Credit where credit is due

A lot of people who have visited this site recently have done so by searching for the Overstock.com ad which I talked about a few weeks ago. It was one of our most heavily-read and heavily-commented-upon posts, and, to put it mildly, not everyone who read it agreed with my assessment of it. So, to show you that I don't just have a bias against Southerners, here is the latest ad in Overstock's Joey and Rory series, which I thought was much better and which I will not be snarky about.



This is a significant improvement over the other ad, for any number of reasons.

1. Joey and Rory are not allowed to talk.
Whoops, already broke my vow of non-snarkiness. But seriously, though - by avoiding things like the awkward phone conversation at the beginning of the other ad, this one stays much more on message.

2. The premise is much better integrated with the Overstock brand.
In the other ad, as I noted, the Overstock branding really doesn't have a lot to do with the plot. By comparison, the plot of this ad involves buying presents for friends, and suggests that Overstock.com is a good place to do that. That's a lot better than just the purchase of a single guitar (which, by the way, Rory is not playing in this ad, proving that he already owned a guitar and rendering the other ad even stupider in hindsight).

3. Overstock.com takes credit for something they can realistically take credit for.
In the other ad, Overstock basically implies that they have something to do with Joey and Rory being in love, which is clearly a ridiculous reach. In this ad, the only thing Overstock is really taking credit for is facilitating Joey's generosity, which strikes me as a perfectly reasonable thing to claim.

4. The song is much, much more appealing.
Possibly because Joey and Rory did not write it. (Oops. Sorry again. It's hard to just turn off.)

So, there you have it. A solid Overstock.com ad that I did not have problems with, that features Joey and Rory in their down-home milieu. Everyone who suggested that I have something against the South is hereby instructed to get off my case. I do have one complaint about this ad, though - where the hell is Rufus? How could we not get a scene where someone unwraps a chew toy and gives it to him? Maybe it's in a 60-second version somewhere. Rufus' fans demand it.