And now instead of living in a pleasant suburb, we're living in the basement at her mom and dad's

I wrote that title from memory, and I've only seen the new Freecreditreport.com ad three times. It's more catchy, and more memorable, than even Weezer's new song, Pork and Beans. In fact, I'm starting to wonder if someone from Weezer isn't writing those jingles.

I think the ads for Freecreditreport.com, where the young man sings about the woes bestowed upon him because he didn't know his credit was bad, are absolutely brilliant.

The first one, Pirate, was beginning to grate on my nerves, to the point where I'd change the channel when it came on — but it was always too late. Just like the horrendous Hotel California, all you need to hear is the first couple of notes and it's stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

Or week.

And then, just when I thought I couldn't stand to hear it one more time, along came the new one, Dream Girl, and damn it if I'm not hooked again.

The ads were created by The Martin Agency, of Richmond, Virginia. They're also the agency behind the Geico ads featuring James Lipton and Peter Frampton (which I also think are brilliant, especially the James Lipton one).

So they're entertaining: check. Memorable: check. Catchy: check. Clever: check. But what are the ads saying? What is the commercial message being communicated? Let's read the lines, and between them:

"I should have gone to Freecreditreport.com; I could have seen this comin' at me like an atom bomb."

The implication is, if only he had checked his credit... what? It wouldn't be bad? How does knowing you have bad credit change the fact that you have bad credit? The ads imply (and very well) that, somehow, using Freecreditreport.com would have prevented our hero from having to wait tables in a pirate costume (or drive a beat-up car, or live in his girlfriend's basement).

It usually surprises my students when I tell them, it's against the law for advertisements to lie. But it's true. You can't outright lie — but you can imply like hell.

That's why these ads are so brilliant. They imply that by signing up for Free Credit Report's monthly monitoring service, that you won't have bad credit. Of course that's not true at all, but people believe what they want to believe, and they want to believe there's an easy solution to the problem of bad credit.

Oh — the ads also imply that the service is free. It's not.

You can watch all three Free Credit Report ads here.