Ever since my pal John (check out his Beatles blog, url to the right) mentioned his distaste for the endlessly repeated "Free Credit Report" ads, I can't watch them without cringing. You know the ads, the ones where some ersatz rock band is forced to serve tourists in a fish and chips restaurant, drive a lousy car and/or bunk in a crowded apartment (with a very pretty girl) because one of them didn't check his credit report and now they're totally screwed. The lead singer croons out some obnoxious tune explaining his plight (with a weird, sickly grin on his face) while his bandmates bang away in the background. Boy, that's dedication!
Look, it sucks to have bad credit, and it's worse if somebody messes you up and you unfairly get tagged as a credit risk, but what the hell happened to these guys? Is the ad suggesting their credit report was so bad they lost their citizenship, had to enter the underground economy and take minimum wage jobs because... umm... what happened, again? And what's the deal with the entire band tagging along with the lead singer? Were they all hosed by a bad credit report? Did any of these treacly losers even HAVE credit in the first place?
Guess I'll watch another episode of MAD MEN and try to understand the wily ways of advertising...
