05 July 2009

What R U thinking?

Relaxing tonight watching Sun Tzu on History International. This ad is on fast rotation. What are you thinking?

It's July. The desert home of the SandCastle is pushing daily high temps of 110F and even the night time lows are in the high 80s/low 90s. Heck the water in the unheated pool is north of the 90F mark this time of year!

Ok, it's satellite TV so the ad is targeted at a country wide audience. But this time of year, even the occasionally frozen parts of the country are pushing the century mark with humidity to match. Your message of "wrapped up cozy and warm in a blanket on the couch" just doesn't fit. It's only the multiple C-notes per month to the local utility keeps temperatures down to the tolerable range.

What market are you targeting? On what planet does this make sense and how is the weather there?

Update: The SCQueen tells me Target is pushing these hard in the local stores. In other news the local forecast calls 116F on Saturday.

3 comments:

Bitter said...

But this time of year, even the occasionally frozen parts of the country are pushing the century mark with humidity to match.

Actually, not quite. There are several areas of the country where it's been cool & rainy most of the summer. There are stories here about ruined crops or crops that are running weeks behind because of rain and a lack of warm, sunny days. While it's not snuggie-level coolness, it definitely hasn't been near the century mark here yet this summer. We hit 90 in the early spring with a 3-day heat wave, but that was it. We haven't even had to pull the a/c out yet, and that's never been the case since Sebastian has lived in this house.

It could be that if an early cold fall is predicted, they are taking advantage of very low advertising rates just to build brand awareness right now.

danno said...

You may well be right (I don't know anything about the ebb and flow of TV Ad rates). It's also possible someone has a warehouse full of them they are trying to liquidate.

Still it seems to me like selling ice cubes to Eskimos.

Bitter said...

It doesn't take special knowledge of tv ad rates to know that they are low - just look at who is advertising! :) Seriously, I've seen businesses that never would have been able to afford ads running them the last few months. I also know that billboard prices are at extreme lows (or will be soon) because we see so many empty ones along the highways around here.