Sunday, September 16, 2012

IKEA's alarming prophecy

IKEA has this commercial wherein a child ("Leo") is placed on "time-out" by a mother who then disappears from the room, and the boy then proceeds to crash himself into the kitchen cabinets repeatedly. The tag line offered in voiceover at the end: "Some things won't last 25 years. Some things will."
While I presume the implication of that statement is touting the durability of the cabinetry offered by the Swedish-based furniture store, I cannot help but think the flip side is suggesting this sort of absentee parenting will prevent the child from reaching his 25th birthday. Although I don't necessarily disagree, based on what we see in the ad, it does seem a rather morbid take on trying to sell affordable home products.

It even backfires on that. Heck, in that scenario there's no point in saving for college, so you may as well go buy better cabinets than would be offered at IKEA. 

This shows why watching DVR'ed shows and fast-forwarding through the commercials is actually better for advertisers; there's nothing to over-analyze at double-speed.

3 comments:

  1. Greetings, sorry I have been scarce lately. Hellish summer, really.

    I saw that same promo. I turned to darling wife and said, "I would beat the crap out of that kid for doing that." Spare the rod, spoil the child. We Martians live by that rule.

    IKEA stuff doesn't even stand up to being shipped from the factory to the store (witness the mountain of damaged goods that's always on sale in the corner of each IKEA near the cash registers). It certainly wouldn't stand up to the depredations of a monster child, or several monster children.

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  3. Am I the only one who thinks this commercial is cute

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So, what do you think?