Dumb and Dumber

This could merely be a function of age, but the more I look around me, the more I become discouraged by the dearth of imagination and outright stupidity that has spread throughout society like a nasty rash.

To wit: in today's NYT Business Section, a feature on an upcoming campaign in which college kids will have a choice--to jump into a monstrous ice cream sundae or a behemoth mound of mashed potatoes (with honey??), only to be washed off in a promo for a shower gel. The tableaux is complete with mc David Spade (a sure sign we're going to take the high road.)

Yeah, I'm no college kid. But it seems yet another media vehicle through which humiliation is pawned off as entertainment (see reality TV, Fox TV, "Are You Smarter than a 5th grader", et al.)

Lest it seem like I'm some old curmudgeon with a chopstick up his derriere (I am, of course), the same NYT edition has a brief feature in which a law firm tries to recruit new associates by picturing current staffers caroming around a room bestride bouncy balls. ("Your honor, I'll be representing myself..")

These are presumably aimed at an older, more completely educated audience--yet the bottom line is still sophomoric.

It doesn't seem to me that clever, sophisticated advertising and any audience, no matter the demographics, should be mutually exclusive. Over the next few weeks I hope to post examples of just that--engaging, thoughtful campaigns that are no less entertaining than a frat boy taking a header into a swimming pool of salsa.

Jeff