AD-versity

Mad Men, hell! This is one Mad Woman, and it's all about the blitz of hideous commercials on TV in the opening days of 2010. I was so sure that nothing could rival the horrors of 2009's Adderol-crazed soccer mom driving a minivan full of cringing kids to Friendly's Ice Cream, and Campbell's gag-inducing single-serving soup ads featuring a blandly handsome young man who seemed to be having an erotic relationship with his soup cup in office settings, moaning with pleasure into the cup that he never detached from his lips. Already I'm wrong.

I'm not a huge fan of the big networks, but I do like the Discovery Channel, and the History Channel, and Goddess knows, the Home and Garden Channel. These rely on advertising just as much as the big guys, so there's no escaping the ghastly commercials I have in mind. The thing that totally bitches me off is that both firms are respected global corporations who can - and have - done so much better. What madness has caused these idiotic lapses?

Let's start with Ikea. Their ads have often been so hip they've gone viral, but I doubt their Winter Sale 2010 will ever make it to YouTube. It shows a suburban front lawn with father and kid. Suddenly, the massive cab of an 18-wheeler jumps the curb and comes to a stop mid-lawn, air horn blaring. The open sides of the trailer reveal that it's packed with boxes labelled "Ikea." The crazed woman at the wheel of the rig shrieks "they were having a sale!!!" As Hubs and Sonny watch in drop-jawed bewilderment, their wife/mother jumps out of the truck and takes off running, yelling "I'm going back for more!!!"

Just when I thought that the "Harriet Housewife's Hallucination" school of advertising had finally been laid to rest, Ikea resurrects it from its mouldy crypt. My objection to this genre is its complete disrespect for the potential customer. It's not just the brainless characters; it's the superliminal message of MASS CONSUMPTION - buy buy buy, and then go back for more, whether you need it or not. Query - isn't the recession still around?

Here's where my Lean Six Sigma training kicks in. In L6S, quality and value are determined by meeting or exceeding the customer's requirements and delivering the product when the customer wants it, at a price the customer is willing to pay, a concept known as the Voice of the Customer (VOC). This commercial has nothing to say about providing value to the customer, and actually depicts the consumer as a complete moron. So much for the Voice of the Customer. No sale, Ikea!

The mention of Lean Six Sigma brings up the other offender on my hit list, the mighty Toyota Motor Company. Sakichi Toyoda, his son Kiichiro, the legendary Taiichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingo are pioneers and patriarchs of the Lean movement in manufacturing. In founding Toyota Motor Company and developing the world-class Toyota Production System, they set global standards for the elimination of waste and flowing value to the consumer. No need to go over Toyota's many successes, or even their recent voluntary recalls - they "manned up" and did it right.

But the 2010 Toyotathon commercial conveys a simplistic, almost smug message. It features Punk'd regular Gabe Tigerman being outcompeted at the Toyotathon starting buzzer in a sort of musical chairs game played with showroom cars. Rabid customers dive through open moon roofs and side windows, leaving him standing rideless, whining peevishly that "I didn't get one . . .?" The whine trails off on a rising note, warning that somebody better fix this right now, or else. Mercifully, the ad only has a couple of days left to deliver its snarky message: "We're popular, you're entitled, get some."

Every time I hear that whine, most of the voices in my head scream "Slap him! Hard!"