Singer Sarah McLachlan has depressed many an animal lover with her late-night commercials on behalf of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The ads feature McLachlan’s song “Angel” playing over images of plaintive-looking dogs and cats, as well as sobering statistics about animal abuse.
The singer herself has admitted she finds the ads so heartwrenching that she avoids them when possible.
“I change the channel. I can’t take it,” McLachlan told HuffPost in 2014. “I can’t even look at it. It’s just so depressing.”
Now, the singer is applying her talents for tear-jerking and awareness-raising to a parody PSA for another neglected group: online shopping carts.
In the video, McLachlan laments that 70% of online shopping carts end up abandoned in the checkout process ― you know, when you click away or close the tab instead of taking that last step to complete your purchase. The “PSA” is actually an ad for Bolt, a company that supplies one-click checkout for online retailers.
“Please say you’ll be the answer to an innocent cart whose dreams are crushed by questions like, ‘Is your billing address the same as your home address?’” McLachlan beseeches the viewer.
In a gentle melody, a male singer then urges listeners to try Bolt for themselves. “Please, come on, we got Sarah [bleep] McLachlan,” he croons, not inaccurately.
Bolt says it has made a $50,000 donation to the ASPCA, and is selling merchandise on its website with some funds also going to that organization.
According to Fast Company, the Bolt commercial comes courtesy of Ryan Reynolds’ agency Maximum Effort, which also created the recent ill-fated Peloton ad starring actor Chris Noth. Peloton scotched that ad after multiple women accused Noth of sexual assault.