Broadcast: 1 October 2012
Program: Katie
Channel: ABC
Conglomerate: Disney
Advertiser: Home Goods
Owned By: TJX Companies
Pitch: Home furnishings will make you (the homemaker and mommy) happy, happy, happy.
Commercial jingles are something of a lost art. With the rise of licensed music, hyper fast visual cuts, and other modern sensory bombardment techniques, the days of catchy little ditties letting you know that everyone loves a Slinky or extolling you to be an Oscar Mayer wiener have largely fallen by the wayside. This generic ad for Home Goods is, unwittingly, a good example of how far the technique has fallen.
The ad opens with a tastefully dressed woman contemplating the inherent joy of ceramics:
Five dollar plates that match my outfit? Oh, glorious day!
From there we’re treated to a quick montage of very well furnished tables:
While we pass through several such photogenic spreads, and with backing music that almost qualifies as ragtime, a very enthusiastic female voice sings:
Forget your troubles, come on get happy
We’re gonna chase all your cares away
Come to Home Goods, come on get happy
Find what you love for less today
And here we can see how far the jingle has fallen. Whereas most commercial jingles tend toward the playful, there’s nothing particularly fun about any of this other than the music. Indeed, the lyrics alone read an awful lot like orders: “forget”, “find”, “come to”, and two “get happy”s.
Setting aside the question of whether or not plates, glasses and stylish cheese knives can actually make a person “happy”, there is something undeniably creepy about demanding that your potential customers “get happy” before they visit your store. It’s like telling someone to smile when they don’t feel like it, or forcing everyone to think happy thoughts, the end result is much more “do as we say” not “do as you feel”.
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