Day 139: Ad Nauseous – Mirror

When you ride the train every day, there’s a finite amount of things that you begin to notice about your fellow New Yorker. The business school student keeps his backpack on and wears silly socks with his all black attire while clutching two cell phones for dear life. Some sleeping people put their heads back and hands in their pockets. Others tilt their head down and spread their legs. Women maintain much better posture when their eyes are closed. If a girl is knitting, she’s sitting in a corner seat. And if a bulk of the people are sitting on one side of the car, there’s either a smelly person across from them or a collection of Mirror ads.

It’s a fascinating study I’ve been doing for the past year. I’ve even seen people switch sides when the realize the mirror ads are behind them. What is it about people working out that gets peoples attention? The answer might be simple. People just like looking at butts. It’s not a bad thing. Butts are cool. Everyone has one. And for some reason, Mirror really wants people to notice them. And they showcase butts of all sizes, races and genders.

As a whole, Lululemon has done a really good job with showing us butts. But are they doing a good job at selling home gym monolith things? That answer is kind of tricky. Let’s look outside the butts and read the actual sales pitches:

It’s 1-on-1 personal training.

I may not know thing one about fitness, but this statement feels repetitive. Isn’t all personal training 1-on-1? Anything else would be highly impersonal. Touting your personal training to be 1-on-1 is about as eye-grabbing as saying, “pay as you exit”. It looks fancy, but it’s an empty hype.

It’s a nearly invisible home gym.

Oh wow, what a lovely home! And I can barely notice the giant black monolith on the wall in front of the conspicuously open space in the living room! Just because it’s flat doesn’t mean it’s nearly invisible. It’s extremely visible. Don’t fool yourself. And when the sun shines on it at 10:18 every morning, it’s going to be painfully visible. It’ll be so visible that you’ll temporarily lose your sight, rendering it invisible. So I guess I’ll take that back. It is sometimes invisible.

It’s a gift for the whole family.

The whole family, you say? I don’t think kids would have much fun with this. So the picture in the ad does represent the “whole family”: the wife who will use it daily and the husband who will do it every Sunday morning to work off all the pizza and blow he did the night before. Cool. Whole family.

It’s every workout. Every time.

I don’t even know what that means. Every workout?!? That sounds like a lot. There are millions of workouts in this world and Mirror wants you to do ever my one, every day. Those are extremely lofty goals. The dude in the ad looks totally fit, but I doubt he can do Penguin Crunches and Pentium Presses in the same sesh. Fuck outta here.

So there you have it. The ads do nothing to convince you that a digital workout panel is superior to other workout methods. They just want an excuse to show you butts. And honestly? Sure. They can do whatever they want. It’s a whole lot better than looking at Dr Zizmor.

– TeeCoZee