Cody and Bella are the perfect couple, eighteen and unlike many their age taking things slow, enjoying time with each other and not letting thoughts of sex ruin an otherwise meaningful relationship. They have a bond greater than most young people but for Cody, Bella's suggested family cookout date might be far more than advertised.
He's nervous enough as it is, heading to her house, the promise of spending a nice day with her and her parents, cooking burgers outside with Bella's dad, watching college football as they eat. It's not that Cody isn't a good kid and certainly not that he doesn't respect Bella, but alone time with her dad is definitely not the ideal way to spend a Saturday in the fall. And that isn't even mentioning the fact that Bella's mom is a very attractive woman, an older version of Bella in every way.
What Cody doesn't know is that not too far away a local television station is preparing to test a new digital filter on the big commercial break at the start of the very college football game Bella's parents have on the television.
This advanced digital filter promises to enhance advertising by combining the commercial with subliminal layers programmed to magnify the effectiveness of the ad. As the two geeky inventors of it claim, it Subliminates the Competition by making an ad so good no one can resist whatever it advertises.
Naturally as they say, advertisers in movie theaters have been using subliminal filters for years with varying degrees of success, driving up hunger and thirst to help sell more from the lobby. Additionally candy manufacturers have been researching subliminal cues in color of wrapping, and other hardly noticed details that resonate deep in the subconscious.
The hope is that the filter will run layered over any commercial without the need for making a new commercial and the result will be a dramatic increase in success of the ad. If a television station or network has greater success for the advertisers, they make more revenue in ads, and so everyone wins. While the local network manager isn't entirely convinced he's game to try it out, and the big game is what everyone is watching this weekend so where better to try it than the sponsor's initial minute long at the beginning of the game?
Sometimes though a simple concept is not so simple when it comes to actual results. Back at Bella's house, Cody is outside with her dad, cooking up the burgers and having a good chat about all things life. Inside, Bella and her mom are on the couch, watching for the start of the game and then comes the commercial that will change everything.
They say there is often too much sex in advertising, but the commercial for a popular fast food chain is particularly lacking in subtlety and little do mother and daughter know that as they watch the commercial, they are viewing it through an unseen filter that makes it that much more successful... only not in selling the food.
Bella and her mother find themselves sold on hunger but what they hunger for is far from a meal, and far from innocent. As soon as Cody steps back in from the deck, he's in for one hell of a surprise, along with definitely getting to know both his girlfriend and her mother in ways he never imagined.
Sometimes there is bad advertising, and then again sometimes there is Badvertising, where a wholesome mind is sold on very unwholesome thoughts and desires. Discover the craziness of what happens to a nervous guy whose date with his girlfriend's family takes on some extremes he never prepared for, and the scoring on television is more than surpassed right there in the living room.