Logic in TV Ads

[Gail]

Recently I saw an ad on tv that really bothered me. I think it's because I'm on summer break (I'm a teacher.) and I don't have a lot to occupy my mind.
There's an ad for something called "toaster strudel" This product seems to be an alternative to pop tarts.
A boy's mom gives him a pop tart. The boy then puts the pop tart (unbeknownst to his parents) on one of those New York City clothesline contraptions that go between buildings, which to my knowledge were widely used in the earlier part of the 20th century.
He has a friend who trades the pop tart for a toaster strudel by using the clothesline thing.
Now if the pop tarts are so bad, and toaster strudels are so good, why is this friend in business? What does he want with the pop tarts? What is he getting out of it?
Why are these seemingly middle class families living in run down tenement buildings from 1930's NYC?
Is anybody else bothered by TV ads?

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Gail
"Any major dude with half a heart surely will tell you, my friend--
Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again...."
-Steely Dan

[Stevie Rave On]

I just saw a commercial this morning for ecampus.com. Its a website for college kids, I think they sell textbooks and stuff. I thought it was funny, but I could see where some people would be pissed.

Anyway, the whole commercial was two obviously stoned girls laying on the floor watching a lavalamp and laughing. The girls' eyes were half closed, and for 30 seconds they are just laying there watching the flow of the lava. Everyone knows a lot of people experiment (sp?) with drugs in college, but to use that to get name recognition could be viewed as bad taste.

[UncleBeer]

There is a local ad running here in Toledo for a hypnosis clinic. I'm pretty skeptical about this kind of mystical crap but this strikes me as strange.

These guys are now offering a deal where your first visit is free. What kind of subliminal suggestions do you think they might implant during that first visit?

Maybe one to make you keep returning? Bizarre.

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Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
- Ambrose Bierce

[David B]

A while ago, a pain reliever (Excedrin, if memory serves) had a confusing series of commercials running (and may still have some of them going). In one commercial, a woman talked about why she uses this medication for her headaches and describes how there are scientific studies which prove it works best, etc. In another commercial, a guy said he uses it because it works for him, and he doesn’t believe all those charts and graphs from the studies.

Is it any wonder that the general public is confused about science? This company can’t even make up its own mind about whether to (correctly) point to the evidence or whether to sneer at the evidence and go for an appeal based on what some unknown actor says. I’d be interested to see if there was some sort of pattern as to when each of these is shown (for example, showing the scientific one during news shows and showing the anti-science one during daytime talk shows). In any case, just the fact that this company is trying to confuse the public is bad enough.

Another one that I griped about at the time was around the same time (a few years ago), when Nevada changed the name of Highway 375, which apparently runs near the legendary “Area 51” to the “Extraterrestrial Highway.” They then had big ads in magazines like Discover, promoting the “ET Experience” as a tourist attraction. Half of the ad was taken up by a drawing of a flying saucer with a beam of light coming down from it onto a cow in the road (what’s a cow doing in the road? I don’t know). It goes on to say: “A desolate desert highway. The allure of the unknown. And the possibility of that chance encounter. It’s Nevada Highway 375, the newly-designated Extraterrestrial Highway that’s the talk of the galaxy." I found it hard to believe a state tourism commission (even Nevada’s) would go to these bizarre lengths to get more business.

The flip side of this ad is the question: Do you really want to visit a state where they advertise that you might be kidnapped and have strange experiments done on you?

My favorite was an ad, a few years back, for a phone line called 1-800-DENTIST. The ad had a boss grousing about his toothache, and his perky secretary saying, "Try 1-800-DENTIST; here, let me look it up!" She then flips through her Rolodex for the phone number of 1-800-DENTIST--which is,of course, 1-800-DENTIST!!! This never failed to send me into fits of hysteria.

[liverTwist]

The ad that never ceases to amaze me is Head & Shoulders.

