The blog & portfolio of Matthew J. Rogers

Radio commercials…and Staples sucks

January 11, 2008

So on my way into work this morning I heard two interesting commercials on the radio (yes, I still occasionally listen to radio).

Phaser II detector

The first was for the automotive Phaser II radar/laser/whatever speed trap detector. The commercial began in that typical loud, excited announcer voice, and immediately said this:

“The Phaser II! The only detector you’ll ever need! Banned in eight states!”

They were clearly excited about how it was so good it was — literally — illegal in some places. Oh, and they repeatedly offered:

“If you do get a ticket, we’ll pay for it!”

OK, so…I’m just going to go ahead and speed, as long as I don’t have too many points on my license. Great, thanks.

Staples

The second commercial was less amusing and more offensive. It began with that old recording of Neil Armstrong’s famous words from the moon:

“That’s one small step for man…one giant leap–”

Which gets cut off by something along the lines of:

“We interrupt this broadcast for some important news you can really get excited about…”, etc, said in a very condescending way. You want to know what this “important” and “exciting” news is? That Staples now carries Dell print toner and ink cartridges. How…exciting. It then ends with “And now, back to that other thing…”

Talk about insulting. I understand the whole “interrupt this broadcast” ad premise — it’s been done many times before. But Staples picked the moon landing, a monumental scientific and technological achievement for which thousands of people worked incredibly hard and sacrificed much…in some cases — and here’s what really rubs me the wrong way about Staples using this — they sacrificed their lives. As if there isn’t too little appreciation for the space program already, Staples just trivialized one of the greatest human success stories of all time and made it the punchline of a stupid commercial.

It’s incredibly poor taste. I’ll never buy from Staples again; from a cursory search on Google I found, to my relief, that I’m far from the only one with this reaction to the ad.

11 comments ›
Posted in Business & Legal, TV, Movies, Media

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11 comments

  • Toby Johnruud January 24th, 2008 at 1:05 pm

    I totally agree with you, I heard that radio ad and the first thing that crossed my mind was that they just poopoohed the entire space program and that fabulous accomplishment so they could sell a Dell ink cartridge, something wouldn’t sell a few years ago when you could only get Dell ink from Dell. Associates actually told people not to buy Dell because the only way to get service or accessories was from Dell.

  • bob January 24th, 2008 at 5:28 pm

    Need to get a sense of humor…

  • Jennifer January 25th, 2008 at 2:02 pm

    I’m definitely a person with a great sense of humor and I rarely complain about anything. But this time I was compelled to write Staples and tell them how they cheapened a Proud American moment to sell ink cartridges…I received a reply of apology. Hopefully that commercial is on its way out the door.

  • Gina January 26th, 2008 at 11:46 pm

    Who is this bob, LOL? I have a sense of humor too, however….I don’t see the humor in that one. I think it’s in poor taste, and just plain stupid!!

  • bdobbs February 5th, 2008 at 3:53 am

    Jesus christ…we officially have “offensitivity” as predicted by Berke Breathed….

    …the entire point was that the Staples announcement was trivial and the moon landing was important and Staples acknowledges that too….hence the joke….

    Besides the owner of this blog as well as the other blogger who said they won’t ever shop at Staples is so full of crap. The first time they are pressed for time and need some office widget or paper or whatever, they’ll forget all about it. There are reams and reams of studies on that very topic, and as much as we like to think we’ll be the next ghandi and stick to our values, 99% of people just plain forget every little stand they took on the internet 5 years ago…

  • Ed February 15th, 2008 at 10:52 am

    Dude, are you kidding me? Go out and get a hobby or something. If you’re that offended by a Staples commercial, I truly feel sorry for you

  • Zeb June 17th, 2008 at 9:42 pm

    Please………someone that gets upset about something as trivial as a Staples commercial should focus on something more important…….get a life go to the losers office depot, number two

  • James August 15th, 2009 at 1:33 am

    I dont think Mr. Armstrong is really that upset about the commercial…he obtained his momumental moment out of the ordel…also, I work at staples, and I think you should boycott, they dont need your money and honestly I wouldnt want to waste my time and effort trying to help someone who is trying to “breakdown” the staples system bc of a commercal…thats pretty boring

  • Pissed Employee August 16th, 2009 at 2:45 pm

    I have some fun for any current disgruntled Staples employee. There is a serious and largely unknown glitch in the Gift card/money card process that will allow any employee to create a gift card for themselves for any amount without paying for it at all. This gift card will not show up on any report in the system anywhere. Here goes: signon to a register and ring a gift card for any amount, let’s say $500. swipe the card to load it and leave that transaction alone. Go to another register and ring a Snickers bar, subtotal and pay for the Snickers with the gift card you just loaded at the other register. Go to the previous register and press the VOID key to void the transaction. The purchase of the Snickers will LOCK the $500 amount to the gift card. When you void the first transaction, you erase the record of that transaction, but the card is still loaded with $500 because you locked it in at the other register. You will have a $500 gift card for free. The transaction will NOT show up on the post void report, the gift card report, or the cash over/short report or any other report. You will have a gift card for any amount you want for free and there will be no record of it. Have fun stealing from those pricks at Staples. By the way, this may also work at Office Depot, that is where I learned of the glitch several years ago, tried it at Staples just recently and it works there as well. Probably because they use the same vendor to fund and service their gift cards. Pretty cool huh?

  • Bob Bastard September 23rd, 2009 at 1:32 am

    Staples tried to rip me off for an office chair that cost $104.99. The chair broke but was under warranty. When I called for a replacement, Staples tried to charge me over $200! The laugh is on Staples, though: my bank’s security and fraud division has refunded my money and referred the matter over to the Federal Corporation Commission. When they discover impropriety, which they will, the Federal Corp. Commish will probably fine Staples upwards of $20,000. See? Justice does work sometimes. :)

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