Isn’t A-Rod a Saint for Telling the Truth?

By admin

The sports pages of my local paper are putting a halo over the head of Alex Rodriquez for his brave confession to using steroids. Sympathy for this beloved sports figure is high. He has apparently earned much respect by setting such a good example for the kids in (finally) telling the truth. We should all be proud of him. Maybe even give him another trophy or something. But wait a minute. Over the past couple of years he vehemently denied ever using steroids. His recent confession emerged only after discovering that undeniable evidence was about to go public and he was flat-out caught with his hand in the cookie jar. So being the model citizen, he then did the right thing and admitted his drug use.

Isn’t it great that our society sends us such a clear message that we only need to be truthful when we are caught red-handed? If there is no video tape, then there is always some doubt so just lie like there’s no tomorrow. This is becoming the standard in America. People whose first inclination is to fess up when confronted with an embarrassing situation are becoming a small minority of the population.

This is a predictable result when we see celebrities setting the example for the rest of us. After all, we are all just a bunch of drones that act like whatever the people on TV are doing. Right? If our sports heroes can look us in the eye through the television camera and tell a bald-faced lie that is our justification for doing the same thing. Cheat if you can get away with it, and if anybody ever asks about it deny everything.

If you do get caught, try to follow Bill Belichick’s impressive example. If caught in the act of cheating do not acknowledge that what you were doing was actually cheating. Use a fancy term to describe what you were doing, or show a look of surprise and say you didn’t know that cheating was illegal. As a last resort you could hold out like Roger Clemons and Barry Bonds until your dying breath, denying everything and swearing to God you are innocent even when faced with overwhelming evidence. That will always create some tinge of doubt in the general public’s mind because, well, because the general public is pretty stupid. Always use that to your advantage.

The only problem with this approach is, of course, when a video tape that you didn’t know about shows up. That’s when it’s time to do the A-Rod thing and become a hero in the public eyes. We will carry him on our shoulders to the baseball hall of fame while sending Martha Stewart to prison because she didn’t see the truck coming quickly enough. Of course in the case of Bonds and Clemons all will be forgiven no matter how long they wait to confess. After all, they are sports heroes not some cooking show host.

Papa Riah

Technorati Tags: news, sports

Rebate Advertising Should be Illegal

By admin

Have you ever seen an advertised special in a store that seemed like a great price, only to find out that the advertised price was effective only after you received a mail-in rebate? How did you feel about that? If you are anything like most people, it didn’t phase you much. You probably thought, Well bottom line is if I get some money back in the mail which makes the item only cost that much, then that’s the price I can buy it for. But there is still that little asterisk in your brain about the discounted price, isn’t there? Somehow you know this isn’t quite like buying it at that advertised price.

After all you still do have to fork over all the money now and wait for a rebate to arrive, and there is at least a tinge of doubt in your mind that you will actually receive it. And for good reason! Retailers are getting worse and worse about honoring these rebate offers. They are looking for any excuse not to honor them and some of them go to ridiculous lengths to weasel out of their obligation. They make you dot a hundred i’s and cross and hundred t’s on three or four forms, send in a critical part of the packaging plus a printed receipt, and if you slip up on some minor point you blew it – no rebate.

Now, understand that just because you missed something on the form or sent the wrong part of the packaging in, the company doesn’t really doubt that you purchased the item. They can see just from the receipt alone that you are a legitimate customer. There is pretty much no chance that somebody is trying to scam them out of an unearned rebate. They know this. They are just trying to find a loophole – any loophole – to dishonor the price they advertised the item for. Electronics companies are especially notorious for doing this nowadays.

If you do somehow clear the obstacle course, you are likely to receive a prepaid visa debit card which you must spend at retail establishments in order to redeem. What’s more, if you don’t do it pretty quick the thing will expire and you will lose the rebate. It’s not cash. It’s not a check you can deposit in your bank account. It can’t go into your savings account, cannot go into your kid’s college fund, cannot practically be given to your favorite charity. You have to use it at a store or a restaurant in order to redeem it. And you won’t get it for many weeks, possibly months after you mail in the required forms.

