She aches just like a woman, but she breaks just like a GPS

Guys, you can stop wondering. The mystery of what women want has been solved... by Jared.



That's right: women want diamonds. All women. In fact, even GPS devices, which lack a gender aside from the sex of the person who recorded their canned audio tracks, want diamonds, provided you've got the female voice setting on. I guess if this guy had the male voice switched on it would have demanded he go out for brewskis and presented directions to the nearest bar. Because in ad world, every member of a group is exactly the same, even when that member is not even a person and therefore not even actually a member of the group in question.

GPS: "Navigation system activated. Oh, look - he went to Jared."
Guy: "Ex... cuse me?"

That is also the reaction I would have if my GPS started talking in sentient fashion. Fair enough so far... I guess.

GPS: "What's in the bag, Dave?"

How did the GPS know his name? (I know, it's a reference to 2001, please don't tell me how I missed the joke in the comments.) Come to think of it, how does the GPS know what Jared is? How is the GPS capable of "seeing" objects in the car? Also, we can see in the next shot that the GPS's perspective is aimed at Dave's face. How did it even see the bag?

I know, I know - these are trifling questions, really. But I can't stand commercials that refuse to stand on even the smallest shred of believability. If I can't trust the agency to have thought of obvious things in the plot - such as why, for even one second, it would matter whether or not a reindeer had a "map" - why should I buy into what they're selling? Isn't the whole point of most television commercials to present a short story that in some way indicates why I would want a product?

Dave: "A diamond necklace?"
GPS: "May I see it?"

Women! Right? Even when it's not really a woman! It's a piece of machinery, but it has a woman's voice, and therefore it has the craven desire for expensive jewelry of which all women are possessed!

Dave: "Uh, can I just get directions, please?"

Okay, where is this guy going that he even needs the GPS? He's buying a diamond necklace at Jared, at - according to the GPS's screen - 12:23 pm. He's wearing a shirt and tie, which means it's probably a weekday and he came from work. So... he probably has to go back to work! Does he really need directions to retrace the exact path he already took to get to the Jared in the first place? Also, if he had to ask directions to get to the Jared, shouldn't the GPS already have known where he was going?

GPS: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
[doors lock]

Because GPS systems are wired directly into a car's power locks, too. Also, does the GPS realize it can be turned off via a button on the front? This isn't exactly Dave Bowman floating around in HAL's core here. On the bright side, if you're this dude, looks like you just found yourself a way to get your GPS to give it up.

Voiceover: "The Hearts Desire collection at Jared uses only ideal-cut diamonds, to best see the diamonds' true inner fire."

Um, what? This is some grade-A diamond-merchant bullshit, right here. "True inner fire?" I know, that's a technical diamond term... which the diamond people conjured up in an attempt to ascribe passion and emotion to a fucking piece of rock. I hate everything about this. It's light reflecting. Since when is that worth thousands of dollars? How about we just go outside and I'll spray the garden hose in the direction of a light source? It's real purty.

Also, Hearts Desire! Diamonds aren't just "a girl's best friend," they're her "heart's desire" - literally what she truly loves, wants and needs. She doesn't love you - she loves the expensive diamond jewelry your masculine earning power can provide! Even if "she" is a normally inanimate piece of machinery.

Dave: "Now can we go?"
GPS [with the necklace draped over it]: "Oh, Dave. You shouldn't have."

Later, the GPS gave Dave the best blow job he'd ever had. The end.

"You shouldn't have?" He didn't! That necklace isn't for you, GPS. (Good thing he bought a necklace, too, since most other common types of jewelry wouldn't fit on a GPS.) What am I supposed to come out of this ad thinking? That when I walk out of a Jared holding a bag I will instantly be mauled by every woman in the vicinity, each desperate to be the recipient of the shiny, shiny rocks I just purchased? Will empty cars, steered by female-voiced GPS systems, follow me through the parking lot? Because hey - if it looks or sounds female, it's a woman, and if it's a woman, it wants diamonds. And how do we know that? Because companies trying to sell diamonds keep telling us. Makes sense to me!

What's a five-letter word for "Maker of obnoxious ads?"

A certain jewelry store's catchphrase is starting to become synonymous with everything that's annoying about the diamond industry. Unless you're that jewelry store, in which you'd like us to think people drop it regularly in conversations.



Woman 1: "So, how was last night?"
Woman 2: "Just a sec. What's a thirteen-letter phrase for 'marriage proposal?'"

"Hang on while, rather than answer your question, I do something stupid and gimmicky." Although doesn't she kind of ruin the surprise by actually saying "marriage proposal" here? Wouldn't virtually any person on the planet be tipped off by that? Not her friend, apparently.

Woman 1: [sounding bored, and rightfully so] "I have absolutely no idea."

You sure don't.

Woman 2: "Ooh, wait, I've got it! He went... to... Jared!" [holds up ring]
Woman 1: "He went to..." [sees ring] "He went to Jared!"
[wild celebration ensues]

The important thing is not that he proposed, or how he did it, or how romantic it was. It's the name of the jewelry store he went to. This is not how anyone actually behaves in real life, is it? Do you know people who are more excited by the provenance of a ring than its method of delivery?

This is a bad commercial (series of commercials) for one of two reasons, although I'm not entirely sure which. Reason one is that Jared is suggesting that this is how women actually behave, that they are more concerned with a ring's quality than anything else about the proposal. In other words, that women as a gender are money-grubbing whores. More to the point, it wants men to see the ad and think, "See, look how excited your girlfriend will be if you buy the ring at Jared!" Never mind that that's total bullshit in real life and that any woman who does flip the box over to see where the ring came from should immediately be dumped.

Reason two is the idea that Jared is actually trying to make "He went to Jared!" happen as an alternate for "He asked me to marry him!" Like, they want women to start telling their friends about their engagement by announcing that "He went to Jared!" That's terrible. I mean, it's not going to happen, but ew. The very fact that they're going for it repulses me. The "I take it you told her" line does a lot to sell this one, since I have to assume the guy is talking about their engagement and not that he went to Jared specifically.

I think it's probably a mixture. As we've seen in previous Jared ads, their thesis is basically that marriage proposals mean jack squat unless "he went to Jared." So it's not like it's all about how much the ring cost per se (he didn't go to Tiffany, after all), but it's certainly not about the proposal itself. How much do you think they would love it if the following happened?

Woman 1: Oh my God, Jeff is the sweetest. He met me yesterday after work and we went for a stroll in the park before sunset.
Woman 2: Yawn.
Woman 1: Then, we went out for a romantic dinner at my favorite restaurant in the city.
Woman 2: Big deal.
Woman 1: And then, it turned out he had brought the car downtown, and we took a moonlit drive up the coast with the top down!
Woman 2: What has two thumbs and is super bored by this story? This girl.
Woman 1: Then finally he pulled off at this scenic view, with the moon reflecting on the ocean, and he asked me to marry him! It was the best night of my life.
Woman 2: Snooze.
Woman 1: Oh, and uh... he went to Jared.
Woman 2: ZOMG [series of high-pitched squeals almost inaudible to the human ear]
Woman 1: I'm really lucky, aren't I?
Woman 2: Oh my God, you totally are. I mean, Jared.
Woman 1: The rest of it was pretty good t-
Woman 2: JARED.

That should probably be their next ad, come to think of it.