Television has been dumbing down its content for years to keep up with a dumbing population. The makers of an ad for Plavix(R), a clot prevention prescription product of Bristol-Myers Squibb, recently changed their commercial to point out more clearly what the drug does.
In an animation of blood platelets traveling through your bloodstream, the white platelets of an unhealthy person at risk for heart attack start to stick together and form a clot. New signage in the animation actually draw lines to point out that the funny-looking white stuff blocking the blood flow is a “CLOT.” Duh.
Did anybody actually write in to the manufacturer to complain that they didn’t know what they were seeing? Has anybody out there actually not been able to figure out that they were looking at a sample of what happens when a clot forms?
Commercials can often talk down to viewers, and that immediately loses my attention. If you want to sell me on a product, just keep it to-the-point. I see how I can get a clot, I see that if the platelets don’t get sticky I won’t get a clot. Simple.
The object of enlightening an audience is to peak the curiosity of some while holding the attention of the rest. Making an ad that panders to those with a 5th grade education won’t get anybody anywhere. We need to bring back the 1960s, when Hitchcock wasn’t afraid to put a collegiate vocabulary into his movies and television treated viewers as if they actually had a brain.
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