Feb 16, 2007

Decency

So I get in the car to drive one of the Tadpoles to school this morning, around 8:15 AM, and when I start the car it's still tuned to the local Jack station. (Jack are those iPod-esque stations that play a random mix of music from the past four decades and don't have DJs)

And what comes on but a pretty racy and suggestive commercial for KY Jelly with something called "warming gel" ("warming" something, anyway.) And though I quickly hit the button before any questions could be asked, all I could think of was WTF? I mean it's 8 in the morning. Who you they think is listening to the radio? And even if they got some horny young guy alone in his car, there ain't much he's going to be able to do about it on his way to work, right?

I'm no prude and no social conservative, but there's a time and a place for everything. And this was neither the time nor the place. Enough's been written about the inappropriate placement of Viagra commercials, but you can throw KY onto the pile. I suspect we're going to see legislation about this sometime soon, limiting the hours certain commercial content can run. It's a good issue for someone looking to make a name for themselves, because there aren't that many people who are going to object to it. The only danger is who gets to define what's objectionable and what standards do they use to define it. A "slippery slope" if ever there was one.

3 comments:

Nien said...

Or...the media planners can do their jobs better.

Alan Wolk said...

Yeah Nien. I read something where Viagra was trying to pawn off their media schedule on the cable networks, saying they buy cable but have no control over when the cable networks run the spots about "erections lasting longer than four hours"

Anonymous said...

I'd seen a spot like that late at night though. Nice way to start the day, punching the radio off.