Deal pot

That’s the unintentional message of a commercial for a local car dealership. The commercial depicts the owner of said dealership in a chef’s hat and apron, standing behind a large pot cooking up great savings and record-low annual percentage rates. But as the culinary car salesman toils in the finance-free kitchen, it was obvious that while planning this commercial somebody posed the question, “What should we call the pot that’s holding all these low rates?”\n“Why the ‘deal pot,’ of course,” someone replied. And the staff shouted “Hoo-ra” and began shooting. The final product is a typical, low-budget car commercial with the unfortunate-for-them, hilarious-for-us message that tells the entire community to deal pot. \nNow if it were up to me, my column would end right there, because I feel like this world-class oversight speaks for itself. But considering it’s my job to hash out some grand conclusion from an unintentionally comical commercial, I’ll hash away (that’s what the ad wanted in the first place).\nThe problem here is simple. It’s a matter of disconnect. Commercials are supposed to reflect society. They are supposed to speak to our most basic desires: to look good, feel good, to eat fatty food and buy fast and loud things. You know, the American way.\nThat seems to make sense. What doesn’t make sense is that the people sitting around a table trying to figure out the best means for speaking to those desires don’t have those desires. By the nature of their position, those desires have already been fulfilled. In a town like Bloomington, we’re asking a rich, middle-aged business man or woman to target a commercial to poor, possibly drunk or stoned college students watching crappy TV when they should be at class. The results of such an equation: Deal pot. \nIt’s always boggled my mind how bad commercials can exist. I just fail to believe that in the year 2007 we still have a desperate shortage of creative people. Even look to the recent Super Bowl (not sure if you heard about it, but apparently some team around here won it?). Doritos issued a challenge to chip lovers everywhere to develop their own commercials. The “winners” of this experiment were a guy stuck in traffic and a very creepy grocery store clerk making sexual connotations with all the spicy chip names. The loser of this experiment was the collective creative consciousness of the entire country. \nIn the spirit of this observation (oh and what a grand observation it is: commercials suck), I’ll make one bold prediction for the future. YouTube, meet commercials. Commercials, meet YouTube. There is already proof that some nobody from central Nebraska can tickle the collective funny bone of our nation, and make no money at all. While somebody making six figures thinks people snapping checks into existence will help Ken Nunn’s reputation as an injury lawyer. \nIn the future, the nobody from Nebraska will see his idea come to fruition on late-night Comedy Central while six-figure Steve looks for a new job. Possibly dealing pot.