TV commercials

Comment of the Day: The Tide Mini-skirt Commercial

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Ethics Alarms has been getting some excellently written and reasoned comments lately, and it is time to institute a feature I have enjoyed on other blogs, and that is especially appropriate for this one: “The Comment of the Day.”

There won’t be one every day, of course, and the criteria is variable. In general, a Comment of the Day is one that I feel is especially well-stated rather than one I necessarily agree with—like the first entry, in fact. As I have stated elsewhere on the site, I don’t find the Tide mini-skirt commercial unethical, and would not have featured it on Ethics Alarms had readers not brought it into the discussion. I think it is culturally wrong-headed; I think it is obnoxious; I think the choice of song is in poor taste. Still, if Proctor and Gamble thinks it can sell more Tide by attaching its pitch to the assertion that fathers are boobs to question overtly sexual fashion choices by teenagers, and that mothers who encourage underage daughters (Yes, yes, we don’t know that the “daughter” isn’t 25, but the actress sure is doing her best giggly teen impression. We don’t know the “father” isn’t really the next door neighbor, either.) to wear skirts the size of dinner napkins sure to expose the Britney Zone every time the daughter sits down are being responsible parents, I wish them luck. I buy the detergent in our house, by the way; the commercial is sexist by its assumptions.

Here is the comment… Continue reading →

Tide Commercial Reflections–with Acti-Lift!

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

This post isn’t going to have any additional ethical musings on the Tide commercials themselves, for I am sick to death of them, and almost as sick of arguing about them. What I have been thinking about instead is what to glean from the fact that an ethics critique of a 30 second laundry soap commercial has become the most viewed post on Ethics Alarms after fourteen months and about 1,100 posts, and has generated more debate than all but a few other issues.

Not that I much mind becoming the apparent ethics authority on Tide (with Acti-Lift!).  It’s a small niche, but at least it’s a niche. If you Google almost anything about the original commercial—“green shirt” and Tide, for example—Ethics Alarms is the first non-Tide site that gets listed. Still, with carefully considered ( and occasionally proofed) posts on politics, immigration, global warming, education, sex, law enforcement competing with it for attention, my ethics review of a TV commercial has attracted far more interest than any one of them.

Why? My thoughts: Continue reading →

Ethics and the CALM Critics

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation, or CALM Act, is now on the way to President Obama’s desk. The law addresses a long-time irritation to TV viewers, who have been complaining about television commercials booming out at ear-splitting volume as soon as a moderately-loud program takes a break. The advertising trick, which has been around for a while, has become even more blatant in recent years with availability of new sound technology. Some televisions have been equipped with devices that supposedly even out sound variations, but they do not completely solve the problem. The new legislation directs the Federal Communications Commission to require advertisers, within a year, to adopt industry technology aimed at lowering the volume on televised sales pitches.

This is a classic example of law doing what law is supposed to do: step in when individuals or organizations refuse to respect ethical values and cultural norms in the pursuit of their own self-interest, and set penalties to inspire them to engage in fair conduct, since “doing the right thing” isn’t motivation enough. Continue reading →

Another Unethical TV Commercial: Twix Trivializes Lies, Infidelity

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Twix’s successful “Need a moment?” campaign has long based its humor on encouraging people to lie themselves out of various embarrassing predicaments. Though almost all of them portray men as stereotypical sexist creeps, they have generally been within acceptable limits of exaggeration for the sake of humor. Its recent ad, however, crosses ethical  lines by seeming to trivialize and even encourage infidelity, while claiming that the product can facilitate it. Continue reading →

What Do You Do With Climate Change Skeptics? Blow Them Up!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Ok, all you people out there who thought a waitress squeezing dishwater into the drinks of customers who didn’t root for her football team in the Direct TV ad was harmless…do you want to take responsibility for a trend?

As you can see over on YouTube, a climate change advocacy group called 10:10 is pressing its case with a video showing a teacher explaining to her pre-teen students the 10:10 formula, in which everyone cuts their carbon emission by 10%, “thus keeping the planet safe for everyone, eventually.” Most of the class volunteers various ways they and their parents can meet the 10% goal, but a couple of students refuse—vicious, dumb, Right wing global warming “deniers,” apparently. So the teacher pushes a button and blows them to bits, with flesh and blood splattering everywhere.  Similar scenarios involving the detonation of adult victims follow. You see, the only way to get “everyone” to save the planet by cutting carbon emissions by 10% is to eliminate those who refuse to do it. Continue reading →

Police Brutality: Direct TV Strikes Again!

