Pure $atire

One way to look at getting made fun of on television is that you’ve really made it. Nobody parodies a politician or a celebrity or a brand unless the parody victim is a big enough deal for the audience to get the joke. So I guess it makes sense, in a sad way, that companies are now paying to be mocked.

Brandweek (June 26) says Toyota paid MADtv to make fun of a new car it has out called the Yaris. Boost Mobile paid to be made fun of on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. “There’s no better way to say ‘you’re it’ than to have people parody you,” a Boost marketer explains.

I guess that’s true even if you’re not actually “it,” but have just written someone a check to do something that makes you seem as though you’re “it.” In this case the something just happens to be trashing your product, in a humorous and edgy manner.

Edgy is important of course because the target here is the youth audience. Another marketer delivers the quote that I’ve read a million times and that’s mandatory in all stories about youth-focused marketing: “You need to be authentic with this demographic. They have a savvy that wasn’t there before, and they know when they’re being sold to.”

Sure, paying to be a punchline, that’s a really authentic thing to do.

The irony of MADtv being part of all this is that, of course, the original Mad Magazine routinely offered wicked parodies of advertising to its youthful audience, which was apparently savvy enough to laugh. Those may have been more innocent times — but it certainly wasn’t because marketers were more phony back then than they are today.