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:
Vrbo house rentals

The Promotion:
Watch on YouTube here

The Pitch:
We guarantee an … adequate vacation.

Okay, I’ve never used Vrbo or Airbnb or any of the other vacation house rental services, so I’ll ask you all: are the standards for them really this low?

This Vrbo ad flat out admits that, yeah, there’s a good chance the house you rent will have busted appliances, missing features, or otherwise not live up to how it was advertised. But if that happens, we can move you to a different house that isn’t a piece of shit!

Like, is that really a selling point? Isn’t that just fulfilling the bare minimum of their contract with the consumer?

And even when the family in the commercial switches to a better Vrbo house, we’re shown they’re still not gonna have a good vacation, because they’ve still brought all their unpleasant family baggage with them. Vrbo doesn’t bother trying to sell you on the fantasy of the perfect vacation – instead it’s simply making the best of a bad situation.

Are they trying to win some points for refreshing honesty? Or are people’s experiences with vacation rentals usually so bad, this still comes across as better than the average?