Those poor, poor people at Bridgestone. Last night, I watched in disbelief as their flashy new Superbowl 2010 commercial was aired on cable. The commercial in itself was nothing ground-breaking.... in fact, it was rather fun. Here's the gist:
Three good-looking young guys in a truck speed down the typical 'car ad' winding road, braking, slewing violently. They have stolen a killer-whale, a la 'The Hangover.' 'Great bachelor party', one of them jokes, as they accelerate down a pier towards the ocean. As they reach the end, they brake and slew the car around.... and the whale slides out of the back, crashes through the rail and falls into the ocean. He does a little leap of joy, like flipper. He's free!
A fun, lighthearted commercial that probably cost thousands of dollars and hundreds of man-hours (full-sized anamatronic whale, anyone?) and would have been highly successful.... had the top news story of the day not been that a killer whale at SeaWorld had killed a trainer in front of a live audience.
Seen in this light, the airing of the commercial on this particular day seems slightly sinister, even revolutionary, maybe - right now the animal's fate is being discussed, and while it is agreed that the creature will not be put down, due to the trainer's strong love of the whales (who she thought of as her children), Bridgestone's commercial has unwittingly served as a 'Youtube-style' video-response from the entire general public to SeaWorld. Free the whale!
Public opinion aside, I could almost hear the sound of foreheads being slapped in the Bridgestone HQ as the commercial aired, and aside from wondering in a queasy kind of way why the commercial wasn't pulled at the last minute, all this got me thinking about meaning in the media, and how quickly a film that cost millions of dollars and was the culmination of someone's life's work could so quickly be rendered meaningless by a dumb twist of fate.
But that's the media for you. And, in case you haven't seen it, here's the Brightstone advert for you:
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