EVERY single time someone goes to these hairdressers (who, for God knows what reason are giving them H&S???) and they recommend H&S, the person getting the haircut says "Head and Shoulders?" like they've never thought of it before. It's absolutely stupid. How moronic... It's dandruff shampoo for f*%#'s sake!



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"Minds are like parachutes; they work best when open."

-Lord Thomas Dewar

[jayron 32]

The strangest, most illogical comercial out ther HAS to be the one for "Quicken" business software. This guy is sitting in what is obviously his basement, when this woman, dressed like a Chef and obviously not his wife (obvious because of the way they behave towards eachother) is carrying a load of laundry and asking him about his software. Seems innocent upon first viewing, but if you really think about it the situation makes NO SENSE. How often to women in Chef's outfits casually bring laundry over to YOUR house.

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Jason R Remy

"No amount of legislation can solve America's problems."
-- Jimmy Carter (1980)

Or how about that woman who's obsessed with everyone's constipation problems, to the point where she brings it up to total strangers in public places, to her husband's mortification? Why does he still go out in public with her? Why hasn't he sent her to a therapist by now?

[AWB]

I dont' understand auto dealership ads. They either:
Proclaim they're number one in their region and beg you to come in and buy a car to keep them there.
[list=1] How many @!#?@! regions are there? It seems like every dealership is in its own.
Why should I help support them, when they seem to be doing fine without me.[/list=1]
Say they're overstocked, or they don't have room for the new models coming in. Too bad they have poor inventory control. Don't expect me to come in and help.

It's not like the cars will go bad and rot. Proof of this is when I bought a "new" (unused) 1995 Escort in 1996 at near full retail. After driving it off the lot, it lost $3000 value.

[Gilligan]

David: the company that makes Excedrin (Bristol Myers) also brought brought out Excedrin Migraine last year. It is the exact same thing as Excedrin. Talk about confusing the public.

[Heath]

Not a TV ad, but a billboard ad for the Nissan XTerra. Has anyone seen this? The billboard has a lovely picture of the vehicle with big, bold, white letters next to it. They read:
TAKES YOU TO PLACES BILLBOARDS DON'T EXIST.
Is it just me, or is this NOT a sentence? Bugs me everytime I see it.

[Gail]

Another thing that bothers me is when a company disses it's own product. The laundry detergent Cheer has an unscented detergent. Its ad says "no irritating odor".
So that means that scented Cheeri is irritating?

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Gail
"Any major dude with half a heart surely will tell you, my friend--
Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again...."
-Steely Dan

[dougie_monty]

Wards (formerly Montgomery Wards) is running, in Southern California at least, a series of ads that irk me. One shows a family on a long trip singing "Frere Jacques," oblivious to their luggage tumbling off the car roof and down the highway. I think the only person this would appeal to, other than a money-grubbing department store CEO, would be the kind of miscreant who likes to go into airports and take people's suticases away from them, and throw them into the path of passing cars. Funny as a rubber crutch.

[mr john]

Jayron,the other day I was having problems with my software. I made a phone call, went down to the basement,... by the time the lady in the chef costume left with the laundry things were just fine. Any commercial that shows you a scientific demonstration, ''Imagine these locks are dirt in your clothes..." anybody remember the Gilliam cartoon from Monty Python? "Crelm toothpaste,imagine Crelm as these cars....."

[MrKnowItAll]

One that always got on my nerves was one for a toothpaste for smokers (Topol, I think). Toward the end of the commercial, one person would say "Sure, it's a little more expensive..."

The other talking head would add "...but compared to the cost of cigarettes..."

What's up with this? Just because a person is willing to fork over a few extra bucks for a pack of smokes, he automatically becomes willing to spend more for hygiene products? What does the price of cigarettes (or tea in China) have to do with it?

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Carpe hoc!

[DoctorJ]

My favorite is still the on-the-go woman who is about to hurriedly make her son a frozen pizza for dinner, until he shows her a picture that he worked hard to draw just for her. She feels bad, puts the pizza back, and instead makes--Campbell's Tomato Soup. Which requires, if anything, slightly less cooking than a frozen pizza.

