Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Bullseye

If you've been watching tv the past few weeks, you may have come across a few clever ads for Lexus. The first one I saw was the commercial where the girl talks about her Xmas pony. Personally, I could never related to liking horses, but it was cute.

The next commercial I happened to see showed a kid staying up all night playing with his new Atari 2600. It made me think about all the times I went over to my friend's house to play with her big brother's Atari. We played a lot of Space Invaders, Adventure, Tank Battle, and Pacman. I didn't get to own a video game system of my own until college.

The third commercial shows a boy riding around the house on his Big Wheel. This one probably hit home more for me. While I don't actually remember receiving my big wheel, I certainly remember riding it around the neighborhood. I remember turning it upside down and to make it into a spinning wheel against which I could make noises with sticks and leaves. The commercials Mattel used to run showed kids who could do cool spins with the brake handle. I could never manage to repeat that cool stunt.

These Lexus commercials have been playing for awhile now. The local tv station ran a news segment about how car sales have plummeted except for Lexus. The dealership manager credits the recent commercials for increasing sales. I have to credit Lexus and their ad agency for a job well done that really played to people's happy memories.

The other night, the Big Wheel commercial played again. For some reason, it really hit me that these marketers are targeting my age group. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just weird how obvious this is. I can't help laugh. It's like when those Time-Life commercials try to sell you "Hits from the '80s" and you realize you've reached that age that you made fun of 20 years ago. I just can't believe it's that time already.

Do you suppose kids under 18 have any appreciation for these gems of childhood? I guess they didn't include Rubik's cube because it's not a big ticket toy. What are THE toys people will remember 30 years from now? I think the Wii would replace the Atari. Other than that, I don't have any good guesses.

My "toy" this Xmas? I have a beautiful KitchenAid Professional 600 Stand Mixer sitting on my counter (bought on sale).

1 comment:

teahouse said...

Oooh, KitchenAid mixer!! We regisered for one for our wedding and got it from a dear friend. But we went for the Artisan, not quite the professional. It's a dream!