I just saw a Visa ad that I really found funny. Ok, it was for the Visa checkcard, so it isn’t credit or anything, but the fact remains that it was all about le plastique. That’s French for “in debt up to your asshole.”
In the ad, a group of people dance around some sort of eating establishment that looks like a place I would imagine would look if Starbuck’s bought Luby’s. Everyone was moving to perfectly choreographed dance routines timed to big band music. Each would approach the counter and pay for their food with…you guessed it…a Visa checkcard. It was precision. It was Broadway. It was gay.
Well, Mr. I’m Going to Pay Cash Because It Proves I Have A Big…Wallet steps up and hands the cashier…shock, bewilderment, sacrelidge…CASH! Oh, the HUMANITY!
Of course, the line stops, the music ends as if someone scratched the record and the cashier begrudgingly hands the man his change as he slinks off into the land of idiots where they keep people not modern or smart enough to pay with a card and dance to show tunes.
The tagline was something like, “Don’t let life slow you down.” Well, thank God for Visa demonstrating just how incredibly fast it is to use a card and how mind-numbingly slow it is to use cash. Because, Lord knows that every person I stand behind in the self-serve line at Kroger knows IMMEDIATELY how to use their credit card and anyone who shows up with cash could take hours to pay.
No, I’ve never stood behind someone with 30 items in the “15 Items or Less” lane waiting for him to figure out that you touch the screen and you swipe the card. That NEVER happens…thanks to Visa.