I hate bad commercials. I'm sure a lot of people do. With all the different ways we're bombarded with advertising nowadays, it's easy to ignore a lot of it as it gets blurred together in background noise. But occasionally one will stand out to me, not because it makes me want to buy whatever product it's selling, but because for one reason or another its absurdity didn't stop it from being published. When I hear/see one of these ads, I can't help but think "How can something like this get made without a single person saying 'hey this seems like a bad idea' in a focus group or meeting?"

The latest one I've heard is a radio ad for Coca-Cola. The ad features a man typing a letter which he is reading aloud as he goes. Right from the first line, the commercial made me groan. "Dear inventor of Coca-Cola... are you like a taste guru or something?"

He goes on to list reasons he loves Coke and stuff it goes well with... all the while flattering the nameless inventor with questions about how brilliant he is.

So we're supposed to believe this guy is actually planning to send this letter or e-mail to someone because he genuinely wants to know if the inventor of coca-cola is some kind of taste guru, but he isn't smart enough to use the computer he is typing on to do a quick Google search. You'd think if someone is taking the time to write fan mail fawning over someone, they'd bother to learn their name.

Along the way he probably would have learned that John Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola, died 121 years ago, so he probably doesn't have an e-mail address. He didn't design Coca-Cola to go well with burgers and ice cream either, he made an alcoholic drink for medicinal purposes the previous year (1886) and then prohibition forced him to change the formula. Rather than market Coca-Cola as something that goes great with all kinds of food, the drink was sold as a cure for morphine addiction, something Pemberton himself was supposedly struggling with.

The ad seems harmless enough, and really it is, but it's annoying to see Coca-Cola create an ad where a nameless person puts a ridiculously flattering spin on Coke's origins while at the same time ignoring details like the inventor's name. Believe me I'm not going to lose sleep over these types of ads, but everyone has their pet peeves and I enjoy venting about mine.