Friday, August 22, 2008

Annoying Edison radio spot

There is a radio spot that comes on every day during my morning commute. It's been driving me crazy. I used to change the station as soon as I heard it, but it's still there, won't go away. So now I am on the offensive. I am going to break it down, put it out there, and see if anyone else finds it as annoying as I do.

Here is what it says:
Support for KPCC comes from Southern California Edison. Electricity is different from other things we use. It can’t be stored and it must be used wisely, but we can’t do without it completely. Electricity is a special form of energy that brings us light, comfort, and progress.

I find it extremely annoying for these reasons:
  1. It's read by one of those annoyingly bright and wholesome girl-next-door voices.
  2. The grammar is annoying. Why is it "BUT we can't do without it completely" instead of "and"? There is nothing in that third clause that contradicts the first part of the sentence.
  3. "Light, comfort, and progress" is an annoying sequence of words.
  4. Come to think of it, it's as if someone just took a list of things they wanted to say about electricity, and just strung it all together in an atrociously written paragraph. ie. Things to Convey about Electricity in the KPCC radio spot: a) different, b) storage issues, c) responsibility, d) necessary, e) light, f) comfort, g) progress.
  5. Seriously, try listening to it - in your head - using the annoying voice I mentioned before. Every morning between 8:30 and 9. You'll be annoyed too.
* I forgot one last reason. In order to do this blog entry, I've had to stalk the ad in recent days and jot down pieces of it to get the whole thing right. I tried looking on the Internet for a transcript of it, but apparently no one has seen fit to commit it to print. Until now. Just sharing the joy.

1 comment:

Eric said...

I think the "but" is because they say "electricity must be stored and used wisely" and so you might be thinking, "the hell with electricity, we don't need it!" so the ad says "Wait, BUT we do need it!"

Or something like that.