By Jay Jamison
A bunch of unpronounceable prescription drugs seem to dominate some time slots of television advertising. Some of the ads have large casts, with music and singers dancing around. I don’t take any of these drugs, but the jingles and visuals from their ads continue to roll around in my brain. A problem arises when one tries to figure out what these drugs are for. I’m not criticizing the drugs themselves. After watching some of their ads for the umpteenth time, I’m still left somewhat in the dark as to what condition they relieve. Then, of course, the long list of side effects that may arise from using these drugs, must be declaimed. A friend sitting next to me noted that sometimes the listing of possible side effects takes longer that the actual pitch for the drug itself.
Another ad that sticks in my mind presents singers in full opera garb at a rollerskating rink. This ad comes to mind whenever the bartender places a beer in front of me and gives me that anticipatory stare. The punchline of the opera ad is, “and I need cash NOW!” I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at the meeting of the marketing committee when this idea was first proposed. I can see the CEO of the company leaning forward over the conference table with a puzzled look on his face. “You want to do what?” The first version of the operatic cash ad had the divas, baritones and basses singing the cash now chorus on a bus. The clashing anachronism of all of this is certainly striking. It’s like Eric the Red stating that he never wears his Viking helmet indoors, because one of the horns might get caught in the ceiling fan.
Another commercial highlights a socially inept guy paired with an emu, selling auto insurance. A competing insurance company has a cast of socially inept people in white aprons (Do I detect a pattern here?). Many of these advertisements have been produced at great cost, including script writing, music composition, set design and the hiring actors, along with a host of other specialties. And let’s not forget that broadcast and cable services don’t air these commercials for free. I’m left wondering what kind of research went into developing an ad campaign for a specific brand of diabetes prescription that includes a close-up of a woman singing and then a pull back to include a cast of smiling singers and dancers. How does this sell the brand of drug? In fact, the viewer doesn’t even initially buy the drug. The real point of the commercial is to ask the viewers to ask their doctors to prescribe the drug.
If TV advertising relied on good argumentation alone, to induce people to buy their products and services, the result would probably be a high-priced audio/visual version of wallpaper, along with the horrifying possibility that viewers might hit the mute button. Songs and cute lines are not unique to television advertising. The art of musical persuasion goes back many years. Right here in Jacksonville a local musician and composer, Benjamin Grierson, wrote several musical ditties for his friend Abraham Lincoln when he ran for elective office in the late 1850s. I doubt that those songs were any more informative and logical than the ones that afflict us on TV today.
