American Express recently released a commercial featuring sketch comedian Carrie Brownstein, star of Portlandia, that is basically mocking cardholders.
The ad goes through a serious of “humorous” situations where Carrie is supposed to be showing the viewer how she gets to be whomever she wants to be. As a viewer, we are supposed to understand that by using American Express, we can be whomever we want to be just like Carrie.
But here’s the problem: each character that Carrie role plays is a mockery of real people.
For example, Carrie first shows a business person requesting a “template of a template.” Not too harsh but very stereotypical and ironic since Amex heavily targets business owners. She also shows a flighty musician playing literally hundreds of meters of music to the dismay of the other musicians. She depicts a hipster excited to find an album only to eat it because hipsters are weird.
Those are the mild ones.
What’s not shown in this version is a mother of an overweight child buying two huge, I mean huge, jars of peanut butter. It’s supposed to be funny because the child wants four jars but mom says no because two jars for the fat kid is quite enough.
I’m sorry but that’s insensitive and offensive.
Maybe you think I’m alone on this, but here’s a comment from YouTube.
If this was a commercial about an ordinary person, you’d want to smack the shit out of them for being so entitled and obnoxious. contact your advertising firm american express.
Now, you might disagree…
You might say, “Well, this is just funny.” Which I understand that argument.
But think about the American Express brand and what it stands for. It’s all about supporting small businesses and consumers. This commercial, in my opinion, is off brand. Rather than being supportive it’s poking fun at cardholders.
So even if it’s all in good fun, that doesn’t mean it’s on brand.