This is related to sports only tangentially, but anyone who has watched a single football game this year has certainly been inundated with, then grown tired of, then enraged by Toyota’s “Saved by Zero” commercial.  Esquire.com’s Peter Schrager was one of the first to delve in-depth into the irritating phenomenon, and now the AP is even picking up on the widespread loathing for the ad.

There’s a lot of info in the article (with good news like we’ll be seeing it again this weekend), but I just wanted to share this one quote from Toyota marketing spokesman Joe Tetherow.

“I think the fact that it’s being talked about is good, because the message is out there,” Tetherow said. “The [car dealerships] like the program, and customers do too.”

Joe Tetherow.  I’m going to remember that name.  That way, if I ever meet Joe, I can crush his windpipe and smash his orbital bones until his eyes have been reduced to a useless goo.

And guess what, Toyota?  I will never buy one of your cars.  Ever.  Because of this one ad.  I now hate your company, and the only way I might ever re-consider that position is if everyone in your marketing department died in a fire at the office holiday party, leaving their families to grieve through that Christmas and remember it bitterly the rest of their lives.  So tell me again, Joe, is it good people are talking about your ad?