Padding the facts, ma'am

It’s quite rare that I watch television in real time—usually a case of me channel surfing, finding something I think might be mildly amusing and then sticking with it for about 20 minutes before reaching for the remote. Typically 20 minutes is long enough to go through at least two commercial cycles; three if we’re talking USA or any of the Discovery franchise channels.

And occasionally I actually watch a commercial, usually because I find it so completely bizarre that I go slack jawed. As in the case of the one where two women are scolding consumers for “using period pads for pee”, urging us to buy their product and proposing alternative uses for the “period pads”.

You know the one I’m talking about.

But that’s not why I’m here today. Because today’s about one of that category of commercial that starts out like some kind of PSA or alert, and then rolls into a pitch for products related to bodily products. This one is from a while ago, but I found it so gobsmacking that I backed up the DVR and ran it through again, so I could get pictures.

It starts off with a few tones indicating “Alert” and this screen:

Like they’re fixing to give you some important health-related information. But then this blonde appears, with a banner informing us that, contrary to the previous screen, this ain’t nothing but an ad.

Then the pitch, which I frankly never actually heard, because I was too stunned by the visuals. Fortunately, however, this category of commercial always delivers the message in words and voice-over, because they assume you’re too dumb to read.

(Just like those announcements that “the following program contains material that may be unsuitable for all audiences; Viewer discretion is advised.” They flash the text up on the screen, then have a voice-over. What kind of surprises me is that PBS does that, and I rather thought they’d have a higher estimation of their viewers’ literacy levels. But evidently I’d be wrong.)

Here’s the thing that strikes me about their chosen spokes-bimbo: from the preternaturally wide eyes, she looks a little to me like the product is not, in fact, working fast enough to offer her relief.