Well Done, Nissan

In less than an hour, you managed to make sure that I will never, ever buy one of your cars for as long as I live. That's like some kind of land speed record, but for assholes.

I watched the Heroes season premiere with "limited commercial interruption" last night. In this case, "limited commercial interruption" is a phrase that means "three nearly identical Nissan ads in a row at every commercial break". I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if you are going to buy all of the ads during a television program, you may want to make sure that you have more than one ad to run. Unless you enjoy alienating and enraging your target audience. But, you know, whatever, I'm sure you know what you're doing.

Here's the thing about the ad that grieves me the most: it wasn't the constant repetition, it was the music. They used the Clash. Yeah, really, the Clash. And not just the Clash, but probably my favorite Clash song ever. Their cover of Pressure Drop is just a little bit sublime.

If I know one thing about the Clash, it's that they pretty much formed their band to sell midrange SUVs from a third-string Japanese car company. Wait, strike that. I meant that they pretty much didn't form their band to... you know the rest.

If I know one thing about me, and I'm one of the leading experts in the field of knowing things about me, it's that nothing pisses me off like using a song that I like to try to sell me crap that I don't want.

It's weird. I like companies that suck up to me by making special, soccer-themed advertisements to try to sell me things at half time during a soccer game (but woe betide if you should ever interrupt a game, even if you're a president, and you just fucking died. Asshole. Die on your own time. I digress...) Where was I? Soccer ads. Love 'em. If you're a beer or TV company or a bank and you come up with some lame ass way to show that you made your ad specifically to suck up to me during my soccer time, I'll at least give you a little credit for trying. But the second you try to suck up to me by co-opting a song that I like, your ass is grass. And I, as the kids say, am the lawnmower.

Metaphorically speaking, of course. I'm not actually a lawnmower per se.

So, just to recap: on the off chance that I might, someday, after some kind of head injury, decide to buy an SUV, perhaps because I've decided that I need a new way to look like an asshole; and further assuming that I have, as a complication from this head injury, decided that I should go with a company primarily known for being a foreign car company that isn't Honda, Toyota, or Mitsubishi; you can rest assured that I'll be looking for some kind of Skoda SUV before I'll consider your stupid little sports utility car and it'll be this commercial's fault.

Bite me.