Today I hope to answer the burning question: Do Americans really need an ad campaign featuring a giant living piggy bank to help them save up a few extra pennies?
Benjamin Bankes: Part Pig, Part Pimp, All Pink.
The American Institute of Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA) apparently thinks they do. They’ve teamed up with The Advertising Council (of course!) to develop an entire television and web video ad campaign called FeedThePig.org. The ads feature a human-sized anthropomorphic pig named Benjamin Bankes (played by likable actor Austin Basis) who goes around convincing people to “feed the pig” by spending wisely and giving him some of their cash. So, yes, most of the commercials resemble a surreal scene where people get mugged by giant pigs and yes, it’s all a little confusing. See, the phrase “Feed The Pig” is referring to the act of putting money into a piggy bank. So when you put away some money you’re feeding the piggy bank some cash and, in the process, saving a few dollars.
The “feeding” of the pig is never really shown well. In on commercial coins drop from the sky and automagically sink into his head, in another commercial two women shove money into his pockets and in a third commercial a guy in cube hands over his paycheck. One has to wonder if this is a piggy bank or a drug dealing super pimp sort of a pig. The concept is that whenever you save money or spend wisely you’re giving me to your piggy bank. Yes, it’s a stretch but it works… a little bit.
The commercials are quick and when you first see them and the giant pig really catches your eye… but I don’t know if that’s a good thing. Maybe they were a little too good with the make-up, maybe the concept just doesn’t work or maybe I have some sort of unnatural fear of my bacon being able to chase me down the street and beat me up, but the pig creeps me out, folks. He kind of looks like that cow that talks to Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect and begs to be eaten at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe in the original TV mini-series of The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, doesn’t he? Oh, go Google it.
The Feed The Pig website is big on style and short on substance. The front page introduces us to “ourselves” as we look at our financial mirror and gives us this little nugget: “You now have the second highest rate of personal bankruptcy in the nation.”
Umm… What? How can I as an individual have the second highest rate of personal bankruptcy in the nation? Compared to what? My neighbor? The world? This year? This month? Huh?
Like most financial websites, there are a couple calculators (a Lunch Savings Calculator and a Credit Card Payoff Calculator), plenty of money saving tips, an email newsletter, an archive of the current videos and a few financial articles and links that mostly seem to come from the much more useful 360 Financial Literacy website also put together by the AICPA. You can download if you can’t get enough of the Mr. Benjamin Bankes. Personally, I could.
Are the commercials edgy and eye-catching? Yes. Are they entertaining? Sure. Will they convince me to save more money? I don’t know about that. Apparently everyone doesn’t agree with me, though. The commercials have won a number of awards (proving that advertising people mostly excel at giving themselves awards) and the AICPA has all sorts of Feed The Pig links, including a “behind the scenes” video, some financial reports about spending amongst young people and even some Feed The Pig merchandise which, thankfully, only includes drawn logos and not photos of Senior Porky himself.
These trinkets and items for sale convincingly prove that accountants are really heartless robots from another planet sent here on mission to secretly enslave us all. The entire ad campaign is based on smart spending and proper savings but the AICPA still offers a bunch of crappy overpriced coffee mugs, wall clocks and mouse pads which pretty much defines the idea of stupid spending. Apparently the AICPA is only against stupid spending when they aren’t the ones parting you from your cash.
With this stagnant economy it’s only a matter of time before some bonehead in Washington advocates “jump starting” the economy by having us all go out and spend all our money. If you save money by feeding the pig then you logically withdraw money by slaughtering the pig.
These commercials are creepy enough without seeing that…
[tags]feed the pig, saving money, accountants on LSD[/tags]
One Response to “Feed The Pig – Saving Money While Accountants Trip on LSD”
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KC says:
Well my 13 year old loves the spots and she refers to “feeding the pig” when she wants to deposit something into her savings account. Perhaps it’s not so bad afterall…
April 29th, 2008 at 2:52 pm