...so I don't have to be subjected to the seventh "season" of a long-running "joke" that everyone with two brain cells to rub together stopped finding even remotely amusing at least six years ago.
In other words, Enough Already. If there really are people who look forward to these little snippets of dumb, let them pay a subscription fee to watch it and stop interrupting my football viewing with (apparently) endless "dramas" about football-and-crappy-soda-obsessed lunatics living in Stupidville USA. Hulu, etc. are starting to strip networks of games already- these ads should be part of the package.
Yes, you could adopt Paycom and farm out work you are supposed to be doing to your employees (they aren't busy enough doing the work they are already contracted to do, of course.) OR, you could learn to manage your time and create that magical Work/Life balance that does not mean half-assing your way through either.
Some people see a guy working when he's supposed to be with his family as the kind of Go-Getter who Made This Nation Great, a guy know Knows How To Hustle and has his Nose to the Grindstone and any number of stupid cliche's invented by Capitalism to convince us all that Life IS Work. I look at people like this and think "disorganized," not to mention "selfish"- seriously, buddy, if you are devoted to your job 24/7, you have no business being married, let alone being a dad.
Either way, handing off your responsibilities to your employees is no more ethical than handing them off to freelance drones in Pakistani call centers. Do your own work, or don't- and suffer the consequences. But get your act together. Life is too short for this crap.
"What do you do when you're NOT being the Capital One Credit Card guy?"
"Um, I'm a commercial actor. I act in commercials. Having answered your inane question, here's one for you: Other than ask commercial actors for selfies, what do you do in your life that is so shallow and meaningless that you feel getting a selfie with a commercial actor and asking about his private life is a worthwhile use of your time?"
Hey look, it's another Smarmy Kid Lecturing His Parents on what he needs to be Cool for School ad. I think that makes pretty much all of them.
I do think that the anger expressed at the little brat is misdirected, however. Yes, the kid has a very punchable face and his "hey lame parents, let me explain something to you in words even you can understand" condescension is grating, but let's remember that he's just reading lines fed to him by someone else and he's being exploited by his actual parents, who will be taking care of the royalties. Chances are this kid will have a moment of stardom in his little community that will quickly fade away and we'll never see or hear from him again. And the money from this ad will not exist by the time he's ready for college and could use it. Maybe to buy a backpack with sharks on it.
So we see a guy having fun with his dog, playing tug-of-war in...um, the living room. This is really stupid yet so typical of American television ads to watch a grown male with the means of possessing a large suburban home but not enough brain cells to avoid doing something common sense tells us not to do. Surrounded by expensive furniture, with sunlight streaming in the windows, he's going to play tug-of-war with his dog in the living room because of course he is.
Naturally, the guy falls down and breaks something while doing this stupid thing because again he's a Guy in an American Television Commercial. And then we get the pointless single phrase- an off-screen "What was that?" female voice because of course this doofus is married to a probably long-suffering woman who is somewhere else in the house trying to hold everything together despite her pathetically dense partner and his tendency to do damage every time she turns her back for fifteen seconds. We did not need to hear from this woman. She doesn't actually make an appearance. The guy quickly uses Gorilla Glue to mend the piece of furniture he broke. Maybe the message is that he would not have fixed the broken item right away if not prodded by the threatening tone of his female partner? Maybe his quick action is motivated by sheer terror? Maybe if that voice didn't pop into the ad we'd be wondering why he was in such a hurry to fix a broken piece of furniture in his own house (there's no woman in my house, so there's literally nothing BUT broken furniture here. Why would I fix anything- I'm not afraid of anyone pointing out my inability to take three steps without breaking something?)
Now that I've done all of this analysis, I guess the "pointless single phrase" wasn't so pointless. Watching this ad without sound, it makes perfect sense that this guy is playing with the dog in the living room instead of the lawn- he's a male, which means he's a moron, after all. But we'd be totally confounded as to why he's so quick to repair the damage he does. The off-screen female voice puts it all together and makes it all work. Thanks again, Sexist American Advertising Agencies!
Here's my answer to the customer who asks "my tween wants a new* phone, how do I get one without breaking the bank?": Don't buy your tween a phone at all. She wants one. She doesn't need one. Don't buy the phone, and you've instantly saved an amazing amount of money. Oh, but you might have to do some parenting, instead. So I guess you're going to go ahead and buy that phone and deal with the cost any way you can, because the important thing is that a kid under 13 years of age wants a phone.
My better question is "why is this geek wearing a winter hat indoors? And why is he getting a free pass from a woman who needs to spend less time sitting and looking at her phone and more time actually using some of that energy she's been storing? Why is she snarking that a guy driving a golf cart should "get a helmet for that thing" when the obvious response from the guy should be "why are you wearing shoes, you never seem to use them?"
*note that the tween doesn't want a phone- she wants a NEW phone. So she's under 13, and she's already had at least one phone that she's "grown out of (doesn't show well for her peer group.") This is so gross. Are American families struggling to make ends meet, or are they in "need" of an updated phone for their not-yet-13-freaking-year-old kids? We can't have it both ways.
....or at least, let's be more honest with our customers than our customers are with themselves.
You're offering a magic bullet/potion to "fix" a problem that took years to create. Building visceral fat doesn't take as long as building muscle, and it's a hell of a lot easier, but it doesn't happen overnight, either. Problems that develop over time require solutions that also take time. I don't care how much money you have, you aren't fixing a lifetime of bad habits with one visit- or a thousand- to Sono Bello.
Once these people have gone through the procedure to remove the excess energy built up over years of overeating and under-moving, what then? 99 percent of them will go right back to the unhealthy habits that made them customers of Sono Bello (and before that, "fad" or "crash" diets) and gain all the weight back. Social Media is saturated with so-called "Fat Activists" who like to tell us that "99% of diets fail" and "99% of people who lose weight gain it all back within a few years." It's practically an article of faith. But it's a perfect example of lying with statistics. A "diet" is used to lose weight. If you can't stick with it (and there are approximately 8000 diets out there that will help you lose weight but aren't sustainable) you'll go right back to your old habits and, yes, gain the weight back because such diets aren't a "cure" for the problem of excess weight.
The key is to use the other definition of "diet:" the food one regularly consumes for energy. To lose, gain or maintain weight, change your daily diet. Adding movement helps, but regulating the intake of calories is the key. You'll get the same results offered by Sono Bello- but you'll also decrease your chances of developing Type 2 Diabetes, Heart Disease, Fatty Liver Disease, multiple types of cancer, etc. Sono Bello doesn't offer any of that- just a quick, less painful, more expensive version of a crash diet. With the same (temporary) results.
Bottom Line: If Sono Bello was honest with its customers, it would offer a Buy Nine Get the 10th Free punchcard along with the first visit. Because these happy customers will be back. Again and again. Wasting money on a 100 percent unnecessary surgical procedure instead of putting in the hard work of simply changing their diet. It's sad, but I bet it's really popular. Magic Pill offers always are.
