Commercials

Commercials can be in the form of television, radio, web and print. It is important to remember that no opinion is being leveled against the product or company itself. These are simply Pet Peeves involving a particular commercial made for a product and company. In order to receive a Pet Peeve Award there must be something blatantly wrong with the commercial. We do not have problems with commercials that use extraordinary means to sell a product such as talking animals or things that move that shouldn’t. This award is not about degrading silliness (in fact we applaud such things). This award is for reality based commercials where more than one glaring mistake is made unintentionally by the advertisers.

Visa Check Card

The Visa Check Card

Stats:
This commercial aired on major television networks in early 1999. It is a further example of VISA’s commercials which try to convince us that only their products will be accepted everywhere in the world.

Description:
A goofy looking guy has locked himself into a bathroom while a fine looking woman talks on the phone to a locksmith. We are first setup to believe that this is a peeping tom until the woman comes forth to make her punch line statement that the locksmith doesn’t accept checks. Other bits of humor in the commercial include the man trying on women’s toiletries such as facial cream and the man trying to knock down the door.

Peeves:
There are many peeves in this commercial.

• First, where are the man and woman supposed to be? Is this their apartment or a hotel room? I am guessing that this is their residence because there are a ton of toiletries in the bathroom and if it were a hotel then a quick call to the front desk would get the correct key to unlock the door.
• How do you get locked into a room when there is a person on both sides of the door? Where is this magical lock that it cannot be unlocked from either side? Does this mean that it actually requires the key to lock the door? If so then one of the two people must have it otherwise how did it get locked?
• If we are to believe that the door requires a key to lock it (odd for a bathroom door) and that neither of the two people have the key then we must assume that the lock is somehow broken and that a key will do little good. Yet the commercial clearly shows keys being made.
• Assuming we need a key to unlock this magical lock then why are we shown modern keys being made when the key hole is the old fashioned kind? You know, the kind of key hole that you can look through like the man was doing at the beginning of the commercial.