The WVU and Villanova men’s basketball game this morning was fantastic, and as usual, I got my fill of commercials. It never ceases to amaze me how many advertisers think that men are the only audience for sports, and how little respect they show for either men or women.
One commercial, which I am not going to link to because I’m not helping them market, begins with the announcement that a man has allowed his girlfriend “to remove his spine, so he will, therefore, not be able to watch the game.” The next shot is of him carrying her packages around; she whines at him to “come on.” The product is for a pocket television. I can think of a million ideas for marketing that product without diminishing people like that.
Every time I see a commercial like that, I think of the dozens of wonderful men I know who watch sports on tv (my colleagues, David Suarez, Richard Green, David Sloane, Gary Painter, Chris Redfearn, Tridib Banerjee…my former advisor Brian Taylor, my good friend Martin Wachs…my former colleague Asghar Bhatti) and who ALSO genuinely respect and support the women they’ve committed to and who gladly carry packages or give up something they want for something their spouses want because they are grownups–not man-children who sulk and suffer through their interactions with women so that they can get some later.
Contrast this with the enormously cute Bud Light commercial:
One of my favorite science bloggers wrote about this commercial:
He’s right: fire extinguishers are great fun.