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:
Kizik hands-free shoes

The Promotion:

The Pitch:
When we say hands-free, we #*%^ing mean it!

I am torn on this ad.

On the one hand, this style of comedy is right up my alley. Not just the slapstick violence, but slapstick violence that occurs in violation of all logic, laws of physics, or our hero’s best efforts – I’ve loved that sort of thing ever since watching Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner as a kid. Add in a dash of dark comedy (one of those hands pulls a frickin’ knife!), and a Kafkaesque setup where everyone else treats this as normal, it’s something I’d laugh at a lot if it turned up on a sketch comedy show or something like that.

But the thing is, for this sort of comedy, my sympathies are inherently with the person suffering from the slapstick. Sure, I laugh at their suffering, but it’s funny because what they’re enduring is so ridiculously unwarranted.

Which is a problem, because the ad kinda wants you to see this guy as a dope who deserves what they get. They are, after all, failing to embrace Kizik’s revolutionary new technology – Kizik wants to let you know that, if you use your Kiziks the way this schmuck does, you’re doing it wrong.

That adds a sour taste to the whole thing. Hyper-exaggerated victim blaming is only funny if we’re still on the victim’s side – if we’re meant to get in on the victim blaming, it suddenly feels a lot more mean spirited.

I mean, maybe I’m oversensitive to this because I’m also someone who doesn’t embrace every new tech advancement that comes along. Like, I’d love the option to just plug my printer into my computer, rather than having to set up a wifi connection, and I wish TVs still had buttons on them in case the remote stops working – but the companies decided those are too low-tech to bother with anymore.

So this guy, trying to put their shoes on by hand, even if new technology makes hands unnecessary: I feel ’em. Which means this ad from Kizik feels like …

… well, a slap in the face.