Caught in the commercial rabbit hole

“We need Pepsi. Lots of Pepsi.”

What if Neo had uttered this line, rather than calling for a stockpile of guns in the 1999 film “The Matrix”?

I’ve developed a concern for placement, especially after viewing the most recent Super Bowl. After watching the plethora of product ads during this year’s game, I’m convinced that America needs product placement now more than ever.

This year’s ads featured many instantly recognizable pop culture staples to appeal to the viewers. Why was the Volkswagen Passat commercial with a kid dressed up in a Darth Vader suit rated the highest of all this year’s commercials? Simple: because Star Wars is awesome. By virtue of the company they keep, Volkswagen must also be pretty awesome.

In the same way that — if I’m getting another ad right — attractive, blonde joggers should be on the lookout for errant soda cans flying around our nation’s parks, thanks to the introduction of Pepsi Max.

These same product advertisements can be found in more than just football games though. Take, for example, video games, shooting-based ones in particular.

Shooting-based games feature a variety of both blatant and subtle product ads. Remember the time you turned that corner and blew a mutant gorilla’s head clean from his shoulders with an oversized shotgun? Do you also remember the Coca-Cola vending machine that was directly next to said animal?

Probably not, because you were preoccupied with the awesome task of blowing a mutant gorilla’s head off with an oversized shotgun.

But I digress. That vending machine was there, and now so is an association with one particular brand of sugar water with whatever visceral feelings happened to be stirring in you during that passage of the game.  It’s easy to stand back and question the motivation for wanting to associate a soft drink with brutal simian murder, but you’d be over-thinking things.

Just congratulate yourself, because you’ve become a slave to the system.

When a negative or annoying thing is done in a commercial to represent a company, the viewer feels annoyed rather than encouraged to buy that product, which in turn should make the company suffer rather than prosper. I will never purchase a car at any Bangor Car Care affiliated location one, for the sake of my hearing and two, because they have bad representation on TV, and the same goes for Marden’s. Do they get my attention? Absolutely, because they’re both impossible to ignore.

Watching these types of commercials is like watching a baby stand in front of a crocodile. You know something bad is about to happen, but you can’t take your eyes off of it. Yes, they have my attention but because of the means they use to get that attention, they do not have my business.

But frankly I’m splitting hairs here, which is why I use Head and Shoulders dandruff shampoo!

This brainwashing attitude that companies have adopted has had a positive effect on the economy (see previous sentence). By purchasing these various over-commercialized products by the thousands, you have stimulated the economy and therefore improved the stock market. Do you like America? You do? Then go out right after you finish reading this article and buy something. Anything that comes to mind.

Shooting monkeys? Good. Spending? Good. So go buy stuff, America.

Spend money. Go out and get that new “Gears of Duty 7: Kill Lots of Terrorists,” because when spending, shooting, and soda-sipping work together, it creates one nutritious nugget of stimulation for your country’s hungry, hungry consumer economy.

As Neo himself once said — “Whoa.”

Andrew Henry is a sophomore English major.