Weatherfolk are often the butt of jokes and I have experienced that many times myself. How many times have I heard snide remarks about weather forecasters predicting with dice, that "meteorologists can be wrong 50% of the time and still get paid" and similar comments. You get a thick skin eventually or leave the field.
But I have to admit that many of us in the weather community are not a little upset with the latest Subaru ad campaign: "The weather doesn't matter if you have a Subaru" .
The main character of this campaign is "the world's worst weatherman." Want to see him in action? Take a look at one of their clips:
INSULTING! And worst of all, especially for me, he says he is not good with numbers and that is why he became a weatherman. You know how I feel about that! Math is critical to being a good weatherman.
But it gets worse. Here is the Subaru weatherman's take on being a storm chaser (click on image for video)
Did you notice the guy looks quite a bit like the Verizon's "do you hear me?" spokesman? As if all weathermen look like geeks with greased-back hair!And there are other videos, including one in which the Subaru weatherman locks his keys in a running vehicle.
But there is more, much more.
They have a calculator function on the Subaru website on HOW MUCH TIME YOU HAVE WASTED THINKING ABOUT THE WEATHER. Can you imagine that? Thinking about the weather is NEVER a waste.
Lets say you are 40 years old and spend 3 hours a day thinking about the weather. That is not much. Hell, I spend at least 10 hrs a day thinking about weather, sometimes more. OK, assuming 3 hrs a day and forty years old, their calculator tells you that you have WASTED over three years. Outrageous.
I was so incensed that I called University Subaru to complain. The sales manager listened to me patiently and told me I was completely wrong. " Subaru actually loves weathermen" he said and particularly the ones that exaggerated snowstorms and bad weather. He explained that since most Subarus had all-wheel drive, sales surged as conditions got bad. I asked him who his favorite weather person was and he immediately answered Jim Forman of King TV. I had to stop myself from saying anything more.I am in the market for a new car, looking to replace my trusty 19 year old Ford Taurus, and I was going to consider Subaru products. No way now. I am going to boycott them until they become more weatherman friendly. And so should you.
