I once had to create a fake ad about a fake product for one of my grade school classes. I remember taking a box of Bisquick, wrapping it up in plain paper, and drawing on it my own logo and box design for a made-up cereal. Then I stood up in class and came up with an impromptu spiel to try and sell the darn thing.

It was fun but pointless. I never would have done it if it hadn’t been an assignment.

Human Encyclopedia, however, used to work for an ad agency, and he’s had to come up with a lot of ads for TV, radio, print, etc. He could brainstorm a brilliant ad (or ten) in a matter of minutes, and he could get it all to you—comp roughed, edited, and produced—in a matter of days. He did this for a living, and he was good at it.

But he was like that proverbial bus driver who rides the bus on his holiday; he and his cohorts would come up with fake ads during their lunch breaks and nights out, too.

For instance, tagline for a fake full service funeral home? All you have to do is die.

Or imagine this:
He’s holding up a big new roll of papertowels and calling it the one-time-use tampon, good for the full month, one size fits all. Then he rams that roll up in the air and says in the TV broadcast voice that commercial actors use, “Stick it up there with confidence!”

He no longer works for an ad agency, but he’ll still do this. He’ll make up ads out of the blue for silly fake products. Or he’ll elaborate on an existing ad—a TV commercial for a pharmaceutical product, for instance.

His well trained TV broadcast voice will boom, “May cause sudden death.”

*Sigh*

This is why advertising doesn’t work on me any more. I always think it’s fake.

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