On Football and Loyalty Oaths

Loyalty. We hear a lot about it these days, but to us it often seems like a one-way street. The store, the cable company, the politician, they all want your loyalty but don’t show you much of the same in return. This particular comic came from a trip John made to his local CVS. Being the good and loyal CVS customer that he is, the cashier asked him if he had a CVS loyalty card and the answer was yes, he did. Upon showing the card in question the cashier went on to tell him about the CVS CarePass Card, an even better way to show your loyalty. It came with a host of mouthwatering benefits like having your prescriptions delivered straight to your home. All for the low, low price of ONLY $5.00 per month (or the even LOWER price of $48 if you sign up for the year). The point is, there’s always something better out there, and you don’t have it. Now John and I didn’t spend over 70 combined years in advertising to see what’s really going on at CVS. Seems like there’s this little competitor out there called Amazon Prime, who coincidentally offers free shipping straight to your door for the low, low price of ONLY $119 per year! It’s a steal!! Or how about American Express. Got an Amex Gold? Well good for you, here’s a Platinum. But wait, there’s an even better one. Amex Black, for only $10,000 per year you can have so many benefits like first dibs on tickets to the next Ariana Grande concert. Who could resist that? And what about the airlines? If you are a loyal frequent flyer you get priority boarding. Which sounds great on paper until you realize you come after the 67 other groups that have more priority than you do. You know how to avoid all that? Just pony up an extra $1,000 or 2 to fly first class. I hear that even comes with pillows and blankets. Now that’s loyal. By the way, the final frame and joke on our drug store comic was a none-too-subtle shout-out to our friends at American Express.

And that brings us to the guy’s weekend. You could not have had 4 more exciting football games in one weekend. The final Sunday game between Kansas City and Buffalo is being called the greatest game ever played. I always look forward to that particular weekend every year. I used to watch with my son when he still lived at home, then later flew out to meet him wherever he happened to be living. But this year, with Covid and all, I thought I’d do something at home. Just like the comic said, my wife went to visit our kids and grandchild, knowing I’d be glued to the set. After making a bunch of calls, I ended up with a massive pot of chili and one friend to help eat it. When my wife came back we managed to kill it off over the course of a couple dinners, but c’mon. The excuses! Plans with children, grandchildren, shopping, weekend retreats, what is this world coming to? Everything is so complicated. Take the case of John, who dutifully recorded the KC-Buffalo game before going out. He came back and watched the whole thing before realizing it was the AFC Championship game from last year. Ooops. Fortunately, he got over it in time to see the end of this year’s game. And that my friends, is a wrap.

See you next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

On Memories and How to get Remembered 4/23/21

If you’ve never spent anytime working in an ad agency you should consider yourself lucky. If, however, you have spent the better part of three decades in the ad game, as John and I each did, then you know all about product placement. This phenomenon has only gotten bigger over time, since most people record shows and fast forward through the commercials. According to the two of us, this is now acceptable since you no longer risk fast forwarding through any of the commercials we created. This is why you now see tv shows and movies where people drink a can of Diet Coke, or open up an Apple computer (it’s always Apple, never anything else) or pour a glass of Casamigos tequila over a very large ice cube. That’s one of the ways products advertise themselves, but how about comics? “Who gives a damn” you ask? We do! Gone are the days when you split your proceeds equally with a syndicate, and popular comics would collect $50 a day for every newspaper in which they appeared. You could make a fine living indeed like that. But nooooooo. That model no longer exists. Physical newspapers almost no longer exist. So now you publish your comic for free, people tell their friends about it (hint, hint) and then you develop such a large following that the advertisers come flocking to your website. And then your characters can appear on t-shirts, coffee mugs and the like. So we wondered, what type of products would fit with a comic about people in their 60’s? What type of audience is attracted to our comic? In general, our audience is comprised of people in their 50’s through 70’s and beyond. The male/female split is about equal. Most of our audience won’t be carrying a lunch box to work and we don’t think their grandchildren will be interested in a Marv lunch box anyhow. So we came up with a bunch of really sexy items like hemorrhoid donuts and adult diapers. Trust us, we would have included dental adhesives and generic Viagra, but we ran out of room. But think about it, if you were strolling down the aisle of your local Walgreens and saw a package of adult diapers adorned with pictures of Marv and Al and Rachel and Joanne, wouldn’t you be tempted to buy it? I mean, who could resist? Look for them soon at a store near you. And if you don’t need such a product, how about branded New 60 memory pills? We all need those. And who can remember the name of Preva something or other anyway?

Which is actually a slick segue into our second comic, a trip to the store to buy memory pills. The trouble with the pills is you have to remember the name of them from the time you saw them in a commercial (because you forgot to fast forward through it) up until the moment you ask for whatchamacallit in the store. I imagine they have secret training sessions at every CVS and Walgreens with the employees. And management tells them, “Now remember, if you see a senior approaching you in the vitamin and supplement aisle and they ask, “What’s the name of that…” you just cut them off and say “Prevagen.” And to the makers of Prevagen, you can thank us for mentioning you right now and to start working with our lawyer on an endorsement deal. Think about it. You could feature us in an episode of The Kaminsky Method. Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin are in the drug store, and one forgets the other’s name, despite the fact that they have been besties for years. Michael turns to Alan, and with totally natural-sounding dialogue, says “Hey what’s your name, what’s the name of that memory pill you’ve been taking?” And without skipping a beat, Alan says, “Why that’s The New 60 version of Prevagen, the only memory pill I use.” Do you see how seamlessly that fits in? But what if by chance, Michael Douglas reacts by saying, “Now wait a minute, isn’t that the comic where the guy named Marv wants a soup spoon and when he goes to the kitchen to retrieve one, he forgets why he’s in the kitchen in the first place? Why would I want a memory pill endorsed by those clowns?” Then we conclude he doesn’t need the product in the first place. So there’s absolutely no downside. Do you hear that Prevagen? Huh?

So that is it for this week, A special birthday shout out to Andy's wife Joanie today. Happy 34th (x2), love ya honey. We will be back with you again with new comics and a blog to close out the month of April and soon, summer will be here. Yay.

Andy and John