TRUTH IN ADVERTISING

My mom watched the CBS Evening News as far back as I can remember, back to the days when you wouldn't be shocked to see one of the newscasters light up a Lucky on camera. She never called it "the news", though. It was always "Walter Cronkite", as in, "Jack! Turn the TV on! I want to watch Walter Cronkite." Even after it was Dan Rather, it was still "Walter Cronkite."
I wish I could say that I inherited that habit from my mother, but in truth I can't say that I did. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, so for me at least part of the 6:00 news every night included body counts and stories about places named Quảng Trị and Khe Sanh, and Walter Cronkite had me so filled with pre-teen angst about actually reaching adulthood that the news was the last thing I was interested in. That all changed in September of 2001. One of the countless changes, big and small, which took place in our world on that morning was that I suddenly started to pay attention. But, even if I didn't inherit my mother's interest in "the news", I did at least inherit her preference for which of the Big 3 networks to sit down and watch every evening. I can see her now, smoking away on her Chesterfields and picking loose tobacco from her teeth, often snuggled into a fluffy bathrobe because she was always cold. I think she would have liked Scott Pelley, although she still would have called the program "Walter Cronkite."
Now, many would argue that network TV news is pablum for the masses; and some would say even worse, that we are being manipulated by a small number of shadowy entities who control what information we are given and how it is presented. And I would agree 100% with nearly all of those arguments. Luckily, I also inherited my mother's ability to consider many sides to a story, her curiosity, and her ability to read books. Plus, I know that if a news story is truly important or truly momentous in history, I will be hearing about every possible side of the story and every ridiculous argument, every morning for months when I turn on my laptop and scroll through my Facebook news feed.
But I digress.
My observation here has actually nothing to do with the news, but rather the commercials which are being shown to those of us who watch the news.
I have long been interested in a concept called "target demographics". This is where a particular product, or service, or advertisement, whatever, is being directed to a specific portion of the population, for example, white men aged 18-25. This is a very important concept in the modern marketplace, because if a company is spending millions of dollars on a commercial campaign, they want to be sure that the commercial is being seen by the right people, that is, by potential customers. You don't make a commercial for Chick-Fil-A and then buy airtime during "RuPaul's Drag Race". 
So, anyway, what I have decided is that the only people, apparently, who watch "Walter Cronkite" are the aged and the infirm, because 99% of the commercials shown during that half hour are for Buicks and prescription drugs.
I read somewhere that, when non-Americans are asked to list things about America which they find strange, the fact that we have commercials for prescription drugs is right up there with "portion sizes". And it is odd that millions of dollars are being spent marketing a product to us which we can't even actually buy. Think about that for a minute. How many people actually walk into the doctor's office and say, "Hey, Doc, I'd really like to get some Xarelto!" ?
It's even odder when you look at how these medicines are marketed to us. Disease and treatment have been reduced to a sort of silly cartoon, or like "Candy Crush". We see people portrayed as little origami paper-fold-people, as copper plumbing pipe-people, or as inflatable balloon-people. We see happy diabetics tossing a Frisbee to one another as we hear about "Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Syndrome Type II". In one commercial, a woman is being bullied by her little animated bladder, who won't even let her ride the bus or go bowling in peace; then we see the little bladder sitting in the doctor's office, listening attentively while they discuss overactive bladder. It's all just too surreal, when you think about it.
They've all been topped, though, by the latest campaign for a drug called "Xifaxan". Xifaxan is an antibiotic. An antibiotic! Anyway, it's supposed to be useful in treating IBS: Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The commercial? You guessed it: a little, pink, animated colon. In the first commercial, we first see him? it?... a non-threatening little anthropomorphic ball of intestine, as he runs off, presumably to the bathroom with a case of "urgent" diarrhea. Later, presumably after treatment with Xifaxan®, we see the little bucket of guts admiring fish in an aquarium, and finally able to enjoy a meal in a nice restaurant, albeit all alone. See what being an irritable bowel will get you?
Well, it gets even worse. They actually released a new Xifaxan ad for Super Bowl Sunday, and the little pink bowel has even been given a name; "GutGuy." Well, in this one, we see "GutGuy" at The Big Game, tailgating, high-fiving (gross), even being searched by one of those hand-held wand metal detectors. I mean, really? Think about everything that that implies. At the end of the commercial, GutGuy, a little, pink, animated bundle of intestines, ends up on the JumboTron, his little colon-mouth hanging open and waving at the crowd like the Pope.
Can I really be the only person who sees this stuff and just thinks to himself, "What the fuck.....?"

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Posted by Love What Matters on Monday, February 8, 2016