Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Did Lucifer Design LG's New Ad Campaign?





This afternoon, I finally put my finger on why LG's new adverts are evil. Each ad celebrates disposable consumer culture without the slightest realization how shallow the message actually is. You somtimes come across advertisers who poke fun at themselves -- but this isn't that kind of ad campaign. This is evil on multiple levels.

LG proudly proclaims that "all" that's standing between you and your wonderful new existence are your "old" appliances. And amazingly, each ad features working appliances being destroyed in rather lame fashion so that the consumer can justify her "need" to buy the latest, faux industrial offering from LG.


And don't think I'm reading too much into the meaning of the TV ads. The print ad campaign is even more atrocious. They feature tag lines like:

  • "The average lifespan of a washer and dryer is 13 years. Fortunately, there are ways of shortening it."
  • "What would drive you to sabotage your perfectly good dishwasher? Our dishwasher."
  • "Whoever said you have to wait for your refrigerator to break to get an LG?"
  • "The only thing standing between you and your new LG appliances are your old appliances."


Did it ever occur to LG that this commerical could have been spun into a brilliant public service announcement? Did it occur to them that instead of destroying all of the perfectly fine, working home appliances, that they could have just said "donate your old appliances to someone who can use them"?

And I'm not talking about altruism here -- I'm talking about a clever marketing campaign. Perhaps the easiest way to turn off consumers is to make them feel ashamed of their desire to purchase your product. And what has LG done here? It has taken that self-interested, polluting, materialism and made it the center of its campaign! Instead, why not play to the emerging faux-"green" civic virtue (or, if your target audience has none, why not give them the impression that making this purchase will succeed in creating that virtue)? I mean, how stupid can LG be to actually air this?

And did you happen to catch all of the imagery of nature being littered with bits of destroyed appliances? What genius thought that would be a good idea? Just seeing that "Life's Good" motto at the end of each advert just about sums it up. These ads represent a mentality that's about five years past its time. What a horrible, horrible ad campaign. It should put LG to shame.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

ugh

Anonymous said...

hadn't seen the tv spots before; those print ads are awful though

Anonymous said...

youre missing the point

these are rich white beautiful women acting destructively -- and riffing off of the notion of getting rid of the ball and chain, or how the evil husband/bandit/man in control would have disposed of the unwanted woman (look at the tied up fridge on the track).

i do agree with you that we've gone from disposable razors in 1900 to disposable "products" in 2008 that are huge investmens and would be even great drain on our world's resources -- but fear not.

there are NOT going to be enought rich people to buy them up and "throw out" their old ones. and this would never be a public service annoucement, its an AD. and a pretty subversize one at that.

Anonymous said...

Ahhh, I was just posting myself complaining about this mentality, and found your post! Great job summarizing how I feel... refering to this as Lucifer's work makes it all the better. :)

Despite this being an ad over a psa, I know this is a message permeated throughout our society from every level by those with fattened pockets off the mindlessness and agreeability of the many. Bah.