Why Agencies Love to Use Idiots in Their Advertising

BBDO New York has created two new commercial for FedEx to tout the delivery service's new Delivery Manager which allows recipients to specify date, time and place for delivery. To get the idea across, the agency came up with two silly scenarios.

In one, a family decides to take a "staycation" instead of a vacation so it won't miss an important package. In another, a dentist performs work on his front porch to he doesn't miss a package that might have been delivered to his office.

Both scenarios are wildly stupid, yet funny, and do a great job at making everyone feel better than these imaginary idiots who have no common sense. The approach, used by countless marketers and their agencies, employs schadenfreude. It's like marketers can't seem to get a message across without shitting all over some poor loser.

But hey, we love to wallow in the idiocy of others and as long as humans gain self-importance from the stupidity of others, marketers will continue to serve up doofuses in their ads.

Is this good marketing?