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:
Progressive insurance

The Promotions:

The Pitch:
If you don’t have Progressive, you must be an asshole. It’s the only explanation we can think of.

Commercials must tread a thin line when depicting people who are not (yet) customers for the sponsored product. On the one hand, you obviously want to portray these people as unhappy, ignorant, and incomplete – without your product in their lives, they can’t possibly be a well-adjusted person or a functional member of society, that’s why they need to buy it. On the other hand, people who have yet to buy your product are exactly the people commercials need to appeal to, and those folks might not take it kindly if you depict them as pathetic losers.

Most commercials walk that line by portraying non-customers as simply uninformed – they’ve never heard how awesome the product in question is, and will hop right on it once your spokesman shows them the light. Most commercials walk that line – but these Progressive commercials not only cross the line, but drop a steaming turd on the line as they hop, skip, and jump into the sunset.

The message of these ads is, if you don’t have Progressive insurance, you must be a deeply bitter person, consumed by jealousy for Progressive customers, causing you to lash out in unpleasant, passive aggressive ways. The idea being, people don’t want to think of themselves as such a person, so they should get Progressive to keep from becoming that.

But the thing is, people don’t want to think of themselves as such a person, but you’re telling them they are such a person. Most folks’ reaction to that isn’t going to be, “Oh God, you’re right – show me how to fix myself!” It’s gonna be, “What? I’m not like that! Screw you all, I’m getting Liberty Mutual. Limu Emu doesn’t judge me, unlike some commercials.”