Adam Walsh, really unavailable for comment.

And statistics show that most likely that van was being driven by the step-dad or crazy uncle.

Not some random stranger in a trenchcoat with lollipops.

I saw this commercial a few weeks ago and found nothing wrong with it. Duracell has had commercials like this for the past couple of years. One of them involved a high school basketball player having a heart attack. They're basically saying "When you need something to work, Trust Duracell"

Not seeing the problem here, other than the slight cheesiness of the commercial.

Man, I was hoping it was going to be a funny ad, but nopers!

It seems they're totally serious. 'Cause you know Duracell batteries last forever, so your Brickhouse Child Locater will never fail.

@jamesdenver: Exactly. Not that those scenarios don't happen, but more kids need to know that someone they know is more likely to do bad things to them, just like women need to know an acquaintance is more likely to assault then than a man in a dark alley. Although the latter definitely happens.

@Dyscord: I love the ones that had some band-I think Bon Jovi, maybe? Like, OK, if you're a rock star, you should really use Duracell. Otherwise, Rayovac is fine.

I've been seeing this commercial for weeks, so I'd hardly call it new. I never got the impression that it was trying to make you think your Kid will get stolen. If that's the case then their previous commercials must have made you think your going to be trapped in a collapsing burning building with no warning to get out or that your going to die and the batteries in the defibrillator used to try and revive you will be dead or when your daughter performs at her first recital the batteries in the microphone will be dead. It's just trying to inform you that companies that manufacture important/life saving electronics use duracell batteries. Too many people take trivial things way out of context these days. (I know I watch too much TV to remember all those commercials, but that is not the issue here.)

I thought it was weird too. Lo jacking your kid? This is common? I'm paranoid with my 6 month old but how big a park are you at that you need this?

The first time I saw it, I wondered if the kid had some sort of "tracker" implanted in him and his mom had the GPS unit. Just a push of the button will tell you where little Johnny is! I still don't know what a "Brickhouse Child Locator" is and, no, I don't want to go find it.

They should have a worst case scenario commercial where the Mom was trying to be cheap and used shoddy Rayovac batteries, the kiddie lo jack doesn't work and Gary Glitter is in the back of the van with her kid.

@Rabbi Dave: It would be better with a satellite and iphone app, considering what else BrickHouse is known for...

The question remains: Does a traditional brand like Duracell really want to associate itself with a company that sells something called the "CheckMate 5-minute infidelity test kit"?

Let's look that up, shall we?

The CheckMate Semen and "Sperm" Detection Test Kit is the easiest and most cost effective way to put an end to the nightmare of suspicion and doubt caused by the infidelity of a cheating spouse or of a sexually active teen. [www.brickhousesecurity.com]

If you continue reading, you'll learn more than I wanted to know about post-encounter fluidics. I'm all for associating Duracell with it, because they deserve it for making this stupid ad.

Remember kids, from know on when you hear "Duracell", think "semen detection" or maybe just "infidelity". That should be enough to get you to buy Energizer or better yet, Rayovac.

Also, no kid is fast enough to disappear when you turn your head for just a second.

I blame the original poster for letting go of the leash.

This commercial fails the logic test. A van go driving away, and the mother can't see her kid's wandered off. Now, if that kid was abducted, it doesn't really matter if the batteries are good because they will be out of range soon enough. If the batteries are bad it doesn't matter because the kid's in the van anyway. At best, it saves Mom some looking time, so that much is true, but that whole "abducted" vibe they put into this commercial fails the sniff test.

Thought: Doesn't this just tell kidnappers everywhere that they should either check their prey for the little locator devices or just be sure to get at least 600 feet away before the parents know what's up? A speeding van can cover 600 feet pretty easily, even with a few crates of lollipops in the back.

@Dyscord: Clearly you never had to babysit me or my best friend. I used to hide in the circular clothes racks in department stores, and J's mom got called to the customer service desk of Home Depot MANY times. It was the early nineties, so maybe our parents were less paranoid than the mom in the commercial. Nevertheless, I know my mom dearly wishes she had had one of these when I was little, just for her piece of mind.

@Roclawzi: I agree that thing may not stop many kidnappers, but it'll help parents find the kid who thinks its funny to hide in the jeans rack.

