Vinay Menon: Martha Stewart teams up with Tito’s to mock Dry January and it’s not a good thing

It’s January, the month drinkers attempt to heal their livers.

I’ll raise a glass to this. Cheers to you, Dry January. Alcohol is the most socially acceptable form of slowly poisoning your own body. If you can simulate a teetotaller until February, it’s a good thing.

Just don’t watch Martha Stewart’s new ad for Tito’s.

Or you’ll be doing shots before sunrise.

The tongue-in-cheek campaign, unveiled this week, starts with the lifestyle guru sounding wryly pragmatic: “Hey, I get it. It’s Dry January, so you’re not drinking much. But if you’ve got Tito’s lying around, don’t just stare at it — use it.”

Her tips include misting winter boots with vodka to get rid of musty smells. In what is sure to give panic attacks to botanists, she pours vodka into cut flowers. She removes dirt and grime with vodka, a potent potable far more expensive than Mr. Clean. She tenderizes a steak by smashing it with a big ole bottle of Tito’s, raising the possibility her guests will be dining on tenderloin encrusted with glass shards.

Then at the end, she caves to temptation and sips a martini while narrating in the third person: “Ah, f— it, Martha needs a drink.”

Yes, it’s a joke. Though it’s possible not everyone gets it. Tito’s is actually selling bottle attachments — the Cleanerizer, the Deodorizer, the Flavorizer — so customers can MacGyver their vodka stash into household products this month.

By Wednesday, the attachments were sold out.

I get why alcohol marketers are treating Dry January with ironic detachment. It’s not good for business. If there was a Barefoot February, Nike execs would not be running to show support. But wouldn’t it be more responsible for Martha Stewart to sit out this ritual and not make a half-soused mockery out of healthy intentions?

We have enough trouble fulfilling our doomed New Year’s resolutions.

I’m an old man now, so my goals are mostly limited to not pulling a hamstring while putting on socks or nodding off during movie night with the kids. But I remember when the calendar changed in my younger days and how I’d make all kinds of false promises to myself. I never did get that six-pack stomach. I never mastered a second language. I never invested in emerging tech. I have repeatedly failed to moisturize and hydrate. I never had that torrid affair with Halle Berry.

To close out 2022, the marketing company time2play surveyed 1,000 Canadians about resolutions. The No. 1 reason for failure was a “lack of motivation.”

Makes sense. But now companies are weaponizing our shoddy resolve. The gym Equinox just made headlines after refusing to accept new memberships on Jan. 1: “You are not a New Year’s resolution. Your life doesn’t start at the beginning of the year. And that’s not what being part of Equinox is about.”

It’s a PR stunt disguised as a message of lasting empowerment. But if someone is curious about free weights or a spin class, this preachy tone is not helpful. Equinox is acting like it’s a Bohemian Grove. Just let people join your stupid club, even if stats show most new members will quit long before the March equinox to begin exclusively working out their forearms and jaws at Krispy Kreme.

That’s why Martha Stewart and Tito’s new campaign is so aggravating.

This is subliminal advertising masquerading as comedy. There’s a product shot in every frame. When I watched the 60-second spot, I didn’t get any “DIY January” inspiration. I started daydreaming about day-drinking. That’s what happens when Martha opens her mouth to tongue an aerosol spritz of delightful vodka.

Dry January is a doable resolution by virtue of its ephemeral nature. One month, boom, done. It’s a sensible starting plan for those who overdo it the rest of the year. So why is Ms. Stewart profiting and trying to trick these people into a Wet January?

There are lost souls out there who will miss the irony and watch her douse a pasta sauce with Tito’s and then conclude that cooking with alcohol is not the same as drinking alcohol: “It’s Dry January. Guess I’ll just make myself a tequila gazpacho.”

No! Do not brine your pork chops in Jack Daniel’s! Or at least, invite me over!

I don’t find Martha’s ad funny because I want to live in a world where New Year’s resolutions one day have a fighting chance to endure. At this moment in time, do you really think Kevin McCarthy is not kicking himself for not starting 2023 by quitting the U.S. Congress to begin a new life as a circus trainer of birds of prey that won’t peck out his eyeballs? I want to live in a world where Khloé Kardashian resolves to never defensively clap back at haters who have the temerity to point out how her face and torso are crudely Photoshopped in that next selfie gallery.

Dry January is a superior resolution to some of the goofball ideas that have emerged in recent years, including “tweet less” or “learn a decent party trick.” You should not be tweeting at all. It’s as bad for you as binge drinking. And nobody wants you to make a loonie appear from behind their ear while nibbling crudités.

Instead of teaming up with Tito’s, Martha Stewart should be working with Satan.

Ignore her new ad and Godspeed with Dry January.

It’s a good thing.

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