What advertising tells us about who we are

With a bit of Lester Holt thrown in

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Other than Super Bowl Sunday, most people don’t pay attention to commercials on a conscious level. I will argue that sales techniques developed over the last 50+ years of advertising are part of why our democracy is in peril today.

But that piece is for another time. This week, I want to look at a few commercials that keep coming up on various networks, to parse what they’re really saying - about us and the times we live in.

1) Our Time Dating

These two ads were running back to back for some time, and that placement made me laugh.

Our Time Dating is a dating service for… late middle-aged people. OK, maybe older people. But their marketing isn’t much different than dating sites that cater to younger people. There are, shall we say, different standards. Here’s one of a woman:

Oh my god… she’s adorable! Notice how she is slightly turned from the camera, how she plays with her hands. And that smile! I always smile big and suppress a laugh when I say the word “begin.” I mean, who wouldn’t.

She’s also in a kitchen - a very nice kitchen - telling us she has money and a big house. And what’s she making? Well, salad, of course! Better to keep her slim figure.

Now let’s look at this guy.

This guy, if he had been in a 1970s sitcom, would have played the doofy best friend.

He is facing the camera directly - so we get to see all of his (ahem) dad bod. He’s also cooking. But he’s grilling. Because that’s what men do. Meat and corn. And a shiny grill.

Curiously, he doesn’t smile when he tells us he doesn’t know where to look. He looks confused. He needs a woman to help him not be confused.

What is the message these back-to-back ads send? What if the woman was… zaftig, and the guy was slim? What if she was cooking a steak?

I’ve always felt dating sites ask more from women than they do from men. These two commercials support that observation.

2) Coventry Direct

Here we have a slightly older couple enjoying their leisure time in a wide open, green rural or suburban space. Their clothes are well-pressed leisure wear. The colors are pastel. They are both light-haired, light-skinned people. They look fairly well off. Corporate - or post-corporate.

But what are they telling us? They’re telling us that they didn’t have enough money to retire. And neither did their friends. So they sold their life insurance to pay their medical bills.

The subliminal messages and assumptions in this ad are numerous. First, this ad shows grandchildren at the end, but it doesn’t note that selling their life insurance is going to take money away from those grandchildren.

Second, it takes for granted that people just can’t pay their medical bills. And that’s OK. Just sell the insurance you bought for your children - or each other - for after you die and you will be fine. If I were watching this from, say, Norway, I’d be thinking, “People have to go broke paying for healthcare? And the solution is not to fix the system, but to sell your future?”

Third, it takes for granted that the retirement systems in this country don’t work. These are people in their late 60s. They are white, and belong to a generation in which building wealth was easier. Now they are on Social Security. The assumption is that viewers will know that’s not enough.

It says a lot about the U.S. that almost everyone who watches this ad is familiar with the underlying assumptions. So much so that we don’t even question the premise of the ad.

Ask yourself this question: What kind of society makes this ad necessary?

3) Dave Future Money

Dave is a bear. A sort of Teddy Bear. This wasn’t clear when I first saw this particular spot. Mostly because the other two people in the ad are so striking. And taller.

I saw the young woman looking drab and sad in a worn-out, burnt orange cardigan, looking at what we presume is a wedding invitation and telling someone on the phone she doesn’t have the money to go.

Then we see her in a striking yellow dress, with a cute new haircut, and a smile from ear to ear. Standing next to a guy who looks like he was costumed by Miami Vice, who strangely ignores “future me” in favor of flirting with “past me” who just learned from Dave the Bear that she could get “up to $500” as a cash advance on her paycheck.

Except they don’t say, “Cash advance.” They call it “Future money.”

You know what else they don’t say? That you have to pay the money back. With fees and interest.

This piece from the LA Times notes that Dave’s revenue plan is different from traditional payday lenders in that it makes most of its money through fees and less from interest rates. But, the Times notes, “In essence, critics view the apps [like Dave] as a spiffed-up version of established payday lenders, long derided for three-digit APRs and luring customers into debt traps.”

What else does this particular ad say? Aside from the time travel logistics (which comes first, her discovering Dave before she goes to the wedding or her going to the wedding and coming back to tell her she can go?) there’s the issue of $500 being enough to go to a wedding in what we presume, by the way they’re dressed, to be a tropical locale. If the wedding was in town and just tropical themed, then that $500 would have gone to her haircut and the dress. But a plane ticket and a hotel room on top of that? For under $500? Which you will then have to pay back when you get paid the next month?

Let’s look at the more subliminal message in this ad. She goes to the wedding. She meets Paolo. Paolo’s smile makes her melt. At the very least, she’s going to get laid after the reception. She might even end up getting married herself. If she could only afford to go. But if she doesn’t go, no Paolo, and she will end up a sad old maid in a burnt orange cardigan.

Which would you choose?

The problematic part about this ad is that it doesn’t even say, “Take the risk and maybe you’ll meet someone.” It says, “There is no risk. And look who you might meet!”

Again, what does this ad say about our society that we accept the basic premise that people make so little in salary that they need payday loans just to celebrate the weddings of their friends - and possibly find a mate.

Let me also say for the record that I want to see this actress more. She is good. She brings life to the ad.

4) ServPro

Now we get to what is my favorite ad currently on TV. This guy! This guy is who I want to be in the Our Time ad. And I prefer women!

First, it’s just fun to see someone excited about what they do. It’s also just fun, on a little kid level, to destroy stuff and rebuild it.

But more than that, this is an ad about hope in a world that is increasingly falling apart. “Don’t worry,” says the happy ServPro man. “We can put it all back together. Like it never happened.”

After the pandemic, after Trump, after January 6 (is it over yet?), after the 2008 recession which some of us never really recovered from, after Dobbs, after watching bullies win over and over, it is so reassuring to have someone look at you and say, “We can put it back together.” It’s also amazingly wonderful to hear a man THANKING (what we presume to be) HIS EMPLOYEES FOR DOING A GOOD JOB.

I want to work for this man, even though I am hopelessly bad at anything that involves physics and building things - not for want of trying. I want more people like him. “The world may have just been destroyed, but we can rebuild it! Better!”

Yes.

5) Did you really expect me to ignore journalism?

The interview Lester Holt did with Attorney General Merrick Garland got a lot of play last week. As I have pointed out, you can tell a lot by the way journalists frame questions. Holt showed us what he thinks in framing this question:

I had no idea what Holt’s background and views were before I saw this clip. Subsequently, I found this piece from NPR noting that he’s a Republican (in a really lame attempt to fact-check Trump during the 2016 election).

Holt told Garland: “The indictment of a former president, perhaps candidate for president, would arguably tear the country apart.”

I’m glad Holt told us his view on this. This will help us in analyzing his reporting if and when Trump actually is held accountable.