So I'm watching the Red Sox beat up on Roy Halladay and the Jays on NESN, and during the C-break (that's cool TV-speak for commercial break) in the middle of the eighth, I see the one million and seventh ad for the New England Toyota Dealers. The Toyota dealers have long been a sponsor of Red Sox games on NESN, and their ads are always noisy and tedious, usually with an evil earworm of a jingle.
The current run of Toyota ads all follow the same pattern: We see an old, nondescript (and non-Toyota) car in a driveway or at a drive-through window, with a voiceover that asks, "Need a new car?" Then a huge crane-claw (is that what they're called?) reaches out of the sky and grabs the car, breaking all the windows. (Apparently, it's a form a skyhook. Whatever.) The car gets lifted up about 20 feet, and then a brand-new Toyota drops out from the old car and crashes to the ground. Oh .... kay. Why or how this happens is completely beyond me.
But that's not what gets me. It's the disclaimer in tiny white letters that appears at the bottom of the screen:
"Do not attempt."
What the what? Seriously?
Some lawyer for the New England Toyota Dealers watched this ridiculous ad and said, "Uh, you know, someone might try this at home and get hurt and sue us. We better put a warning on it." And apparently the dealers listened to this joke of a lawyer, because they added "Do not attempt" to the ads for a fleeting second or two. (Of course, if they were really worried, they might have made the disclaimer actually visible to humans.)
This is why real people hate lawyers. Because it shows that lawyers think real people are stupid. So stupid that they might hurt themselves trying to lift their old Renault 18i (or whatever) with an imaginary skyhook in hopes of getting a shiny new Toyota to drop out of it. But everyone knows that's impossible. You can't even find a Renault 18i anymore!
Lawyers: quit assuming that real people are stupid. And car dealers: if you think you need a disclaimer like that to defeat a lawsuit from an unfortunately injured carjacker, then you probably need better lawyers.
By the way: if you do what the ad says and go to buyatoyota.com, you'll see the following disclaimer at the bottom of the website:
You are now in Buyatoyota.com and Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. is not responsible for the accuracy of content.
Of course not.
(My disclaimer: The images above (except for my arrows) are copyrighted by the geniuses at New England Toyota Dealers, who care about your safety.)
I don't know, Jay. I remember watching this (underwater) Jeep Ad and thinking that some idiot is going to drive his family into the ocean because he didn't want to spend the money going to the local aquarium. I think there was a disclaimer on the TV ad, but amazingly the disclaimer isn't on the YouTube version. (So, please do not attempt!!)
Posted by: Greg Lambert | 20 August 2009 at 12:16 PM