An infomercial that makes me grind my teeth every time I see it.

     I’m talking about the SHAW WOW infomercial and the infamous Vince Offer AKA Vince Schlomi. The infomercial that sells the now famous SHAW WOW towel that claims in cleans and dries better than any other product; I don’t want to contest the claim or talk about Vince and his personal life (god knows he’s famous for suing everybody)…I want to talk about the Spanish version of his infomercial (link below)

As you will see it’s poorly done, condescending and stereotypes Hispanic women…a terrible adaptation/transcreation of the English version, you’ll see Vince struggle trying to read the phonetically translated copy in Spanish (to the point he becomes cross-eyed). I can understand Vince not wanting to hire experts to do this work correctly or at least advise/train him better and not stereotype women, but what really upsets me is that there’s Spanish network that plugged the spot into their programming and continue to do so…is it because the recession? Are they struggling so much and desperate that they’ll place anything? What about those of us who have work very hard to get the Hispanic segment recognized in this marketplace? Is it worth flushing down the drain 20-25 years of work? I don’t know, maybe I’m making too much of it but I believe it can generate some interesting conversations…what do you think?

To view commercial CLICK HERE.

So what do you think?

Matt Neidl – Group Director, Multicultural Marketing – Octa8on