Ponderings on Black Friday commercials

It's almost that time - the day that I am sure most husbands look forward to almost more than their wives, Black Friday. Women awake in the wee hours to get special 4 a.m. deals (meanwhile they could all wait until Cyber Friday and just order stuff online), and commercials advertising these sales and other Christmas deals are force-fed to us on every channel.

I kind of enjoy watching these commercials for a number of reasons - the approach used by companies, the cool items going on sale and the perception of buyers that companies seem to have. I also get to giggle a little about the impression most viewers are left with.

Car commercials: These ones get me - do people really buy each other cars for Christmas? I mean, maybe the 1 percenters do, but who else in the world awakens to a brand new lexus in their driveway. The absolute best part about the Lexus commercials, is the infamous big, red bow. You know the one, it sits atop of the luxury vehicle in a snowy driveway.

Here's a "did-ya-know" for you. You don't get to keep the bow. That's right - if you are planning on spending 50k to buy one of these bad boys for your significant other or spoiled teen, you still have to return the bow. I think you get it for like 24 - 72 hours then it must be returned to the dealer. For 50k, you get a terrible warranty and a false sense of excitement about a big red bow. It's kind of comical.

Toys: Toy commercials are the best; I think mostly because Christmas really is the most exciting when you have a child to buy gifts for or when you are a child yourself. I pick toys as one, but specifically, Crayola. I mean, we give kudos to NASA and Apple for innovation but what about Crayola. How do they make these special coloring tools that only react to certain paper and not your carpet? Glowing pens and pencils and neon light fixtures; we don't give props to Crayola quite enough but when you think about it - they are doing some sort of chemical reaction technology development over there that maybe we should consider for other things?

Department/All-in-one Store: I wonder when K-Mart is going to get it. There are so many issues with K-Mart it's no wonder America has been Walmartized. Though half the things I buy from Walmart come with Spanish-only directions or flimsy assembly parts, I'd rather deal with them then spend double at K-Mart. Does K-Mart not realize that their target audience is the low income class of America? That lack-of-realization combined with their stupid Blue light bulb who boasts Black Friday sales on bedding sets really makes me wonder if they hired a homeless person to do their advertising and marketing.

Now, while I can't stand Walmart commercials, especially the "match it" price matcher's commercials, they know what they are doing. Like K-Mart, they tend to reach a low income class of folks, and for them, a $199 flat screen TV is what they are looking for, not a comforter.

Okay, I am sick of griping - until I see new commercials to comment on for Christmas shopping, that's all.