“Where’s the Relevancy of a Weather Balloon in Today’s Advertising?”

OK I have to get something off my chest. I sometimes find a good ad campaign that is relevant and has great messaging and branding (Dodge Journey “search engine for the road”, Johnson & Johnson “Baby in Sink” and the occasional E-Trade ad) but, typically I find a lot of bad advertising concepts that I just roll my eyes or gouge them out like the new Chase “OoooH Yeah” Money Back ads or Wendy’s ever revolving ad campaigns with no cohesiveness to the brand but I wont bore you with all my tirades (visit Todd Ebert’s blog on “Annoying Advertising” as he points out many faults in ad campaigns)

I do have a bone to pick with Citi Bank. Seriously lets change it up guys. After almost a year (ok 9 months) on television, the Citi Bank “Weather Balloon” commercial has been showing just how irrelevant they are with people using their card to get points for useless crap. The ad is so lame - who in the hell buys a weather balloon (unless you’re a scientist, teacher or lame commercial concept) with credit card points? Does it truly exist in their catalog or did they get a gift card to the Discovery Store?

Let's talk to my point of relevancy for this ad and how using credit card points to get a weather balloon is relevant to the average consumer? I dont think it is and this ad is in heavy rotation. I mean "pull on the heartstrings a little" to use points on items that everyday consumers may want like a power tool, dress, jacket, stereo, gift cards, vacations or buy Mom an airline ticket to see her grandchild (that's what I did). Hell use the points to pay down your balance or see if your card allows for donating your points to a charity. Just be relevant.



Also, a BIG pet peeve in the ad is when the guy said, "You bought a weather balloon with points!" The main character says "Yes I did" and they let the balloon go. How staged can Citi Bank get? Nobody would exclaim that to a group. In reality, they would just figure their friend got the balloon, and they'd not be stating the obvious. As in having an itchy feeling in your booty and needing a certain ointment to alleviate the symptoms. Its not like you would exclaim “Hey, I just bought Preparation H for my hemorrhoids with credit card points!” Would you?

After tracking the balloon with a GPS I find it difficult to believe that the camera came down close enough to find after it crash-landed. Plus the images shown seem to be of above the atmosphere. Like you're viewing the Earth from space.

That seems kind of unlikely since the balloon would seemingly pop before it could leave the atmosphere, or that the box and the camera would be burned/melted/destroyed on returning through the atmosphere.

But seriously, I can't imagine anyone over the age of 12 being so enthralled in such a scientific toy. I'm sure these men aren't scientists or weather guys but possibly some geek on the creative team that always wanted a weather balloon.

Real Life "Caddyshack" Moment

Ever have one of those days where life imitates art, or should I say an experience that you swore was written for TV or the movies? Well I have had many, but one recent experience involved a pesky squirrel that has lived the past couple years in a tree in my my backyard. Now I looked past the many times he dug up our plants to bury his nuts or tear through the weed barriers because the mulch was just not good enough to store his nuts, so now we have weeds in our flower beds (again) after all the hard work I put into them last spring. The tormenting he does to our dog Sadie as she looks at him from the window. The peeping tom moments he has done to us in the mornings looking into our windows and so on and so on.

Mr. Squirrel has decided that leaves and twigs were not good enough for his nest so in one day decided to see what else he could find to insulate his nest for the winter. I'm sure he looked long and hard but decided our new patio cushions would be ideal. So in one day he put many holes in all our cushions and found the perfect one to do his worst. Now many of you might ask " how do you know it was a squirrel?" Well I know this because my mother-in-law caught him in the act with his head in the cushion.

After taking a moment to assess the damage my wife decides to text me pictures of his handy work. That was it! I was tired of this squirrel messing with our stuff and time to put an end to it. I asked many of my FaceBook friends for their opinions on how I can eradicate the squirrel from my yard. I received many responses from buying Fox urine, getting a Doberman, BB guns, rat poison (not safe for dogs/cats/baby) to finally hiring Boris and Natasha to do my dirty work.

I decided to go home for my lunch hour and assess the situation and as I stepped out into my backyard there he was taunting me with his squirrel bark. So I decided to do some tree trimming and remove his McMansion of a nest in my tree. As I cut and cut he became very pissed off barking more and more jumping from limb to limb to only watch the branch holding his home fall to the ground. As i picked up the large limb and dragged it to the front of my house to be disposed of I looked up at him and smirked. I said to him "you destroy my cushions I destroy your house...next time I wont be so nice."

Its been a couple days since the cartoony incident but I am pleased to say there are less acorn shells in the yard, dug up potted plants, no sounds of scurrying feet on our roof only peace. Something in the back of my mind says a squirrel retaliation could take place...maybe Caddyshack 2: The Wrath of Squirrel.