After watching Katut
declare his love for Rhonda, or possibly ask her to marry him (my
Indonesian
isn't what it used to be), I was left wondering how I'm
meant to feel about this; am I supposed to feel some kind of
emotional connection to Rhonda and Katut? Relief that Rhonda chose
him over Trent Too-Good (who I think might be a bit of a player and
dropped Rhonda as soon as someone better came along)? Why else would
Aami be telling us the story of Rhonda and Katut if we weren't meant
to be feeling some kind of emotional connection with them? But then
that leads to the obvious question;
Why the hell would Aami
want us to feel this emotional connection with them at all?
It's not like I've gone
out and bought some insurance after watching a particularly emotional
episode of Bold and the Beautiful (yes, I'm guilty of that little
sin. And no, I don't think there's ever been a “particularly
emotional” episode ever) or Neighbours. Does Aami have that little
faith in their insurance that they're trying to manipulate us through
Rhonda and Katut?
And if that's the case,
why the hell would I want to purchase their insurance? It's clearly
not up to scratch.
But they're not the first
company to do it; Budget Direct has Zeek and Ziah, the shape shifting
aliens
couple of years ago how Budget Direct had that French woman in the shower singing “Bood-jay” while she washed her hair in the shower (and I might point out that she wasn't using nearly enough shampoo, which only strengthens my argument), and then being told “It's budget, love.” by her partner. Then all of sudden they had the same ad
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| Ok, slightly different bathrooms. But who's to say they didn't redecorate? |
Then there's RACV and
Jason and his possible new girlfriend. Although, the fact that Jason
may now be dating the
new girl at work isn't going to make me rush
out to get some boat insurance (the fact that I don't have a boat may
also be a big reason for this as well). But still, the Jason wooing
the new girl at work ads are far more tolerable than the original
ones where he was a contender for the world's biggest douche title.
So it just looks like
it's insurance companies that are guilty of trying to manipulate us
into buying their stuff by trying to get us to connect on an
emotional level, or scare us silly with the characters in their ads.
Stands to reason; they're selling insurance, after all. There really
isn't all that much to differentiate them from other insurance
companies. At the end of the day, all you have after parting with you
hard earned is a piece of paper stating how much you'll be paid if
something bad happens to whatever you've insured (and considering
it's an insurance company, that piece of paper is probably a very
long, complicatedly worded document that ensures that insurance
company is ripping you off unless you read through it thoroughly).
But then I remembered
this:
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/DvlWQyvEI38" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Hilarious, right?
Everyone loved this ad (if you didn't, you're wrong). It was the
start of a whole wave of Bigpond ads with that father and son team.
I'm not sure if they planned on all those ads or decided to just ride
on the success of that first one, but I think we can all agree that
the writers of those ads failed to recapture the brilliance of the
first one (hahaha, Emperor Nasi Goreng!). Although, I don't think
that Bigpond was trying to make us connect with those two on an
emotional level. I think we supposed to be afraid of looking like a
fool and passing it on to our children.
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| They are totally part of a larger invasion force! |
And what really gets me
is that these ads actually work! People make their decisions based
upon these ads (otherwise why would these companies spend millions of
dollars on them?), instead of actually doing some research into the
product in question themselves. I don't want to be left wondering if
my house insurance will be honoured when the main invasion force from
Zeek and Ziah's home world arrive, that's why I don't pay any
attention to these ads (except for entertainment) and actually do my
own research before purchasing something important like an insurance
policy.
Fox
