FOLLIES IN MARKETING, VOL. 2

• I was heating up my lunchtime Hot Pocket last Thursday when I noticed a pamphlet on top of the microwave. The cover read: "The Return of the King: Why is Tolkien's Epic So Popular?" and included an image of Viggo Mortensen, riding into battle with his sword held aloft. It turned out to be a tract that uses The Lord of the Rings to promote Christianity. (See it here.) Can you imagine how that sales pitch would go?
  
  ENTHUSIASTIC CHRISTIAN: Good morning, Steve! Say, you like The Lord of the Rings, don't you?
  
  STEVE: Uh, it was a pretty good movie, I guess.
  
  ENTHUSIASTIC CHRISTIAN: Well, then, you should accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior! Because, you know, like what Aragorn did? And Arwen? That's just like Jesus, except that neither one was born of a virgin, or performed miracles, or claimed to have been sent by God, or rose from the dead, or even died in the first place! Um... anyway, read this!
  
  
  The inside of the tract features a photo of Gandalf, which is odd, considering that both the Old Testament and the New Testament prohibit witchcraft and sorcery (Ex. 22:18, Deut. 18:10, Gal. 5:20). David Bruce, who wrote the text, exhibits the rhetorical skill of a seventh-grader straining to compare Moby-Dick to Flowers in the Attic. My verdict: Worst Proselytization Tool Ever.
  
  
• I saw a Jeep ad a while ago that showed a Jeep SUV driving across a large body of water on a concrete bridge. No land is in sight. Suddenly, an uprooted tree falls out of the sky and lands on the bridge, blocking the way. Fortunately, because the people are driving a Jeep, they are able to drive right over the tree and continue on their way.
  
  I guess the admakers intended to remind the viewer that since you never know what's going to happen, it's best to be prepared and drive a rugged Jeep 4x4 that can get you out of any mess. But the ad delivers a more obvious message: We know you're never going to take this thing off-road -- you're going to use it to take your daughter to soccer practice and pick up milk at the store. A person like you would only buy a Jeep if you're retarded enough to think that a tree might fall out of the sky and land right in front of you, and you'll need to drive right over it and pick up the pad Thai before it gets cold. God, you're a fucking poseur.
  
  
• Another SUV commercial, this one for the Honda CR-V. The ad shows two extreme guys readying themselves to bungee jump from a bridge (we can tell they're extreme because they have scraggly goatees and two-day beards). Then the two guys spot a CR-V arriving on the beach below. A covey of taut-skinned, bikini-clad young women clamber out and start to play volleyball, shrieking and laughing gaily to indicate their readiness to perform oral sex. The men freeze and glance at one another in uncertainty. Then one of them says, "Okay, Plan B."
  
  Are they nuts? I'm no great seducer of women, but I think the obvious strategy is to do the bungee jump and then head down to the beach to swagger among the admiring young women.

+posted by Lawrence @ 2/23/2004 11:22:00 PM