Ah yeah, apply it directly to the forehead, ya’ll

Sorry about the YouTube link for the video here, but I just couldn’t hold off any longer without commenting on this spot, and I was having trouble getting my hands on the broadcast version of this pure marvel of television advertising.

The spot simply repeats: “Head On. Apply directly to the forehead!” over and over. It doesn’t even sound like they use multiple audio takes, they just triple-up the woman’s voice (saving themselves some sweet sweet cash in the recording studio).

In some ways, I feel this is too awful of a commercial for Awful Commercials. It’s kind of like playing tag with the kid in the motorized wheelchair. Sometimes I wake up at night from a dream about elementary school, wondering if that poor kid is still “it” somewhere, sitting sadly and wheelchair-bound at his computer programming job.

But that is my burden. This commercial is everyone else’s. There’s a tenet of advertising in this commercial that seems to have been taken too literally: repetition of your message will help the consumer remember it. But you can repeat your message without, well, LITERALLY repeating your message.

Some credit has to be given to the ability of this spot to get people’s attention. It’s so repetitious it makes people talk about how ham-fisted it is. And surely I have to think there are in fact some people sitting at home who see and hear this commercial, and after the third reading of “Head On. Apply directly to the forehead!” they think to themselves, “well I’ll be, you apply it directly to your forehead!” Then at the 4 p.m. bridge game they ask if anyone else has heard about this headache cure, the one you apply directly to your forehead. “Yes you apply it directly to your forehead!” her partner says. “It must work. Everyone’s talking about it.”

For once I feel weakened and tired by the bad commercial hunt. I feel as though I’ve bested a small child, or perhaps a wily but faithful dog at a game of chance. I will return, but not before seeking out some kind of fast-acting headache remedy.