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

In a previous post that apparently established the proprietor of Ethics Alarms as a “fuddy-duddy,” I discussed the disturbing series of stereotype-bashing Direct TV commercials that sets out to show how amusing irrational hatred and gratuitously cruel behavior can be. The commercials seem to be escalating, and why not? Ethics Alarms isn’t their only, or most prominent, critic, and ethics be damned—the ads are being watched and talked about! Victory! And besides, they’re aimed at football fans, a demographic that is rather less likely to find the encouragement of random violence upsetting in any way.

The latest “hurt your rival” drama from Direct TV shows two police casually tasering a man who “cheats” in the Fantasy Football league by using his Direct TV NFL  feed to get an upper hand on the competition. (He is seen twitching on the floor. LOL!). As a commenter on the previous post has pointed out, police nationwide are fighting a perception and public relations battle over alleged incidents of excessive force, many involving tasers. This commercial encourages distrust of the police, and reinforces a false and unfair perception that misuse of their power and authority is the norm. Is it worth the laughs, if indeed there are any?

I think the standards for comedians and commercials should be different, with comics having the broadest possible discretion to do or say whatever they feel is necessary to promote mirth from their audiences. TV commercials are more than entertainment: the audiences don’t choose the content of ads or know when they will see them, and their visibility and repetition gives the commercials enough influence over cultural attitudes to warrant a higher level of responsibility on the part of the company and the ad agency.

Mainstream media ads both reflect public attitudes and mold them. The Direct TV ads either show we have a callous society, or are helping to make us one.

Direct TV’s Commercials For Hateful Jerks: NFL Sunday Ticket

/ Jack Marshall / 61 Comments

The ad campaign for Direct TV’s NFL Sunday Ticket raises the question: if it is despicable, unethical and wrong to do something hateful to another individual because of his race,religion or national origin, can it be cute, funny or socially acceptable to take the same action against someone because of his pro football loyalties?

The Direct TV campaign, depicts the fans of various NFL teams expressing their anger and dismay over the fact that the satellite television service allows neighbors who have recently moved to their area can continue to root for their home town football teams by subscribing to NFL Sunday Ticket. In each commercial, a fan expresses his or her hatred for the newcomer by inflicting some form of surreptitious insult,  indignity, or attack: Continue reading →

A Commercial for Liars: Tide..with Acti-lift!

/ Jack Marshall / 110 Comments

Yes, Procter and Gamble, makers of Tide laundry detergent, thinks lying is cute, and that Americans will run out and buy a product advertised as useful for assisting lies.

And who knows? Maybe they’re right. We certainly wouldn’t expect a corporation or an ad agency to see anything wrong with lying, since it is business as usual for them. They probably don’t even realize such messages are corrupting.

The new TV ad for Tide and its new “Acti-Lift” secret ingredient (It’s called “Closet Raid”; you can see it here…) shows the heart-warming saga of a teenage girl who trustingly asks her mom whether she borrowed a favorite green blouse. Continue reading →

Legal Advertising Ethics: The Public’s Not THAT Gullible, 2nd Circuit Rules

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The fact that lawyers are prohibited by their professional ethics standards from engaging in conduct that is misleading or dishonest has caused many state bars to hold the profession to restrictions on advertising that would ban most of the TV commercials we see every day for any other product or service. For example, lawyers cannot engage in self-praising hyperbole and say, for instance, that the Firm of Slash and Burn is “the best real estate law firm in Miami,” because the statement is not objectively true or cannot be proven to be accurate.

While many states have gradually surrendered in the battle to keep lawyer advertising unusually forthright and dignified (you can see what monstrosities this has wrought here) New York actually toughened its lawyer advertising rules a few years ago, decreeing.. Continue reading →

Bertolli Makes Us Dumber

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Just as sick people have an ethical duty not to spread their illnesses, ignorant people have a duty not spread their ignorance far and wide. This duty is not observed with much fealty by school teachers, much less the writers of TV shows and commercials, so my expectations are low. Still, there are limits. Continue reading →