Relative Something

I give up. I am powerless against their dominance. It is obvious that I am not in control. I never was. It has all been a facade. I’ve fooled myself to think otherwise. I am but a lowly minion to the all-powerful ad agencies of the world. I may not buy what they are selling, but I am helpless against their wily craft of getting my attention.

When I heard the song being used for a television ad recently, my attention was immediately wrenched, without my permission, from whatever it was I had been paying attention to prior. I had no intention of giving one iota of attention to a commercial. Next, I found myself lost in a fruitless search of my feeble memory to figure out why the sounds I had heard in that commercial were tugging so strongly on my heart-strings.

It took several similar re-enactments of this scene before Cyndie or I were aware enough to actually notice what company the commercial was selling. I had my doubts, but Cyndie appeared confident as she searched for the song in the Travelers Insurance commercial with the Lego people. I swore that it had to be something from my childhood. I was right.

I found it interesting that the answer was easy to find in the multiple results that appeared from other people who had already searched for the very same thing. And no wonder. Some brilliant ad agency had used a classic BBC Radio theme, Puffin’ Billy, the same song used for the children’s television series, Captain Kangaroo.

I bow to their prowess, but I think dredging for long-forgotten childhood memories is a pretty shallow victory for advertisers to claim.