A TV ad for Viagra that features a printing plant has been getting plenty of air time during World Series broadcasts – and stirring up lots of questions.
What exactly is Viagra trying to tell us – that the printing industry is inhabited mostly by old guys who, how shall we say, suffer from slow makereadies? Is the ad making a subtle reference to the industry’s limp profits in this age of digital media and online bill payment.
The ad takes place at the “K.L. Printing” plant, with the focus on a guy running a Heidelberg sheetfed press. He’s your typical star of an erectile dysfunction ad – a slightly over-the hill guy with a gleam in his eye and a bit of a lone-wolf swagger. And played by an actor who probably doesn’t know his fountain solution from a fountain soda.
Why show a printing plant rather than a more generic-looking factory?
And here's the real mystery: What is it about being a pressman that causes our handsome-but-not-too-handsome star to need Viagra? Dead Tree Edition hopes to clear up this mystery by offering a few theories (with some explanatory links for those of you who aren't printing geeks):
- He needed more bulk and stiffness in his sheets.
- The plant had produced a mail piece that had failed the Postal Service’s droop test.
- The excitement had gone out of K.L. ever since they fired the strippers – when the prepress department went all digital.
- His butt roll got caught in a tail clamp, though I’m not exactly sure how taking Viagra would solve that problem.
- The press’s low-rub ink was rubbing him the wrong way.
- Maybe it had something to do with blow-ins, but I’ll leave it at that.
Related articles:
No comments:
Post a Comment