This still all might seem OK to you. After all, you live in this society and so you are out spending money in stores quite often, and even the grocery store will accept that prepaid debit card. But let me tell you a considerable percentage of those cards expire without being used. They go into a purse pocket or a drawer and you find them in 8 months expired and worthless. You didn’t get the advertised price. As a matter of fact there is a good chance that as you are reading this some Christmas present you purchased a couple months ago cost you more than you planned on. Because right now, that rebate card is lost somewhere, if you even remembered to sit down for 30 minutes and figure out the claiming process in the first place.

What this all adds up to is terribly misleading marketing, if not blatant false advertising. It’s amazing that it is still legal. When Mama Riah and I purchased new cell phones recently the girl at the store told us to make sure we didn’t put the rebate claim forms in the same envelope or we would only get one of them. Now isn’t that utterly ridiculous, even perhaps borderline criminal? We should all get together as a society and just say no to any product advertised with a mail-in rebate price. Either that or start a massive class-action lawsuit.

Papa Riah

Technorati Tags: advertising, rebates, scams

Superbowl Ads Getting Worse

By admin

The 2009 Superbowl commercials were just as bad, if not worse, than the 2008 Superbowl ads. I mean they were outright terrible! I was embarrassed for these companies that are putting them out. Now I realize that it has become a tradition in America to try and create humorous ads for the big game. The problem with humorous ads is that they are usually not good commercials. There are exceptions to this of course, but those exceptions are not to be found in any of the past few years’ Superbowl commercials. These are the most expensive commercials on television to both produce and air. For them to flop so horribly is inexcusable - and executive heads should rightfully be rolling.

Not only were not any of the ads good commercials, but they weren’t funny either. I never even broke a smile. Perhaps there is no longer any true creative talent working at any of the ad agencies responsible for the insult to the American intelligence that was perpetrated upon us today. What an incredible waste of money and resources during these times when both should be so precious. I wonder how many jobs Pepsi, Coke, Doritos, Anheuser Busch, and Go Daddy could have collectively created with the money they blew on failed attempts at humor. Certainly none of their ads will be responsible for creating any additional revenue, so they may as well have burned the money.

Here are a few of the less memorable highlites:

• Go Daddy further degraded it’s image by producing a commercial featuring female race car driver Danika Patrick taking a shower. What naked female race car drivers in the shower have to do with registering internet domain names is beyond me. I have never seen anything cheaper, less creative, and less funny.

• Some stupid health drink company or another came back again with more dancing cartoon lizards, mixed in with some dancing hip hop stars. I didn’t know or remember the company when they did this last year, and I still don’t know who they are nor will I recognize their products if I ever see them on store shelves. And it wasn’t entertaining in the least.

• A business meeting in which the company served Bud Light threw an employee out a glass window when he suggested cutting back on expenses by not providing beer at all the business meetings. This was not funny and worse yet suggests that the product is expensive.

• Audi provided the action with a seemingly never-ending car chase scene which suggested that criminals through the past few generations could always rely on Audis when it comes to needing a getaway car. (If that wasn’t the message sorry, but that’s what I got out of it.)

• Doritos ran two commercials (this must be a recession-proof business) both which featured senseless violence that was supposed to be funny. I will give them credit for doing a good job of product branding however, as the Doritos bag was prominently displayed by the guy smashed on the front of the bus windshield. But somewhere in my subconscious mind I now think that consuming this product is dangerous.

• Castrol motor oil came out of the woodwork with an incredibly expensive commercial that pushed the limits of being politically correct. I actually would have liked this one if they didn’t end it by imprinting in my mind the image of a guy making out with a monkey. With that image forever imprinted in my brain I will now go out of my way to make sure I never use that particular brand.

• Then there were the movie trailers. Hollywood must not be in a recession when they can tack on millions to a movie budget for trailers on films that will not be out for months. I was horrified to see an upcoming sequel for The Fast and the Furious. As if there aren’t enough insane twenty-something year olds in lowered Hondas risking my life every time I am on the freeway already!

There was a very consistent theme in all the failed attempts at humor in the ads this year. I cannot quite pinpoint it, but it was almost like the same three guys wrote most of the commercials. You know what I mean? It was all cheap sight gag stuff and no comedy of any substance. Go to any third-rate comedy club and pick a few struggling standup comics and they could have produced ads ten times more entertaining, guaranteed. Of course the product branding probably will still suffer, but at least we would get a decent laugh.

Papa Riah

Technorati Tags: superbowl, superbowl ads, superbowl commercials