When watching television, the viewer is regularly inundated by outrageously unrealistic commercials. Many commercials also contain situations or developments that could be very misleading to the public and could foster thoughts, in the mind of the consumer, of false advertising. A number of television commercials contain dogs, people and even inanimate objects doing or saying things that would never happen in the real world. Television commercials should be required to demonstrate real life situations to sell their service or product, instead of using unrealistic scenarios that would never happen in real life.
An excellent example of a rather far-fetched commercial is one of the Nissan Pathfinder commercials. This commercial begins with a dog using mind control over his sleeping owner, to get the owner to allow him to drive the Pathfinder around town, in the middle of the night. During this midnight drive the owner is relegated to the back seat while his dog picks up all of his doggie friends throughout the neighborhood. Then of course, there is one last dog friend to pick-up, and with no more room in the Pathfinder, the owner is ejected, and left on the side of the road, while his dog, and all the doggie friends drive off in the Pathfinder. This commercial is amazingly unrealistic. Dogs cannot use mind control, and in addition, it is a very misleading notion that dogs can drive vehicles. It could cause an impressionable young child to believe that his dog can drive too.
Another fine example of a commercial utilizing an unrealistic idea is one of the CarFax commercials. This scenario finds a dog and owner in the owner's truck, driving down a country road. The dog is driving. The owner is arguing with the dog about listening and understanding. Meanwhile, the dog sees a flock of geese, and turns the truck to chase the geese. Through a series of wild bumps, turns, maneuvers, and shrieks and screams by the owner, the dog sails the truck, right into a pond.
