Fisher Investments: Because Paternalism

What.  The Actual F.  Is happening in this ad?

Well, we see two middle-aged people sitting on stools like obedient children while a middle-aged white male stands behind them and a narrator tells us about the differences between money managers who "only call when they want you to buy something," and others who call you constantly to ask how you're doing, with the strong implication being that you should prefer a money manager who is constantly calling to shoot the breeze.

Then we are told that a lot of money managers try to put all their clients into "cookie cutter" investment fund portfolios, and this is bad and wrong- never mind that whole Safety in Numbers thing, and never mind that spreading money out among many, many different investment strategies just makes sense.  Fisher Investment choads don't do this- they "tailor" your investments to something that matches your specific goals.  Uh huh.  Because the goals of middle-aged people are so very different:

Some (lets call them Group A) want to invest their money in a way which allows them to comfortably retire when they are sick of working.

Others (lets call them Group B) have other ideas for their money....like....ok, turns out that the population of Group B is zero.  Unless you include all those imaginary guys from Life Insurance Commercials who are planning to die fairly young and leave everything to that vampire wife and kids....

And then we reach the end of this ad, where I get seriously triggered when the middle-aged money manager puts what I guess is supposed to be a reassuring hand on his client's shoulder.  Again, What. The Actual.  F.  Is that??  I get we are probably supposed to see this as a friendly gesture, kind of like "I'm with you all the way" or something.  But I read it more like "you're stupid with money, but don't worry, I'm your daddy, I love you, I'll take care of you, trust me."  That's weird but ok until that hand shows up.  If I were the client, I'd respond by telling that guy to take his hand off my g-d d--ned shoulder.  You're not my spouse, you're not my father, and you just crossed a line, creep.

Unless, of course, he takes my paltry monthly investments and turns them into a few million dollars.  Do that first, then we'll talk about broker-client privileges. Until then, I don't trust you to stand behind me while I sit on a stool because your track record of respecting boundaries really sucks.

So can you cash your Unemployment checks at Golden Corral?

Somewhere out there in 'Merica, this is the perfect idea for lunch: "Endless" entrees, "Vegas-style" deserts, and basically just a gigantic carb and sugar overload which (for some people*) is just absolutely ideal for.....a middle-of-the-day meal.

*So....who exactly ARE these people who are looking for a huge amount of bland, fatty food to interrupt their weekday routine?  They can't be employed, can they?  I mean, who the heck notices that the clock indicates time for a meal break and thinks "I'm going out to gorge myself, that's the perfect solution to get me through the rest of my busy day?"  No, I can't imagine anyone who has ONE HOUR for lunch and who must clock FOUR MORE HOURS of productivity afterwards intentionally scarfing down 5,000+ calories before rolling on back to the office.   

Now, if your afternoon plans include nothing more taxing than a nap or binge-watching Game of Thrones on Netflix before slipping into a calorie-induced coma, maybe this makes sense.  But if your workday DOESN'T end at noon, well.....I'm just not seeing it.

When your Treatment is a Comfort Dog, it's time to panic

"Sigh....more treatment...."

"Nope- today, we're going to try something different.  A dog!"

"Yay, I love dogs...wait, what?  I have a serious disease.  We aren't trying new Meds?  Maybe radiation?"

"Nope, a dog!  Isn't he cute?  His name is Max!"

"Yeah but...I have this serious illness.  I mean, I've got this rubber tube in my arm, and this machine is beeping.  I'm a Sick Kid from Central Casting.  What ideas do you have to make me better?"

"Scratch him behind the ears.  He LOVES that."

"Can I get a second opinion?"

"Ok, here it is- we can't do anything for you, but this is a great opportunity for Pedigree to manipulate the rubes into buying dog food by somehow connecting it to the idea of Comfort Dogs.  I think the tagline is 'Pedigree makes Dog Food, and if you don't feed your dog, it will die."

iPhone's "Slofies." I don't want to be here anymore.

Several times over the last few years, I've snarked on iPhone and their penchant for making commercials encouraging people to be totally self-absorbed douchenozzles and buy the latest update because it has a slightly better camera which will allow the owner to spend huge amounts of time lovingly editing self-portraits for "sharing."

I should have figured this was coming.  Now you don't have to settle for taking selfies and hitting Image Editor for the next hour or so.  In fact, still shots of yourself have suddenly become very retro, if not downright quaint.  Get the iPhone XI and you can make "Slofies" (shoot me now, please) because it's definitely what everyone you know has been waiting for- slow-motion video of you staring at the Lucky To Know You or at least Follow you on Twitter recipient and otherwise doing absolutely nothing. 

