Saturday, June 21, 2014

Another "Mom's the only one who knows how to use these things" Bounty Paper Towels Commercial



Yeah, this is cute and pretty true-to-life and innocent and all that, but I still don't quite get why Big Brother isn't Big Enough to grab a few paper towels and wipe up the mess he created.  I mean, what happened to Big Brother while Mommy was giving her usual empty-headed "this is my life as a Mommy this is what I wanted in life yes it really really is" little smile as she lovingly cleans up the spill?  He just vanishes- why?  Why can't we see HIM cleaning it up?  Is it because Guys Just Don't Do Stuff Like That?

I mean, isn't the point of this ad to convince us that Bounty Paper Towels are the very best tool for cleaning up liquid messes?  Wouldn't that point be sold just as effectively if we saw Mommy's First Born doing the cleaning (he looks more than old enough to handle the extremely technical job of applying a paper towel to a spill?)  Or would that just cause heads to explode over in TV land?

3 comments:

  1. Having a kid get off his ass and use a paper towel might not blow minds in the real world but ad-men don't live in the world we do. A latter-day Don Draper's brain cell would explode from the sheer cognitive dissonance of seeing a boy pick up after himself.

    Also, the question "Why have you never actually asked the women you're trying to sell this stuff to what THEY want to see in a commercial?" is their Kryptonite.

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  2. Meh, I think the ad men know exactly what the real world looks like and also understand that perpetuating paper towel-selling stereotypes sells more paper towels - to suckers. Unfortunately DreadedCownface2 and the ad men both assume that the women in this scenario are suckers and need to be sold something in a way they understand or can "relate," to. I'm going to take a huge leap and assume that most women have a clue and don't need to be told how paper towels work.

    p.s. Love you mom!

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    Replies
    1. That's NOT what I said. What I said is that we're dealing with a thirty-second version of the Bechdel test because the jackasses who write this crap are junior grade versions of the vermin who litter our screens with explosions and misogyny.

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