This is the story of a king and a clown..

Anyone recall the "good 'ol days" of advertising? When the sole purpose of the advertisement was to show how much better your product was than your competitor's? The Whopper beat the Big Mac in taste tests. Diet Coke has fewer calories than Diet Pepsi. Energizer batteries last longer than Duracell.

Nowadays I can't seem to get a bead on what certain commercials are trying to say. The concept seems to be the same, but the execution is unclear. For example, a commercial for Diet Pepsi that I've seen a few times recently. We're shown a convenience store closing, and loud music playing. In the refrigerator, the Diet Cokes and Gatorades are complaining about the music. Then we see the Diet Pepsis "dancing" to the music, and one can eventually jumps out the door, lands on the ground, and continues "dancing." One of the Pepsi cans comments, "I love it when he does that." The ad then ends with a Diet Pepsi logo.

Huh?

This convinces me to buy Diet Pepsi how? "Give me a Diet Pepsi, 'cause their cans party hard!" *scratches head* We've got Sonic and their two annoying people saying how they've got stuff that other restaurants don't.. and every cell phone provider contradicting each other about various charges. Burger King seems to think that a creepy plastic King stalking people in their homes will get us to buy some Croissanwiches. Pizza makers give us gimmicky new pizzas every other month ("our new pizza is made entirely out of cheese! Even the crust!") to try to hook us.

Advertisers seem to just assume we want their products. What happened to working for it? Honestly, who would like to see a return to commercials where the only goal is to humiliate and discredit your opponent? I'd personally like to see that creepy Burger King guy hanging outside a person's house, only to have a cop jump him, pound on him awhile with a nightstick, then turn to the camera, take a giant bite out of a Big Mac, and say "I'm lovin' it!"