@Dyscord:

Anyone who says no kid is fast enough to disappear on you is someone that has not spent time around kids. You get distracted "for a second" and they get interested in something and walk towards it. Despite your best intentions, suddenly you are looking everywhere for them. Your first searching looks are in the wrong places, and they have that much more time to find their way out of your sight. It is a heart-stopping moment for a parent, and there are times I would have paid 3x the cost of this to be able to find the missing kid that much more quickly.

Ridiculous. I'd hate to meet any of the pathetically fearful, paranoid parents that buy into this. Does your precious little snowflake really have to spend their childhood wrapped in cotton wool? I shudder to think what these kids are going to be like when they reach adulthood.

@Dyscord: I will tell you are wrong, and I speak from personel experience BEING that kid. It's easy as can be. A child can drop out of eyesight easily behind a trashcan, bench, etc...and while you are trying to locate them, we just get more lost.

@woot: I'd rather this that the people who keep their kids on a leash. This seems like a good idea for a child who is autistic and/or has other problems which may lead them to walk away. In fact, the first time that I saw this commercial, I thought he was autistic.

From The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: "115 children were the victims of "stereotypical" kidnapping. (These crimes involve someone the child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently".

That's 115 out of about 74 million, which is roughly 1:643,000 and about the same the chance of being struck by lightning. It irritates me when people try to use fear to sell unnecessary products.

@Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity: True. You have a point when it comes to kids with special needs.

This ad reminds me of a local hospital's ad, set to a dramatic synthetic pulsing in the background: "You're enjoying your weekend out at the game, when you suddenly feel chest pain. It's your life; do you have a [local hospital] doctor?" *cuts into sales pitch* Implying that the other hospitals are going certainly going to kill you because you didnt go to a specific place just seems so pompous. To be clear, another hospital in the area has won awards for its cardiac care, so it's not like there's only one place that can deal with heart attacks. But by god they try to make you sure that you're going to be in the morgue unless your doctor is their doctor, which in turn raises my blood pressure so I then get on the path to getting a heart attack....tricky.

Fear is being used in more and more ads that I see- the lysol ones especially (I think little timmy can handle a cold, thanks), and I see nothing but opportunism as its basis.

My response to duracell-- when it just has to work: put in new batteries. Stop trying to scare easily cowed parents, who've become moe skittish than a chiuaua in a bullpen. The other duracell ads made their point very well, I thought, but using straight up terror tactics is bad form, in my book. Besides, giving that kid one of the exploding ipod nanos would be a much better form of self defense, AND he could listen to music

Wow, I've always wanted a homing beacon, and I don't even have kids. Think of all the uses for this!!

If you google "lojack your kids" this company shows up in the sponsored ads

What's worse? Companies cashing in on fear mongering "Oh noes! Van guy stole your kid!" or that we've started chipping our kids?

Cause we all know that duracell prevents people from throwing small electronic devices away...

Lots of commercials use fear to try to sell stuff. This one sucks because it does it so badly. It's like the ad agency sat down and said, "How can we make batteries more important? We have to make them a matter of LIFE AND DEATH!!11!" And then realized that there just aren't that many scenarios where consumer-replaceable batteries are of critical, life-and-death importance, and they were going to have to make some up.

Plus, any ad that can be summarized with the words "think of the children" is full of lose.

@Dyscord: How many kids have you been around?

I bet the bunny was driving the van.

@woot: Make sure it is ORGANIC because of pesticides and all.

This reminds me of the paranoia of the 80s when it was coming out lots of children were being abducted and abused. I grew up during that time.

I think it is important to teach people (big and little) how to be safe. If they know that, then they probably will be ok.

I saw this commercial several weeks ago, and my first thought was "Stranger Danger", an episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit.

My next though was why the hell would someone "lojack" their child. Finding "uninterpreted" statistics proved difficult, but I did find these numbers. I beleive the stats are from 2006, but feel free to correct me if I am wrong... ~ 4000 child abductions... out of over 80,000,000 children. That is 1 in 20,000 chance.

I sympathize with anybody who has been affected by a child abduction. It must be one of the worst things that can happen to a family.

Their are much greater threats to your child however.

But honestly, it would really suck for your child to get snatched, to pull out your Brickhouse, and realize the batteries are dead.

Talk about creating new filthy curse words on the spot!

Makes me miss the "It's 12 am, do you know where your children are?" commercials. Back then you had to be missing for hours for a parent to notice you gone.

Today it's "you haven't seen your kid in over 20 seconds.. panic!"

@Dyscord: BEEN that kid and HAVE that kid.

