There have been a lot of very strange messages that commercials have now. Some leave me saying, "what the fuck was that about?" while others I just have to wonder why any of these companies would want to give the impressions that they do. Take this first one for example:
Company: State Farm
Message: State Farm will give you stuff that isn't yours and help you abduct people.
The very first thing to notice is from 0:00-0:03; what are they talking about before they are interrupted by the baseball?
I've seen it like a dozen times and it sounds like they are saying, "Snatching stuff takes..." So those guys are sitting around talking about stealing things when 8oz. of karma comes smashing through their window? Thinking about that makes the whole rest of the commercial seem a little darker. So firstly a woman shows up in their house and they immediately force her to make them a sandwich, then they abduct some girl they've been stalking, and it all ends up with something that really blows my mind. They ask for a hot tub and get one; but this is an insurance company. So the reading-between-the-lines message is that, "Hey, so a baseball flew through your window; what is the fun in just getting your window fixed? Think big, tell your agent that you got your hot tub stolen... They're an insurance company, they screw people all the time, they can afford it... And you're the victim here; think of all that anguish you went through in the eighth of a second it took for your insurance agent to set things right... Oh yeah, and tell that bitch you need a sandwich!" So message received loud and clear: misogyny, kidnapping, and insurance fraud are met with beaming approval by your State Farm agent.
Company: State Farm
Message: Who fucking knows?
Here is the other State Farm commercials hosted by this guy... Without mentioning he looks like a creepy bus station drifter; see if you think there is anything strange about this commercial:
If you are wondering why the hell he said, "La Familia" when identifying State Farm customers then we are on the same page. None of the rest of the commercial is in Spanish and it's not like the commercial even panders to Spanish speaking people. And it isn't like 'la familia' is some phrase that you typically say in Spanish instead of English like "Mi casa es su casa." So why even do that, it doesn't make any sense. I'm not one of those people who get bent out of shape when I hear, "Para espanol marque dos" on the phone; but I know people who are. In fact I'd have to say it's more likely to have people not like it because of that; than it is to have people say, "Oh shit, he said 'la familia,' State Farm understands the plight of my people." And they also have tons of Spanish commercials as well so that seems to be a little overkill to put it in the English commercials as well. I'm thinking there is some ill-informed executive at State Farm that says, "Hey look at this huge untapped market of Spanish speaking Americans; hardly any of them have insurance."
Company: Esurance
Message: We will respond to serious inquiry with mockery and annoyance.
Okay so the last one, and this one cuts through me like glass... with rusted nails in it. I'll just warn you, that this is so incredibly unfunny and annoying that you might just want to skip to what I'm talking about:
How do you totally ruin a time-tested dance like the robot... Anyway, I don't understand why when she explains that they can contact the website 24/7 he yells, "ERROR!" Does that mean that the website doesn't do that, or that the website is prone to errors? Their new ad campaign seems to have an undertone of the people getting worked too hard that they become cynical; but is that what you want in an insurance company? That would be fun, you get in a car accident and you realize that luckily your family is okay but your family car is totalled, you've been through a lot and then you call the insurance company and some asshole starts yelling, "ERROR! Does not compute" at you. Insult to injury I think that the people who made this commercial actually thought this was in some way funny. They were probably like, "Dude we should totally say something funny, like they would say in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. How about, 'We aren't really robots','I thought we were.' It's funny because, like, how come he wouldn't know he's not a robot." Terrible...
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