Just Give Up

Has anyone else noticed the sudden widespread use of the term "stimulus package" as a marketing ploy? Over the past few weeks, I've probably heard ten radio commercials for ten different companies advertising new discounts and sales as "stimulus packages." Honestly, I think this is a new height of American stupidity.

First and foremost, the commercials are annoying. I'm already tired of hearing debates about the stimulus package set forth by Obama all over every television station imaginable by people both over and under qualified to take part in them. Now you're going to make me listen to an idiot who just happens to have a good voice for radio (or not) not only play the same card as has been played by many already, but make a mockery of our President and our economic situation at the same time. As an American (even an American that hates politics and doesn't take part in them) I find this behavior insulting. Marketing execs should be using their expensive college educations to market things in a way which will create a positive spin on spending money to have their products, which might, in turn, help the economic situation instead of insulting the American populace and the President all at the same time.

I'm going to give some advice now that is only relevant to a select few idiots. If you are the Director of Marketing for a company and all your team can come up with is to call your new discount a "stimulus package," here's what you should do: First, fire your entire team and replace it with a gaggle of swearing, knife-toting, nose-picking, anarchy-loving third graders from Harlem. Second, recommend a chimpanzee who communicates using a state-of-the art movement sensing computer and sign language for your own job, and then shoot yourself in the head. There are several benefits to this solution. The first is that having the miscreant third-graders relocated out of our schools would make those schools a much better learning environment for the more well-behaved students. Second, ridding the executive ladder of those people not deserving of the position, the status, or the responsibility will only streamline the rise of new, more capable and deserving candidates (don't worry about the knife-weilding third graders, they'll be weeded out of the executive world fairly quickly and tossed out onto the street, a great place for someone weilding a knife - even a third grader). Third, by shooting yourself in the head, you will be ending your miserable little stay on this Earth and, again, creating a job for someone else obviously more qualified. And lastly, the new, more deserving marketing execs might actually come up with an intelligent solution to their company's falling revenue in the form of a brilliant, catchy, positive marketing blitz - thereby directly contributing to the stimulation of the economy.

If I hear another radio commercial that sounds like this, "Wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man STIMULUS PACKAGE! Buy ONE wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man and get TWO wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube men FREE!!!" then I will probably do something very ill-conceived and stupid. I just don't know what it is yet.


On the beat box: Matt Nathanson - Sing me Sweet