*Let me preface this entry with a disclaimer. I am biased in favor of the product denigrated in this commercial versus the product promoted. Why? I've been using said product for about 12 years.
Whatever happened to truth in advertising?
I'd like to think that as a society we've advanced far enough to at least take advertising with a grain of salt, if not look at it with a critical eye. Granted, this is the same society that somehow manages to watch a bunch of guidos prance around showing their abs and just acting so much like douchebags that Massengil is threatening a lawsuit. [citation needed]
Now I'm not saying those idiots have more product on their heads than brains in it...wait, that's exactly what I'm saying. However, I don't criticize television shows on this blog (all two posts, counting this one). I critique the ads that pay for those shows. So let's look at one touting the next greatest way to watch the glowing box to which I owe so much gratitude.
Watch an ad.
I can't find the one I've been seeing lately, but they still make the same claim: if it rains or snows, you lose your signal. Interesting. Well, right now, it's raining so hard and has been for so long that I've got animals beginning to line up in gender-specific pairs in my yard. I was going to build an ark, but got distracted when I was googling just what exactly a "cubit" is. (I ended up finding a site where I could play QBert and spent many hours on a nostalgia kick. Oops. Hope no one was really that fond of zebras. How long can I drag out this joke?)
Throughout all this nasty weather, I haven't lost my signal once. Living now in the mountains and before in the desert where it doesn't rain much, but when it does, it's a deluge, I have yet to lose signal because of rain. Light drizzles, fog and mist, torrential downpours accompanied by fierce winds that made me think the house was going to fly away, my satellite signal carried on like a trooper.
Now that I live in snow country, I do lose my signal when it snows. But you know why, because the snow is sitting on the damn dish, not inefficient signal strength. All I do is when I snow is coming, spray some Pam on the thing and voila, I never lose my signal.
I do have friends with cable. I've seen their signal. It's fuzzier than government logic. Maybe Xfinity is great, I don't know. But I have yet to hear from someone who likes their service all that much. But I do know people from all sorts of cable providers and their cable goes out more Tara Reid during spring break.
So, I ask, are we as a people that easily swayed by an admittedly clever ad that has singing buffoons? Apparently, if they keep doing these amusing ads and making the same claims. It's obviously getting them customers. Hmm...this started out as an impeachment of advertising...maybe I should be criticizing the malleable will of the average television viewer....
That said, the commercials are amusing enough. I just often wonder what documentation an advertiser must show to prove the veracity of their claims? I mean, does "Well, I knew this one guy who's cousin had a friend that said their dish went down in the rain once" qualify as verification? Or maybe my experiences are special. I have to admit, there is a nice feeling knowing I could be special.
As you know, we have satellite, and we actually have lost signal a couple of times in extreme weather, but only a couple of times in nearly 5 years of service. The local cable company has had service interrupted at least twice that I am aware, in the past 6 months. But for me, at the end of the day, it is all about the bottom line. Basic cable around here is about the same as not-so-basic satellite packages. Game, set, match.
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