olympics ads

The 2006 Olympics have began. Welcome to the poignant Olympic ads. There is the child that plays hockey and is therefore inexplicably linked to Tim Hortons (a Canadian coffee chain). There are the average Janes and Joes who get gracious “thank yous” from the athletes for supporting them via Petro-Canada (does that explain the gas price hike?). And of course, there is no shortage of true stories of how little teams had no chance, but a bank came to their rescue. Haven’t caught any Visa commercials yet, which makes me wonder if it is actually Olympics I am watching – though maybe they were timed exactly at those nature-calls moments.

See, we all know that commercials are not meant to be genuine. They are there to sell a product. And that’s fine. That’s the way the business world works. But all these “thank yous” and we “truly care” are pushing the line. If they truly cared, they wouldn’t waste so much money on all these commercials – they’d invest it in the athletes! Isn’t there some kind of law against false advertising?

So please, if you are a gas company – tell us how great your gas is. If you make coffee – tell us about the coffee. And if you’re a bank – tell us how to get more than 0% interest on our savings.

And unless you are in the handkerchief business – stop the tearjerkers!