It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around Erie, even if the mood is stunted because the jingle bells you hear are coming from the collar of the neighbor’s Chihuahua buried somewhere in your backyard.
This much snow this time of year has a polarizing effect (sorry) on people. While some are filled with the Christmas spirit others hate the thought of winter roads and boots filled with Christmas slush.
For me it’s nice to see something that screams CHRISTMAS that isn’t a commercial.
This year we have an AFLAC duck leading Santa’s sleigh, a GEICO homage to Rudolph and a couple of Big Lots animated deer talking to a moving wicker and lights likeness.
And, you know, nothing really screams CHRISTMAS like a crowded Saturday morning at Big Lots. Especially with boots filled with slush.
But the winner of the Biggest Holiday Commercial Offender so far must be the Visa ad with the perfectly synchronized people buying gifts as the credit card money machine pumps the cha-ching in perfect rhythm until one mother has the audacity to stop to write a check.
“She’s using money she actually has? The GALL!!”
Sure, if you use plastic as a debit card you pay as you go but the company makes few overt distinctions.
This year 641 million American credit cards will be used to ring up 100 billion dollars in holiday presents.
That’s part of the total 1.5 trillion dollar annual buying frenzy card toting Americans ring up.
And the fact that the spot glosses over how some people will be paying off those holiday gifts for the next three years?
That isn’t even the worst part of the commercial.
Every single customer that swipes his or her card through the reader does it UPSIDE DOWN!
Just about everyone born this side of the covered wagon knows that the magnetic strip is on the top of the back of credit cards.
But the marketers, no doubt wanting to push the VISA name as often as possible, have customers swipe the bottom of the card throughout the entire spot!
Every time I see it I get downright Grinchy!
So let’s all take the time now to get our priorities straight, to enjoy the season with each other.
Soon enough it will be January, we’ll be dealing with the holiday hangover and still trying to fish the neighbor’s dog out of the back yard.