It’s the holiday season, (Happy Holidays to all!), and that means we’re subjected to all sorts of advertisements asking or hawking something. It’s not enough that we’re just recovering from a slew of political advertising, but insult is now added to injury.
Take this coupling of back-to-back commercials seen the other night. The first one was for Feed the Hungry featuring a very sincere Scarlett Johansson. Certainly a good cause for those with little, especially around this season of giving. The second commercial immediately after that was for high-end David Yurman jewelry featuring, wait for it, a very alluring Scarlett Johansson. What is the message here?
This is not to say Ms. Johansson should refrain from such commercials activities. It’s likely she believes deeply about feeding the less fortunate. That does not prevent her from capitalizing on her fame to promote jewelry, some which she may already possess.
It does say something about the TV station/network in carelessness in scheduling commercials. A David Yurman ad right after a PSA (public service announcement) for the hungry is pretty thoughtless in itself. But when the spokesperson for both is the same, it borders on insensitivity. It diminishes the message of both. Perhaps they were making a statement of their own, “Look even the rich care about the poor.” Doubtful. What would Scarlett say about it?
But we’re confronted with this kind of thing daily. It’s not unusual to see a horrible highway accident story on the news followed by an ad for a personal injury lawyer. Tasteless? Sure. Too soon? Probably not – for the lawyer.
Late night TV is where a lot of this occurs. Watch Fallon, Kimmel, or Colbert and see countless ads for personal injury lawyers back to back to back. Each one claims to make you richer than the other. That’s nice. Now you too will be able to afford David Yurman jewelry. Just don’t count on Scarlett delivering the check.
Bruce Meisterman 