I don't know if you have seen these ads, for some mall-type jewelry store, but for some reason they really tick me off. The basic premise is that some smart guy went to Jared and bought his wife or fiancee a fine present, and everyone else around them says "He went to Jared" either in a tone of approval ("gosh, your man actually is worthwhile") or envy ("my man went somewhere inferior") or disgust ("now my wife thinks I'm worthless because I didn't also go to Jared"). This endless parade of shallow, grasping people is annoying enough, but at least I'd sorta buy the ad if it was for somewhere I'd heard of and respected -- Tiffany, say (not that Tiffany would be this tacky). But I've never heard of Jared before in my life. As far as I can tell, it's a strip-mall jewelry superstore type of place, and the lame name doesn't help (dude, you're named after the Subway guy).
Now, perhaps Jared actually is some widely respected jewelry place that has only recently come to my area (Seattle), and elsewhere there really do exist people who whisper "He went to Jared!" in tones of awe. But I think more likely is that no one has ever heard of Jared before, and they are trying to create one of those campaigns where, by pretending something and repeating it often enough, it eventually becomes true. I don't think these things ever work; it seems obvious enough to me, as a typical media-savvy gen-X-type, when this is going on and it just fills me with loathing. My previous favorite example of this was ads for Sunny Delight or, as they would have you believe people call it, "Sunny D". I refuse to believe there exist any cool teenagers anywhere who, just before undertaking their Xtreme hobbies, stop for a quick "Sunny D" break. If any teenager has ever spontaneously demanded a "Sunny D" I will seriously eat my hat. Who even buys Sunny Delight? Perhaps the ad is aimed at gullible moms, desperate to figure out what their kids will think is cool.
Anyway, back to Jared. Presumably the point here is to play off of men's insecurities about buying sufficiently impressive presents for their (apparently) shallow, grasping wives. They don't know what to do, but if everyone else is talking about this Jared place, it must be good, right? The sad thing is that maybe this does actually work, which doesn't really speak well for our society. Oh, I know there are far larger things in this world to worry about, but still, it ticks me off.
I sent this basic rant to Slate's ad report card, which is usually pretty entertaining (especially if you feel like you're not properly keeping up with your pop culture trends). I'm curious what he has to say.
December 20, 2004 12:08 PMCategories: pop+culture
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