You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …

The Product:
Dwell Realty Group

The Promotions:

The Pitch:
Buy a home with us, and you can be just like Greg!
…
Yes, that is supposed to be a good thing.

It’s the default commercial technique: have your characters be extremely enthused about, even downright obsessed with your product, to show that it’s just that good.

It’s such a common technique, plenty of commercials have poked light fun at the trope, getting some humor out of just how odd this product monomania would be in real life. (I was going to reference a previous Ad Space featuring some Zelle commercials that did just that, but apparently Zelle has since made all those videos private, which: booooo!)

That’s clearly what they’re trying to do here … but I think they fumbled the ball. It’s one thing to portray the folks obsessed with your product as a little kooky and strange – it’s a whole ‘nother thing to portray them as insufferable gits no one would want to be around.

I think the problem is that, while most obsessive spokespeople want to share the product they love with as many people as possible, that’s not what our boy Greg is doing. Greg never once says they want to see other people become homeowners – they just want other people to know that Greg is a homeowner, and so must be doing pretty well for themself. Rather than proselytizing for homeownership and Dwell Realty, Greg is instead painted as a braggart who flaunts their special status over everyone else.

I assume (or at least hope) that this would turn off potential customers. But then, maybe there really are a lot of people out there who dream of owning a home so they can then be at least half as obnoxious as Greg. Which, if true, is quite sad (in more ways than one).