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:
Dave banking app

The Promotion:
(again, no embeds this time – please follow the link)
“Gas Prices”

The Pitch:
Listen to the naked guy and the talking bear.

This ad … this ad bugs me.

Dave has released several commercials in this format, where someone strapped for cash meets themself from the future, who (with the help of Dave) “can get you up to five hundred dollars of your future money”. Or, put less colorfully, loan you five hundred dollars that you have to pay back to Dave later.

These ads are mostly cute, funny, and harmless, and from the little I’ve read about the Dave banking app, they seem like a legit enough business. But this specific ad?

They establish at the beginning that this guy is so broke, they can’t even afford to fill up their car with gas. But then the closing joke is that, immediately after borrowing some money, they decide to check into a nudist resort. A resort that, I have to assume, costs a fair bit of money – they’re not giving those volleyballs and wifi away for nothing.

That is, just, gross financial irresponsibility!

I mean, I don’t want to shame people for how they live their lives, but if you’re living paycheck to paycheck (and sometimes not even managing that) like the guy in the ad seems to? And your first act after borrowing some money is to head to a pricey vacation destination? Then you are digging yourself into a financial hole that you’ll probably never be able to climb your way out of.

And your banking app is encouraging this.

Part of me wants to give Dave the benefit of the doubt and say they just wanted the guy from the future to be naked, because naked people are funny, and didn’t think about the logic behind the nudist resort line. But when your main business is lending people money, it feels super sketchy to encourage people to view these loans more as free money to be spent frivolously, guaranteeing they’ll need to keep on borrowing from you once their next set of bills comes due.

Not a good look, Dave. Not a good look.