Monday, August 15, 2005

Air Tran's stupid commercial

There is an Air Tran commercial currently playing on my radio station. This commercial has a couple of variants.

Variant 1 :

A lady walks up to her seat in a plane and sits down. A gentleman takes the seat next to hers. Conversation between the two ensues, at first, quite amiable and neighbourly. Soon, the lady discovers that the guy is travelling to a yodelling convention along with his co-yodellers in the same plane. In order to give the lady a demonstration of his yodelling abilities (no doubt in the hope of scoring), he begins yodelling away to glory. Soon, everyone in the plane going to the yodellers convention begins to do so. Under attack from fifty yodellers, the lady goes into histrionics.

Message from the voiceover lady : This will not happen to you in an AirTran Airways flight. Along with comfortable seats, you will not find yourself sitting in a plane full of yodellers.

Variant 2 : Same theme, except this time, it is a pirate who begins to sing some kind of a pirate ditty.

Message from the voiceover lady : This will not happen to you in an AirTran Airways flight. Along with comfortable seats, you will not find yourself sitting in a plane next to a pirate.

Now my question to Air Tran is this : How can you be so fucking confident that your flight will be free of itinerant yodellers and / or pirates? Does your airline have an established code of disallowing yodellers or pirates from boarding the plane, and if so, on what basis do you make the determination that a given passenger falls under this category?

And coming down to it, what makes you believe that you can get away with denying entry to yodellers or pirates? Haven't your lawyers informed you that it is not even legal for you to do that? Where do you get your legal advice from anyways, your dry cleaners?

Seriously, Air Tran, I believe your commercial is nothing but a sack of bullshit, designed to play on the ingrained prejudice your radio listeners might have against yodellers or pirates. And, being against prejudices of any kind, I denounce this marketing gimmick of yours on principle. I hereby give you my word that I will never again buy an Air Tran ticket as long as you keep peddling this ad to me.

Not that I'm into yodelling. It's kind of a gayish thing to do.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great observation and commentary.

Have u heard the recent radio ads for the Subaru Tribeca SUV...the ones that talk about the SUV becoming extinct....they are hilarious.

gawker said...

Thanks Arzan .. Yeah, I've seen em. There should be some kind of award show for inane commercials.