Would *you* write a commercial for free?

Perhaps it's because I used to get paid for writing -- before I started letting the lot of you read my words for FREE -- that I find the latest MasterCard commercials so ... repugnant.

You know the routine: Something curious: costs this much; something routine: costs this much; something funny or weird: costs this much; something heart-rending and sentimental and connected to the previous three items? Priceless.

I have to give it to the copywriter who originated that whole ad campaign. It's highly effective, and it has seeped its way seemlessly into the lexicon. Its tagline is right up there with "Where's the Beef?" and "Just Do It." At times, most of us have uttered these words in humor or seriousness, echoing the work of some creative slag in an advertising sweatshop. (Not that Weiden+Kennedy is a sweatshop. They have the nicest offices in town.)

But I think it's an insidious -- and brilliant, in that evil sort of way -- form of advertising to get members of the public to write your ads for you. That's what the lastest MasterCard commercials are seeking. The newest ads say: "Blank and blank: $129. Blank: $72; Blank: $40. Blank and blank? Priceless."

Then, they exhort the rest of us to fill in the blanks, to write the ad, to submit our ideas to some Web site, whereupon they will run the winner's commercial.

Puh-LEAZE!

To MasterCard, I must say this:

It is our "responsibility" as consumers to sit passively and witness your commercials, to fall under the spell of something entertaining or sappy and sentimental that YOU create, to be persuaded somehow that using our MasterCard will ignite those feelings of entertainment or sappy sentimentality in *our lives,* and, consequently, to go buy some shit with the little piece of plastic that has your fucking logo on it. It is *not* our responsibility to participate directly in the creation of your devious little marketing campaigns.

Unless, that is, you are going to pay us a shitload of cash.

I'll make you a deal: You pay off my student loans, I'll write you a gem.

Otherwise, go fuck yourself.

-- Sincerely, UCM