General Motors ran an ad in the Super Bowl featuri…
February 12th, 2007 | by Jeremy |General Motors ran an ad in the Super Bowl featuring a robotic arm on an assembly line, working on cars. The robot drops a screw and is let go from the factory. It then shows the robot wandering the streets, looking for work. It tries doing odd jobs, like holding a “Condos For Sale” sign and being a fast food drive thru speaker. Finally, depressed, the spot shows the robot on a bridge, throwing itself off into the river below in a fit of depression, before waking up and realizing it was all a bad dream.
A funny spot, right? Well, not according to various suicide prevention groups that protested the ad, saying it was insensitive to people who have lost someone to suicide and said that the commercial shows suicide as the answer to a mistake or problem.
If you’re depressed and a Super Bowl ad featuring a robot jumping off a bridge pushes you over the edge (no pun intended) and you end up killing yourself, you were probably on your way to doing it anyway. But be sure to blame GM in your note. “I really related to that little robotic arm. It was laid off from its job, just like I was! As I was sitting in my crappy apartment, watching the Super Bowl while drinking a PBR and stuffing hot wings into my face, I realized that suicide was the only way out. And I never would have done it if it wasn’t for that brave little robot. Thanks robotic arm AR-567! Now I’m free.”
And GM caved and agreed to change the spot. Now at the end, the robotic arm calls a suicide prevention hotline that puts him back on track to a healthy, fulfilling robot life.
A similar overreaction happened over the Snickers commercial that showed two guys freaking out after they accidently kissed while eating a Snickers bar. Gay advocates thought it made two guys kissing seem like something repulsive. Well, over 90 percent of the population doesn’t make it a habit to go around kissing others of the same sex. So they DO think it’s gross. If they didn’t, the commercial wouldn’t make sense and no one would care. But what’s the big deal? I don’t see African tribes getting upset at Fear Factor for making it look like eating a monkey brain is gross when it’s quite acceptable in their society.
But Snickers caved as well and pulled the website they set up with different versions of the ads. I wish some of these companies would grow a pair and say, “No, your complaint is stupid. You’re overreacting. We’re not changing the spot.” They wouldn’t lose sales in either of these cases. There wouldn’t be a mass boycott. But you get these silly vocal minority groups going to the media and everyone folds. Oh, well. Maybe they do it just to get publicity. I mean, I wouldn’t be typing about GM or Snickers if someone hadn’t whined. I think I’m gonna go eat a Snickers and buy a Hummer.
Oh, and my “ATHF is the bomb” t-shirt came in…
