The Coronavirus of TV Commercials
I was working on my computer during a recent weekday evening with the TV on in the background, when the sudden assault took place, interrupting my train of thought, scrambling my ability to frame rational word associations, flooding my brain with inchoate rage and sending me desperately in search of the TV remote, which I could not for the life of me locate.
During that singular but seemingly infinite moment in time, if I had had at my disposal a Remington 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun, fully loaded with six rounds of double-aught buckshot, in the unbearable cacophony of that interminable aural assault, I would have fired all six rounds at my not inexpensive TV set, blowing it into unrecognizable fragments and, with it, the demonic sound of five faux child musicians pretending to play a keyboard, a guitar, a violin, an electric base and a drum kit, while lip-syncing the mind-numbing lyrics – dare I say it? – “one-eight-seven-seven, kars-4-kids, one-eight-seven-seven kars-4-kids, donate your kar today……”
It is notable that the only thing more detestable than the infectious earworm of the song itself is the misleading insinuation of the 31-second, nationally-and-ubiquitously broadcast commercial that donating your generic old car to some generic kids, located – you might think – in some generic neighborhood near you, will do some good for any and all kinds of kids, maybe some in your town, county or, at the very least, your state.
Wrong. If you’ve been following the on-again, off-again trail of media exposure on “Kars4Kids” you may know that the nonprofit, tax-exempt “charity” is essentially a fundraising arm of Oorah, a Lakewood, New Jersey orthodox Jewish outreach foundation and the money raised is used primarily to help send orthodox Jewish kids to summer camps in New Jersey and New York to help instill in them a better understanding for and appreciation of their religion.
And, of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. There are conservative Christian camps all over the country doing the same thing. But none that I’m aware of spend millions of dollars to entice people from other religions –Muslims, Jews, Druids, witches, warlocks, Rastafarians, reformed Zorastrians and followers of L. Ron Hubbard – to donate to summer camp programs the donors’ kids will never attend or live anywhere close to.
That “charitable” outreach has caught the attention of critics across the country, including the 2017 Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson who revealed that, while Kars4Kids raised $3 million in Minnesota between 2012 and 2014, only $12,000 was spent on Minnesota kids.
Charity Watch, the only independent charity watchdog in the U.S., claims Kars4Kids spent $17 million on TV and radio ads in 2015, which is more than they gave to Oorah. Not an impressive return on investment.
This accounting and the musical earworm driving it caught the attention of comedian/social analyst and host of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver, who observed that Kars4Kids is “the coronavirus of TV commercials.”
If donating old cars while supporting a charity is a convenient and appealing action, there are far better choices than Kars4Kids, according to USA Today, which did a national survey on the subject and reported that, for 2024, a list of the best charities to which cars (as well as trucks, boats, airplanes, RVs, trailers and miscellaneous other vehicles) can be donated does not include Kars4Kids. Their top seven charities were Habitat for Humanity, American Red Cross, Canine Companions for Independence (the Sonoma County charity), Goodwill, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Ronald McDonald House and Vehicles for Veterans.
Blessedly, none of them have rage-inducing theme songs.
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Here’s the thing about advertising; you surely remember the ad, and now you’ve told everyone else about it… They’re getting every penny they paid to create the ad and run it.