Now there’s a subject header that’s guaranteed to brighten your day. Has there ever, in all of human history, been an occasion when someone mentioned prostates, and people were all yeah, and great, and that’s the stuff! I’m sure most people, especially men, when they hear the word – prostate – they immediately start thinking about anything else, like if the Star Trek theme song ever had words, what would they be, or is beer better in bottle or cans? Well, perhaps that’s just me. Anyway, mention prostates and pretty much every man on the planet will be off looking for alternative things to do, like mowing the backyard.
So, back to this prostate thing, which I never actually left, it’s just time for a new paragraph. Prostates are not something I’ve given much, if any thought to, because as I declared previously, I’ll do pretty much anything to avoid the subject. I personally ascribe to the theory, based on rigorous scientific analysis, that if one’s prostate is not actually swollen to humongous size, incredibly painful, or leaking strange fluids, it should be left the hell alone. No use borrowing trouble, is there? But last week I got an insert advertisement (and here you have to say it like a Brit, ad-VERT-is-ment) in my latest shipment of fine cigars (limited to one a week on the theory, almost certainly false, that moderation means I won’t end up with swollen, painful, leaky organs). Ads in purchased products aren’t unusual, but this one was so barefaced, I thought it deserved a callout.
There’s a picture of a guy on a golf cart with a nice big stogie clenched in his teeth. He’s wearing those madras shorts that scream, ‘I’m a regular guy, even though I’m smoking a cigar and golfing while you’re back at home mowing the lawn or fixing a leaky gutter, cause I have people to do those things’. At the bottom of the picture is the tag line “Churchill or Petite Corona: What Size Cigar Can You Enjoy Before You Have To ‘Go’ Again?”
Now, I think I speak for all men when I say, we all know what ‘Go’ means. We don’t normally have much on the uptake, but in this case we get it.
This is marketing genius at a wholly new level of badness. Look at what the ad is saying: You buy cigars, so you have money. The model is in Bermuda shorts, in a golf cart, and to top it off, his hair is thinning a bit. This isn’t a twenty something hipster. This is a middle-aged guy, who is just like you, because we’re all middle aged once we pass the fortieth birthday till we get somewheres north of a hundred and twenty. Middle-aged guys buy cigars, and middle-aged guys have prostate problems. I’m quite impressed to see something so blatantly targeted, especially at my demographic (the middle age thing – not the moneyed thing), considering most people in the marketing profession seem to think that after the age of forty, us fogies only buy Depends and orthopedic inserts. I AM NOT A NUMBER, I AM A FREE MAN! No idea why I threw that in there, but a shout out to The Prisoner is never amiss.
What next – inserts in the glove boxes of new Cadillacs for trusses, cause real old guys buy Caddies, and they often need ‘support’? Or, brochures in the seat pockets of your new Gulfstream jet with the URL for a site that offers dates with Russian hotties, since guys who buy business jets are probably in the market for another trophy wife? Mind, boggling.