Here’s a recipe for an annoying commercial: take all unpleasant stereotypes known to man (and woman) and mix in a predictable plot.
For extra credit, make the commercial really, really, really long.
That just about sums up the strategy that is apparently at work in JCPenney’s new holiday campaign, "Beware of the Doghouse."
The name of the Web-based campaign pretty much says it all. The video starts with a man giving a woman a vacuum cleaner for an anniversary gift, after which he is marched unceremoniously to a doghouse/dungeon.
There, he joins other men who have made the kind of stereotypical "bad husband" mistakes you mostly see on really cheesy 10-year-old sitcoms, such as giving one’s wife exercise equipment and hinting that she could lose a few pounds.
As punishment for their misdeeds, the men have all been consigned to the dungeon, where they must do things like fold laundry and eat quiche out of dog bowls. Keeping with the torture theme, a tape playing in an endless loop also encourages them to "speak less, listen better," "offer to change diapers" and "stop checking out other women in restaurants."
The only way to get out? Buy your wife jewelry, of course.
Adding an element of real-life public humiliation to the mix, JCPenney is even offering real women the option of putting their significant others in the doghouse, via a Web site that will send your partner an e-mail -- and then post his name and, if you choose, picture, on the company’s public Web site.
We’re not sure who should be more offended by this campaign: Men, who are painted as sexist, clueless dolts, or women, who are shown as mean-spirited and materialistic, willing to mete out menial punishment but swayed by glittery things.
We’re not saying men and women don’t have their share of differences, particularly when it comes to their idea of the perfect holiday gift. There are, however, funnier, more subtle and more modern ways of playing those differences for a laugh, and a potential sale.
Particularly in these tough economic times, we wonder how well a throwback to the "diamonds are a girl’s best friend" way of thinking will play.
Click here to watch video and see the Web campaign.
Update: My colleague Gael Fashingbauer Cooper over at Test Pattern is lamenting that there aren't more good holiday commercials these days. Click here to see the post.
