Dear Hallmark, Your Marketing Sucks

So - I'm watching the tube last night and a commercial comes on about people being stuck in an airport. If you know me at all, you know airports and business traveling are my biggest pet peeves. There is nothing worse than just sitting there, waiting, totally in their control. Your blood pressure rises like an express elevator to the penthouse as the "customer service" representative keeps informing you every fifteen minutes that you should be boarding very shortly. I'm in QA - "very shortly" to me IS fifteen minutes. Apparently if you work for an airline, "very shortly" can fall anywhere between "oh, there's the plane now" and "we just started Roots on the overhead monitors, we'll board as soon as the slaves are free". Getting back to the Hallmark spot - just as everyone is getting really pissy about waiting, a woman pulls this ugly, tacky Christmas decoration out of her bag and turns it on....yes ladies and gentlemen..turns it on (it dances and sings). Well, everyone who is within earshot just stands up and comes right over to see what all the commotion is about. They stare in awe as the penguins flap their wings and the snowman bounces along to the less-than-midi tune. As the service rep calls folks to board over the PA system, the crowd joyfully ignores him as they are transfixed by the music playing holiday scene (and yes, I threw in "holiday scene" one time to appease the ultra liberal folks out there...may baby Jesus save you this Christmas). Maybe they are transfixed by the obvious lack of scaling on this project. For Christ's sake, the tree is only twice as tall as the penguins and barely taller than the snowman...which begs the question....is the tree really tiny - or - are these...GIANT PENGUINS? Now you begin to understand why everyone is staring at this thing like college students after eating a few brownies. I just can't understand why some of these companies elect to keep their old fashioned marketing concepts. First of all, this thing costs $15 IF you buy 3 cards, $25 if you buy it without buying 3 cards. Good luck selling it without the cards. I'll stay away from the mall this weekend to avoid the crush of people running to the Hallmark store like Rosie O'Donnel running to a free buffet. Second, had I been in charge of trying to sell this piece of crap, my idea would have been very simple to capture on film. My daughter loved these items when she was younger. They should have went for the cute factor. Mom, dad, older kids, grandparents are all in the kitchen talking over each other trying to align their busy schedules for the week of Christmas. Enter a 3-year-old who tries to get some attention but everyone is too hyper-busy discussing plans. Kid walks over to the ugly-ass item, presses the on button and claps, dances and giggles in pure enjoyment. One-by-one the busy family notices the kid who is lost in the enjoyment of either the teeny tiny Christmas tree or the enormous penguins and it ends with the entire family silently watching the child and smiling warmly at each other. Cause if I was waiting for my flight and that woman took this thing out and turned it on, I guarantee you the snowman and at least one of the giant penguins would have been ripped off the snowy cotton base before I could have been restrained by security.