An open letter to my friends at Boardwalk Honda: Choices. I know as a society were all interlinked, Facebooked at the hip, Twitter besties, and Instagram addicted, so it seems like everyone always knows everything that each other is doing at all times. I get that this also creates marketing opportunities far greater than we ever dreamed just a decade ago, such as when someone uploads an ad or commercial to YouTube and it goes viral. Without this, Justin Beiber would still be singing Karaoke on Wednesday night at Applebees. However, with this power comes responsibility. Youre recent commercial showing an entire basketball team piling into an automobile was Im sure at 1st thought to be clever and effective at pointing out the space available in the vehicle. However, and I know I may be a bit touchy on the Lets see how many of your players can fit into a Honda CRV punchline at the end, you kind of missed the mark with this one. At a time when were all hopefully doing our best to educate the parents, students, and young drivers on our area, this ad simply flies against the grain of sensibility, in my opinion. To use a high school team was probably not the most sensitive idea from the beginning, and I know that youre not showing them driving around town, but the reality is that it doesnt really matter how many players can fit in the car if you dont have enough seatbelts, and although I havent been in a CRV yet, Im pretty sure it doesnt have 15 so whats really the point? To me, the point is that we still have so, so much work to do. Because if this commercial was conceived, brought to a high school for approval, produced, and signed off on without ANYONE thinking that maybe its not a good idea, then we the community who have lost loved ones recently are just not doing a very good job of getting the word out. And for that, I personally apologize. Time to maybe ramp the message up a little bit. Choices.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 11:37:33 +0000