I saw on their Web site that they had three commercials (maybe I was in the bathroom for the third one)... if they aired each one once, that would be 8.1 million for the airtime. On the bright side, I guess Sales Genie didn't have to spend much on producing the spots... they probably hired some animator in a third-world country to draw the characters. Whatever people think about the commercials, there are a lot of people talking about Sales Genie who wouldn't be otherwise. Maybe this will spark a whole wave of cartoon panda ads, or of ads with outdated ethnic stereotypes... maybe someone can get Mickey Rooney to recreate his imitation of a Japanese man from "Breakfast at Tiffany's," LOL.

I saw two Sales Genie ads, and I wouldn't say they were racist, but they seemed to portray outdated stereotypes that you don't see in the U.S. anymore in such high-profile ads. It may just be a matter of being a bit clueless about the use of stereotypes in the U.S. (One commercial featured an Indian employee with 8 children.) I heard that the commercials were written by the head of Sales Genie, who is a man originally from India. Seems he's not quite up to speed on the portrayal of ethnic stereotypes in the U.S. these days. The racial/ethnic issues aside, cartoon pandas wouldn't really appeal to me if I was a sales professional. Commercials like Sales Genie's are why most companies hire advertising agencies, especially if they're blowing $2.7 million for 30 seconds of airtime.