Welcome to the Target Demographic

Several years ago, a friend of mine actually called me on the phone, upset that a Led Zeppelin song was being used to sell Cadillacs:



I told him then, "Welcome to the target demographic. You're in your mid to late 40s now, they assume you have disposable income, and this is how they're gonna get your attention. It's just going to get worse."

At one point, I sort of thought I had arrived when advertisers started using songs from my era, like "Smoke On The Water":



Or "Thick As A Brick":



Or even "Instant Karma":


I mean, at least they were advertising enjoyable things like cars, restaurants, and sneakers (although I suspect Mr. Lennon is still spinning in his grave)

Speaking of spinning in his grave, I really didn't even mind it too much when the Volkswagen folks appropriated the late lamented Nick Drake for one of their commercials:



But the Times They Are A'Changing. Now the songs of my youth are being used to sell blood glucose monitoring systems. This is the target demographic I've entered. I sure hope the members of Three Dog Night and/or the estate of B.W. Stevenson, this song's writer, are getting royalties from this:




And this? This is the travesty that actually inspired me to post this. Every advertiser who has ever used a rock song in an advertisement should fall down on their faces and beg forgiveness from The Youngbloods for this use of "Get Together" (you may have to turn up your volume if you want to hear this, although I can't imagine why you would):



I mean... come on. The entire hippie movement has been reduced to an animated disposable diaper commercial culminating in what is an obvious allusion to Woodstock? This is sadder than sad. There once was a time when our artists weren't sellouts. I only hope that the members of AC/DC had no control over the deal that is causing their first album in 8 years to be sold only at Wal-Mart. I don't want to wish any bad things on AC/DC, they've worked hard for a long time, but I hope they don't sell a single disc at Wal-Mart, and that this will prevent this sort of deal with the devil from being made in the future with any other rock group.

If only we could harness the energy of all the dead rock stars who are now spinning in their graves, we could completely eliminate our dependency on foreign oil.