My first blog: Battery Commercials

So this is my first blog. I wonder how many blogs have started like that? It seems like that's probably about all you can say to begin your first blog entry. You can't just hop right into it and start posting your thoughts. Actually, I suppose you could since no one actually reads anyone's first blog. It makes me wonder how hard it must be to be a late night talk show host and go on for the first time and introduce yourself to the world who is just waiting for you to deliver your first funny line but still doesn't know enough to understand why you are so self-deprecating when you are tall, handsome, confident and funny enough to have your own show.

I'm really rollin' now! Woooo hooo! Blog!!!!

Actually, what I wanted to talk about in my first blog--the trigger for my blog, if you will--is something that infuriates me more than almost anything else: battery commercials. Every time a battery commercial comes on TV, I want to kill myself. Now I know a lot of people knock the Energizer Bunny for being annoying, but that's not what gets to me. I just don't get the point.

What could there possibly be to say about your batteries that takes 30 seconds of my valuable TV time? There is no way that both Duracel and Energizer can have the best, longest-lasting batteries. One of them has got to be lying, which makes me distrust both of them.

And has anyone ever walked into a drugstore when their remote contol ran out thinking "I am going to go get me some Energizers because the Energizer commercial said they were best!"? Does anyone, when their batteries run out think "Wow. That commercial was right. I remember buying these batteries way back, but they have really lasted. And I feel like my remote control had so much more POWER! I mean, those channels were really changing with a vengeance!"

Actually, now that I have put so much thought into this, I can see a few reasons for advertising if you were a battery company. Most people, while not being loyal to one or the other, usually reach for Duracel or Energizer because they just know those brands from their incessant advertising and their easily recognizeable packaging, but is that really a good reason to buy them? Does simply having recognizable advertising make you a brand that can be trusted? Especially when you've been making all of those claims on your commercial without backing them up with hard evidence?

It must be tough, as an ad man, to get assigned to a battery account. What more could possibly be said? Actually, a lot if you think about it. Why don't battery commerials ever quote accolades from consumer magazines like cars do? That's really all you need to do. Forget about the sound effects, and the overly masculine voiceover. Just give me some stats. Compare your product to your competitor and show me some hard evidence. Laundy detergent commercials do it. Why can't battery commercials? The only logical conclusion is that batteries are pretty much all the same.

Oh, but there are those batteries that tell you how much power is left in them. That's pretty useful if you plan to go hiking at night or something.

They should start putting trivia on batteries like Snapple does. That would get me to buy them. Or maybe batteries that slowly revealed your fortune as they ran out of power.

Anyway, I for one am going to start buying no name batteries and encourage all of my readers to join me. In fact, I have a hunch that all of my readers have already joined me.