car.
More puke-inducing moral preening from our betters.
What kind of person drives an Audi? It’s in the name…Axxholes Usually Drive It
I challenged your assertion by adverting to Lebron’s considerable skills as having a large impact upon his becoming the world’s best basketball player.