Because nobody is doing anything anyway.  There are no books to read, essays to write, or jobs to do.  There is no actual human interaction to be had.  After all if there was, you would not have been spending all that time taking Selfies.  So here's something else you can do all by yourself to kill whatever time you have left until this thing we used to call Life is over.  And all you need is a $700 device the old-timers once used to make calls.

Let's wrap this up by appreciating how much the girl in this ad absolutely adores herself.  Wow.

Verizon Commercial, Part II: Why they Fight (um, I mean, Chose Verizon)

Ok, so I'm going to skip the middle part of this commercial, because it seems to somehow suggest that having Verizon made it easier or possible or something to get great concert seats yadda yadda yadda whatever.  Instead, let's go to the "military mom" and her ridiculous bowl of treacle:

"It's so important to me that Verizon supports military families.  When I have a child deployed it's so important that we have a reliable network."

 Um, what?  Ok, I'm going to assume that Verizon is playing a little Lying by Omission game going on here and we are supposed to hear "deployed" and think Afghanistan or Iraq.  Except- really?  Soldiers in war zones are carrying around cell phones and can take calls from the States any time they want?  No, I really don't think so.  So let me clean up Military Mom's pitch so that it at least passes the smell test, even if it doesn't hit all those cheap Patriot buttons like it's supposed to:

"So when I have a child who's been deployed in Germany, or Japan, or Guam, or any other scary Hotbed of Anti-American Freedom Activity because spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year to maintain a massively bloated, ridiculously unnecessary but vastly profitable for Certain Companies Military Industrial Complex, it's good to know that I can video chat with them from the War Zone that is Any Place Other Than The United States."

"I have all these grey hairs because my Hero Patriot Daughter keeps getting sent to places with weird non-American names like 'Poland' and 'Samoa' (sticking "American" in front of that name doesn't fool me, that's not in the USA I found it on a map!) which means she keeps getting sent to places where the Time Zones are totally different and a lot of people haven't even learned how to speak English as G-d Intended.  No matter where she's sent they speak Foreign Languages, I can hear them in the background during the video chats when she calls from a cave she pronounces "cafay" to make me feel like she's safe."

"Military Moms Serve Too."  Yep, and you're in about the same level of danger that 99.9 percent of the military that's allowed to casually video chat back home is, so seriously Verizon shove this manipulative garbage.

Why They Chose Verizon, Part I*

"So here's why I chose Verizon- I was in this flash flood, see, and I ignored all the 'Road Closed' signs- I didn't actually ignore them, I just didn't see them, didn't really know they were there until I watched the video I made on my phone when I was supposed to be watching the road but I was thinking 'man this is gonna go viral when I put it up on YouTube gonna get some serious hits with this."

"Anyway, my car ended up gettin' swept down the river.  I managed to get me and my phone (not necessarily in that order) out on to a branch, where I was in imminent danger of drowning if that branch cracked under my weight, plus that would have totally ruined my phone.  So then I did what any sensible person woulda done under the circumstances, I videochatted with my wife to let her know how amazing this all was an' also to let her know I was ok."

"After about twenty minutes she told me to stop yakking about how awesome everything looked and how this was all going to totally go viral and call emergency services.  Fortunately I had a magic phone which never runs out of battery power, 'cause I was able to make five calls to emergency services even after spending hours recording all this carnage, videochattin' with the wife, and changin' my Facebook status to In God's Hands Y'all LOL!"

"Come ta think of it, that phone ought to be the subject of this commercial...."

"Anyways, a helicopter finally showed up and saved me, wish I could show you but even magic phones run out of battery life eventually and wouldn't you know it I left the damn Jackery in the glove compartment.  What was I sayin'? Oh yeah, that's why I got Verizon, 'cause...I had a phone so I didn't get bored out there on that branch durin' the flood."

*I'll check out the other two chapters in this commercial and get to them for separate takes if they seem worth it.....

Hyundai Happy-or-Else Holiday Ad

1.  Hey look, TrophyWife decided that she would use the joint bank account to buy her husband a car for Christmas, how generous of her!

2.  Why is it that, in the moments leading up to the reveal of the "gift," TrophyWife has the same terrified look on her face that the now-infamous Peloton version of her had in that other commercial?  What is it with ads this season showing us women frightened of their husbands like this?