You need to talk to more parents ;-)

Now, I get kind of paranoid with my kid, but I also know that Duracell don't last worth squat in his various toys, why in the frak would I use it for a lojack keyfob? o.O

I don't think the commercial is do bad.

I'm sorry, I laughed. Brickhouse's website has a blurry frame capture of the kid and mom from the Duracell commercial, and notably features the two AA Duracells the thing takes.

They also sell keyloggers. Damn. This is like spy-vs-spy, only instead your child is the other spy, using the infidelity kit to blackmail Dad. On the other hand, maybe I'm just bitter I didn't think to start a business 90% based on people's fears and paranoia. They also sell a lead testing kit, and I've heard those are apparently not that useful.

Seems to me that their devices are fairly big. Kid might get annoyed and take it out of his pocket, and a bad guy would probably find it. Of course, were it something with added value for the kid, IE a cellphone, sure. Granted, the bad guy would get rid of that, too, since it's common knowledge that cell phones can be tracked fairly well, even if they don't have GPS. They used it in OJ's trial.

I wonder how far we are from getting GPS in a watch. Of course, it'd have to be a big watch to get a signal, and it'd have to have a good enough battery or just transmit location really rarely. Nothing easy there, unless there are real breakthroughs in GPS chips.

I like that a kid is potentially abducted, and a mother on her own with another child is feeling safe enough to go looking for the kid with the doodad on sale, rather than calling other figures who are actually able to handle "the kidnapper".

Cops would rather panic and call off a search for a kid who ran to get a balloon and is found normally, than be called 4 days later for a kid who was taken in a van and then to rescue the mother as well.

@Dyscord: Second that.

Nothing like playing on the hyper-sensitivity of parents to the thought of ANYTHING (good OR bad) happening to their precious little bundles...those same precious bundles who can be seen screaming their precious little heads off in the department store while over-protective and offended-at-this-commercial mom is beating him senseless and swinging him behind her by his arm to make him be quiet.

Ah, the joys of having no one to "care" for. But seriously, I saw nothing wrong with this commercial. People need to calm down. Must be a slow news day.

My biggest problem with this commercial is that it keeps myth that your child is likely to be abducted by a stranger going. Studies show that the vast majority (like 99%) of abductions or child abuses are committed by some one the child and family trust. That's where the real problem is not the extremely rare man in the van stereotype that mothers are being lead to believe is such an epidemic.

@magic8ball: They also have the one where the kid with a new hearing aid hears rain for the first time as well. So their not all doom and gloom.

Oh, the gadget in the commercial doesn't have GPS. It just has a little transmitter that you can play hot and cold with. If the kid's more than 600 feet away, it can't see him. Damn. That's no good if the molester has a car, but this is probably decent for pedestrian zones. However, it is a lot cheaper than the other gizmos which have GPS ($190 vs $699). Seems they have high margins to make up for volume, or maybe they're shysters. Who knows...

I dunno, it's kind of a creepy commercial, but it gets the point across well enough. The batteries worked, and the mom found her kid. What more or less do you put in there?

That's a really creepy commercial...

I'm surprised they let that one out...

So, I decided to look up this locator thing; I have a 2.5 year old toddler with a baby on the way - this would be slightly more socially acceptable to the "toddler leash" we plan to get him.

Here's the webpage:
[www.brickhousesecurity.com]

Scroll down to the bottom for the Amazon-style "reviews". All are 5 star, all gushing. What is most interesting is that all of them use the proper style of "BrickHouse" (big B, big H, all one word), as well as the proper full name of each branded product (again, with proper capitalization). Obviously I can't *prove* wrongdoing, but c'mon.

Also note the little disclaimer that "reviews are subject to approval". Also note that while you can rate how helpful a review is, that ranking doesn't show up next to the review. Doesn't this kind of fake testimonial require a disclaimer?

This is kind of like the cell phone commercials that pretty much say you should have one so you don't get raped. Yes, bad things happen, but capitalizing on fear is wrong.

Reminds me of the SNL commercial for the insurance that protects against robot attacks.

[www.robotcombat.com]

See, and I cheaped out and got one of them Bucket of Volts from the discounts bin where I get 900 batteries for a dollar. Egg on my face when I turned on my child's locator device and was out of juice.

Thankfully I went to the corner of Fifth and Main, alone, with a briefcase of unmarked bills totaling $25,000 and they dropped Billy off the van and removed his blindfold. Sometimes those cheap batteries aren't as great a deal as they sound, kids.