So I don't often venture into tv commercial criticism, but I have been seeing a new commercial out there that I find baffling.

I can't find a video of it online, but it is a lady singing opera with subtitles at the bottom, then the cartoon Mr. Opportunity knocks and then come sin and they sing about Honda's.

huh, what?

So whatever advertising firm Honda hired decided that the best way to market to American's is through subtitles and a cartoon character singing opera? I see several problems here:

1. Americans in general do not like Opera. Some absolutely love it, I like Opera. I go to opera and don't expect to understand a single thing, but enjoy the show. For those that do not like opera, this commercial is boring and stupid. For those that do like opera (probably not a huge Honda buying demographic) this commercial takes a great form of entertainment and throws a animated guy into it, annoying at best, offensive at worst.

2. Honda needs to capitulate on Toyota's woes. They need to grab the older market, they can no longer just market to the young people, specially if they insist on building bigger and bigger Accords and ugly disasters like the crosstour. Opera may have been their way of possibly appealing to older crowds. Here's some information that Honda's multi-million dolalr ad company failed to take into account:

• Honda makes good cars, a stupid Opera does not demonstrate this
• Mixing animation with live acting is an early 90's technology, spend some money, welcome to the 21st century...a decade late.
• Selling cars in America takes story.
• If you want to do niche ads, market to a group that will actually buy the cars (not that this ad really targeted any group.) Like the recent Dodge commercials. They target American Males between 20 and 45...not a bad demographic, but they really narrowed the focus of the ads, and it shows.

Simple, the commercial has 2 words, and I guarantee that at last 35% of those watching this commercial said, cool at some point during or after the commercial.

Or the Ford truck commercials, which tell a story of what a Ford truck is/represents.

TV commercials, making us all dumber...and sometimes making us poorer.