Make Safe Happen: And Maybe Better Ads?

We discussed the Always #LikeAGirl commercial from the Superbowl, which I think and I have heard many other opinions thinking that it was very strong advertisement.  But not all the commercials were quite as strong.  There was one in particular that stuck out as not good at all.  And the more I've considered it and heard discussions on it--I think it was an issue of audience.

When you watch the Superbowl, whether you are in it for the football or not, commercials are key.  It is commercial season and if you discuss 'Superbowl', 'commercials' are sure to follow.  Through these two becoming associated, some standards have become expected.  And they very specifically demand funny commercials.

This isn't to say that I don't think serious commercials have a place in the Superbowl.  There are endless people watching, it is the perfect placement for PSA's.  There were many PSA's this year.  Domestic violence, drug abuse-- but it was all in the way they were framed for the intended audience that made those ads far more bearable than this. 

On the radio a couple of talk show hosts were discussing this and how it fell flat, and they brought the other heart-wrenching commercials up as well.  One mentioned that he thought that they were, in fact, made very specifically to target the changing audience.  He said he expects commercials to continue to grow in this way, and related it to the links we click and videos we watch online.  He said something along the lines of scrolling Facebook and seeing a post about a returned Navy vet saving a wounded dog from a sewer.  You click that over a cat chasing a laser. These clicks and views apparently are numbered and studied by advertisers to determine how and what they will show in their commercials.  The problem that I see with this is context.  Maybe the audience is the same, maybe you made a commercial that would tear people to bits and make them remember every word you uttered-- if they found it on the internet and could watch it in the privacy of their own room.

In any typical movie, television show, or book there is comic relief.  There are moments taken aside from whatever particular dramatic storyline is being told to give the audience a moment to breath.  I see the commercials in football as the same way.  They are the comic relief, they are that character who opens his mouth and you immediately bite your lip because you know you are about to start laughing.  The audience of these commercials expect to see something funny. 

The other PSA's didn't sugarcoat it.  They didn't pretend.  They came right out with what they really were and promised the audience that what they had to say was not a laughing matter.  This particular commercial presented us with a kid and his dog and some adorable animated daydreams and let us believe it was just like the others until the very end, where it shocked and startled the viewers.

I have watched this commercial endless times now to write this, and I still am not entirely certain what it was for and what the PSA was specifically about.  Maybe I am not paying enough attention, but I think that the shock value they went after distracted people from the true point they were trying to make.  I talked to my dad about it the day after; he thought it was about watching your kids when they are in the bath.  My mom thought it may have been am ad for some sort of poison control, and my brother told me that he 'didn't watch the ones that weren't funny'. 

Again, this is not to say that this was not likely advertising an extremely important PSA.  But it is the way they went about it, and the extreme to which they did not wage an audiences reaction impeded what they were saying and rendered the commercial as nothing but a shock.