Good Idea ... Wrong Commercial

ABC recently announced that it is planning on making a television series based upon the GEICO cavemen. People have commented elsewhere about how stupid this idea would seem to be. I'll hold judgment on that till I hear the actual concept, but what is really distressing is why this set of commercials had to be used when there was a much better one two years ago.



Slate picked up on the brilliance of the commercial way back when it first aired in 2005.

Plus, the concept is already right there in the commercial - no thinking outside the box required. Okay, one year might be excessive, but in today's fame-obsessed culture there has to be somebody willing to live in a house too small for six months. GEICO even provided you with a potential challenge - having to make an omlette - if you want to do a contest based show. If the contestants can make it through, they could get some nominal prize - their own house redone, cash. Come on ABC.

Commercial Break

For some reason, this ( http://woodenporchrailings.blogspot.com/ ) made me laugh. It's a one post blog about the wonders of wooden porch railings. I would normally dismiss it as some SPAM marketing attempt, which it probably is. But there doesn't seem to be a particularly company endorsing the blog. There's no links to a website, where one could buy a wooden porch railing. There's just the myriad of reasons why everyone should. So, I'm choosing to believe that there's someone out there who REALLY loves wooden porch railings and could not go another day without letting the world know it. But just the one time.

In other more overt ad news, I over heard a commercial for an insomnia treatment last night as I was reading the newspaper. The commercial was standard television drug commercial fare, but something struck me as odd. One of the possible side effects was drowsiness. I'm not a doctor - I didn't even take the MCATs - but shouldn't drowsiness be an intended effect?