Ads Tap Into That 'Mad-as-Hell' Feeling

Advertisers are feeling our pain. So they're tapping into consumer rage over rising prices by saying "we understand," and using that to sell products and services. Take a Southwest ad that asks what the competitors have been smoking. "Apparently, your rolled-up $20s," it quips. A legion of ads has cropped in similar fashion to assure us that companies sympathize with our anger, the New York Times reports. A few examples:

• Harley-Davidson proclaims that “freedom and wind outlast hard times.”
• Jackson Hewitt shows taxpayers who didn't use its services angrily smashing things.
• Eastman Kodak claims to "take a stand" against “pricey ink stinks” and companies that “treat people’s most precious images" as file formats.

(More advertising stories.)