TRENDY ADVERTISING

Sometimes advertisers seeks to follow a trend, sometimes they seek to set one. Both efforts are aimed at seducing consumers. Lately I've noticed three different trends in advertising and I wondered if anyone else had.

DUMB MEN: I saw it on the Golf Channel first. A young couple plays golf on a variety of courses in a running series of ads for Callaway. She is clever and witty and competent; he is a bumbling fool, barely smart enough to breathe. Since then I've seen similar ads all over TV - men who care only about sports, barbecue, and toys, shepherded through life by their understanding, patient, ever-so-much-smarter wives who tolerate their shenanigans with a sage wink to the camera while choosing just the right product to make their lives perfect. They're all basically dumb blonde jokes, but the blondes are guys.

BENEVOLENT OIL: A number of oil companies - Chevron is the one I've noticed - are trying to convince viewers that they are no longer the problem, they are the solution. Not content with pretending that their gas somehow magically removes gunk from your engine, now they want you to believe that they are as deeply concerned about the environment as you are, that they are actively seeking alternative energy sources and that buying their gas will create new jobs. Right. Well, you can't fault them for not reaching for the brass ring.

OVERLAPPING BOOKENDS: There is an option in TV ads called, "bookends." When half a dozen commercials run, one after another, you can put an ad at the beginning of the row and the same ad at the end ... like bookends. So it's like, if you missed it the first time, here it is again. Chevy Volt has now taken the next logical step. The ad at the front end of the row has two guys in a Chevy Volt, sitting at the drive-thru window of a burger joint. Two young employees of the burger joint questions the driver about the car and make jokes. Now six more ads run, and then the Chevy ad comes up again ... but it isn't the same ad, it's a different one. In fact, the second ad is a continuation of the first one. It has all the same actors from the first ad, plus a couple in another car who have overheard the conversation and want to weigh in. The overall effect is that it's less like an ad and more like a documentary, which lends more credence to the pitch. Pretty clever, eh?

In the end, of course, all advertisers want to convince you that you will have a better life, you will be a better person, the world will be a better place, if you will only buy their product. I'm not saying they're lying, but ...