#437 Flo-Man

I was watching a football game recently. In the advertising business, they talk about demographics and target audiences. So I’m always interested to see what kind of commercials they mount up for the attack on the folks supposedly watching their shows. The first part of the game it seemed like every commercial break was for Lipitor. Then the next set of commercials featured the fantastically named Flo-Max. I like Flo-Max. It’s got one of those names from the fifties like speedy and shine-brite. Those names from early Madison Avenue that not only described the product, but described what it does. Like when all the laundry products had the word “clean,” in them, preferably spelled “kleen.” They wanted things to sound like what they did but it was cooler to spell it different. Bright was spelled brite, clean was spelled kleen, and laxative was abbreviated to lax. Like L.A. International airport. Hmm. I always wondered what “lax” was that people would want to “ex” it. For years I thought lax was a scientific word for poop. Stove up? Use Ex-lax. Kind of like an ex-wife. Ex-lax helps you get divorced from some serious, um, stuff. Anyhow. Interesting that two old guy drugs were the focus of so much commercial pitchery in the early football game. I guess the message was, if you’ve been on your keester for the last 20 years watching other men play a strenuous sport, chances are you need these products; Lipitor, even though it can cause acute liver failure, muscle aches, and death is much preferable to sitting in a barcolounger with no muscle tone and high cholesterol. God forbid that you should actually exercise and diet. Whose gonna consume four different flavors of Doritos in four different quarters? Sloth ain’t easy. And that other drug they were pitching—the one which addresses not just your fat jeans but your fat genes. The one that treats both sources of cholesterol. As if a drug knows the difference. Cholesterol is cholesterol. Not a very good commercial I guess, cause I can’t remember the drug’s name. But I do remember Flo-Max. That, my friends, has got to be a prostate drug. Cause if there’s one thing aging men in barcoloungers all have it’s restricted flow of fluids. And regardless of beer intake, it’s beer byproduct output that adds a sense of urgency to the fourth quarter. And with a full set of timeouts, a two minute warning, and any number of incomplete passes, first down measurements, and runs out of bounds, the last few minutes can get urgent indeed. Oddly, it was in the second half that the commercials changed. Lead off by a whole spate of commercials for Hummers and other methods of stimulation in the truck department. Boys and their trucks. It could only mean one thing. Madison Avenue knew that the last part of football games is viewed almost exclusively by the young. Papa and his Lipitor are snoring. And the young buck wants a Hummer.
America, ya gotta love it.