That's the power of stupidity

For years now I have been amazed by infomercials. I love how the people in them are total idiots. There is a guy who is too stupid to open a carton of juice so someone invented a little doodad to stab in the top of the carton to pour the juice. My favorite of years gone by was the woman who couldn't figure out how to operate her twisted knotted garden hose. The hose was so knotted it must have been a class project for 50 kindergarteners in knot tying class. Then the woman is given a hose reel and suddenly she can water her flowers. I always wondered where they got the ideas for the stupidity in the infomercials until last night I saw a new commercial that makes all infomercials pale in comparison.

I was watching TV and a new commercial for an insurance company that uses cartoon characters in their ads. I wont mention the name for this company for fear that they will send a platoon of clueless cartoon lawyers to my door.

It starts out with a construction worker trying to break concrete with a baseball bat until Erin the insurance girl pulls a jackhammer out of her purse ( not all that farfetched I have seen some of the stuff women carry in there) and suddenly the guy can do his job.

Next Erin finds a painter who is flinging paint on a wall until Erin reaches in her mighty “purse of wonders” and hands him a paint brush. Now I know some “professional” painters who may be so overcome with years of paint fumes that they forget their brush.

Then she finds a businessman (perhaps the CEO of the insurance company) who is so clueless that he is trying to send smoke signals to communicate. Erin rescues the poor man with a cell phone.

Then we find a woman who has left the grocery store with her purchases precariously piled up in her arms. The poor woman is in danger of being brained with a can of food until Erin whips out a bag and catches the poor womans food. Curiously enough it is not a ecologically friendly canvas bag, or even a paper bag, but it is the evil plastic handle bag that we all have 4 billion of in out kitchens. I found that an odd choice for a company that touts how ecologically friendly they are. ( Although the bag is plastered with a recycle symbol.) Perhaps with the jackhammer, paintbrush, and phone in her bag there was no room for a canvas bag.

Now even though they are trying to show how much easier their insurance will make you life, it seems to me that they are advertising to idiots. People to stupid to use the right tool for the job. Although, with the state of things today, that could possibly be the best marketing strategy of all. We cater to morons, call us today, or you just might hurt yourself.