Lately, I’ve seen commercials for Southern Comfort which annoy the crap out of me. The visuals aren’t the problem: Thirty seconds of kaleidoscopic images of silhouettes, bottles of booze, and shiny things. But that’s accompanied by voice clips of people pretending to be in a bar and ordering the advertised brand of alcohol, but in a way that grates on my nerves: Lots of people saying “I’ll have a SoCo” and “Make mine a SoCo with lime” and “Let’s start with SoCo with lime.” I suppose that the commercial is intended to make me believe that Beautiful People just love to drink Southern Comfort (with lime, it seems); so much so that they feel able to casually refer to it as SoCo, and expect to be understood. Maybe this is common, and really does happen in hip and trendy bars. What I’m picturing, though, is a bunch of assholes ordering asshole drinks for themselves and their asshole companions.
Given that, it's probably no surprise that I hate the marketing crap designed to make me think that it’s common and acceptable for someone to have a good-willed familiarity with a brand such that they give it a nickname (or use the nickname that they’ve heard the other assholes use). I’m hardly the target market for this advertisement, but it has solidly fixed “SoCo with lime” in my mind as an alcoholic beverage of choice for asshole poseurs.
Another annoying name-shortening that bugs me is the use of “CoCo” to refer to Contra Costa County. “CoCo” is a name that an 85-year-old grandmother with a fondness for knitted shawls gives to her Shih Tzu. I don’t have a deeply-held, secret love for Contra Costa County; I just think that CoCo sounds stupid. It sounds like something an annoyingly chipper real estate agent would say (through her caked-on makeup and with a strained smile, just before she goes into the back room to down a handful of Percoset).
Maybe it’s also because “CoCo” just doesn’t fit. “CoCo” sounds, as I said, stupid. And frivolous. It hardly describes a county that encompasses Walnut Creek, Danville, Richmond, and Concord. Those aren’t frivolous towns: They’re boring towns. Boring, suburban, thousands-of-houses-that-look-alike towns. Where, of course, you’re extremely likely to find extremely annoying real estate agents who insist on calling it CoCo County.
At least that’s just a county, a geographic and political entity that’s in the public realm. It’s the Manufactured Goodwill marketing-based focus group false familiarity that I really hate. “MickeyD’s” is a great example of that. Yes, let’s make McDonald’s out to be the same as a friendly acquaintance, even a good buddy that you have a cute nickname for. McDonald’s might be a massive, faceless entity (well, ok, a massive, scary clown faced entity), but MickeyD’s is that neat little diner on the corner. Every corner, true, but that just makes it even more friendly. MickeyD’s isn’t the sort of place that serves fat-fried fat, and certainly not the sort of place that’s responsible for large-scale destruction of the rainforest, and the spearhead of American global hegemony. I’m going to rush out and crusade against McDonald’s, I’m just pointing out that the manufactured familiarity would seem to be an attempt by the company to make it seem like a friendly, place-you-love-to-eat sort of place, and distancing itself from its own baggage is a bonus.
Plus, I have a knee jerk against attempts to force this kind of crap on the public. The company (the evil, faceless Company) wants people to love its product. Fair enough, that’s what advertising is about. They (the advertisers and the foul, soulless, pustulent marketing drones) want you to feel good about their product, to think about it in friendly, happy, approving ways. Apple, of course, goes for the “We’re insanely cool. So goddamn cool. You aren’t nearly as cool as we are, but some of our cool might rub off onto you if you buy enough of our products and join our cult.” But “MickeyD’s”? It’s McDonald’s! It’s painfully unhip, and uncool, and the people working there probably hate their jobs and hate you, too. They aren’t your friends. Or, if they are, then the best that you can expect is a bit less spittle on your hamburger.
On the other hand, at least you don’t have to worry about standing behind people with perfect hair ordering a Big Mac with Lime. See? See that? I’m more annoyed by a brand of liqueur than I am about a huge, world-destroying fast food chain. That’s the power of advertising, I suppose.