SociableSport

Calgon 2-in-1
"Half Protection Is Like No Protection!"

It's been a late night - I'm recovering from the dreaded 'Swine Flu' (also known as the H1N1 virus) and so I feel I can be forgiven for watching some pretty average television. Pretty average television hosts some pretty average advertising, few more so than the Calgon 2-in-1 commercials.

Unfortunately I can't actually show you the clip itself because it isn't on youtube, but please bear with me while I outline the plot.

The ad opens with a woman struggling with her washing machine. A man appears - wearing overalls - and offers to help. She explains the situation and, conveniently for the viewer, he is able to diagnose the problem instantaneously. It is a build-up of limescale caused by, frankly, some downright heinous washing machine protector that's only offering 'half protection'.

Half protection! Can you believe that? I nearly vomited I found it so disgusting.

The woman looks quizical. She's obviously mortally embarrassed about not protecting her washing machine properly and her wild eyes tell us that she will stop at nothing to find a solution but the man is intent, to the point of sadism, on hammering the point home. Just in front of the woman he notices a small child putting on a bike helmet.

"You wouldn't let him go out with half a helmet on would you?"
"No!" she replies. To be honest, the jury is out on whether she even recognises the child given she hasn't acknowledged his presence in the room so far, nor has she comforted him on the fact there is a very strange man in the kitchen. If the child were to spontaneously combust, there is no indication that she will be wise to his plight. Her entire focus is on this plumber-come-salesman.
"Well, half protection is like no protection! That's why you need Calgon 2-in-1!"
"Oh!"

She is sold. The pieces of the jigsaw have fallen nicely into place. Her looking after her washing machine with 'full protection' (what does that even mean? Does Calgon come with a small army of soldiers to protect her washing machine from gunfire? What about a fire brigade to protect it from flames? Or a moat to protect it from Tudors? Now that's full protection!) is the emotional equivalent to ensuring her son wears a helmet when he rides his bike. Because millions of washing machines die every year from limescale damage and... and damn it the unnecessary pain just has to stop!

So there we have it - advertising doing what it does best:

Stereotyping
Well, it wouldn't be a man in the kitchen would it? A man would never listen to another man anyway... he'd just ask 'is it cheaper?' then depending on the answer either opt for 'ok cool - you can leave now' or 'seriously, get the hell out of my kitchen'. Haha, men are so predictable aren't they? And women! Always looking after the house like good women should! 1950s Chevrolet anyone?

Blackmail
We owe it to ourselves and to our children to buy products because the people selling them to us say we need them and who am I to disagree? It's not like my opinion on what I need counts for anything

Insulting Intelligence - "Half protection is like no protection!"
Hold on a minute...  is half protection not the same as 50% protection? Is that not a great deal more than no protection at all?
Now, half a helmet is a different matter. Wearing half a helmet would probably be just as useless as wearing no helmet at all. That's because half a helmet isn't a helmet, it's just a bit of useless fiberglass cushion. In the context of protecting a washing machine, just as in the context of cleaning socks, half is better than nothing and realistically these machines should count themselves lucky that they get even that