Dr. J

[dougie_monty]

Does "carpe hoc" mean "seize what"?

[Persephone]

DrJ, you have my vote on that Campbell's Soup ad. I never quite understood the logic behind it. Maybe it's because you have to actually DO something to soup, like add milk & stir it, that makes the whole thing more worthwhile. ;)

[Monty]

Tv ad which bothers me is the one in which a truck of some sort is opposite a human player and there's a chess board between the truck and the human. What bothers me is that there's the ticking, very loud, of the chess clock, yet both sides of the clock are stopped!

[domina]

I remember an ad for some sort of work-from-home software that featured a guy walking through an office with a church collection basket, explaining that everyone was chipping in to get the software for some co-worker that they couldn't stand so that he wouldn't come into the office any more. It was sort of amusing but I couldn't figure it out as a sales pitch: they were basically saying that the guy was going to own the software because he's a loser.

And since others have brought up Head & Shoulders, let's not forget their old ads where a man would be casing a woman (or sometimes vice versa) and be thinking, "Pretty. But she's scratching her head. Could be dandruff," and walks on by. Not that he sees any flakes of course, he just assumes it. Has anyone out there ever passed up an attractive person because of head-scratching?

[MrKnowItAll]

Does "carpe hoc" mean "seize what"?

Actually, I intended "Seize this!" Of course, I know almost nothing about Latin, so I hope someone will correct me if that is wrong.

[Persephone]

Saw another ecampus.com ad last night, that I think may be a television first. Two guys in a dorm room, one skinny & giggling, the other big & beefy, mowing a can of beans. Of course, you know what they're planning. The big guy suddenly stops, hold out his hand, and the skinny guy slaps a lighter into it. Cut to outside, and a huge fireball blowing out the windows of the dormroom. The wild part is, you actually HEAR the fart before you see the fireball. Outside of cartoons like Beavis & Butthead and South Park, I thought TV was, as George Carlin put it, a "fart-free zone."

[OpalCat]

I heard a radio ad yesterday that just did NOT come out the way they planned it. Their slogan was:

Lots of banks will cash your checks, now here is one that will actually shrink them!

Err....? Yeah I'll shrink your check too...sign it over to me and I'll hand you a $5 bill, deal?

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>^,,^<
"Cluemobile? You've got a pickup..."
OpalCat's site: http://fathom.org/opalcat
The Teeming Millions Homepage: fathom.org/teemingmillions (http://fathom.org/teemingmillions)

[David B]

We have a local jewelry store that advertises, "You can't buy a higher quality diamond at a lower price, anywhere."

Well, gosh, that's great. But to me it leaves the implication that you can find the same quality diamond at a lower price elsewhere!

[SkeptiJess]

DrJ, you have my vote on that Campbell's Soup ad. I never quite understood the logic behind it. Maybe it's because you have to actually DO something to soup, like add milk & stir it, that makes the whole thing more worthwhile. -- Cristi

Cristi, I think you've hit the nail on the head. If DrJ had ever read _Wasp, Where Is Thy Sting_ by the wildly funny Florence King, he would better understand this commercial. According to Miss King:

"[The Wasp woman] is the foremost exponent of the glop-it-up school, a cuisine that has been thrust upon America by that Waspy outfit, Campbell's soups. Adding a can of cream of mushroom soup to a can of tuna and calling it Tuna Surprise, which it certainly is, makes her feel like one of those women whom service magazines call "menu planners."
... Her children are so used to Campbell's soup that they will even add a can of water to their Coca-Cola..."

See, a frozen pizza is convenient but a bowl of Campbell's soup is good old-fashioned Wasp home-cooking... Well, it really IS a stupid commercial, I guess! But I like it anyway because it reminds me of Flo and one of my favorite books!

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Jess
Full of 'satiable curtiosity

[Persephone]

Oh my, I must read that book! Sounds positively hysterical! :)

[MrKnowItAll]

Reading about the local car commercials reminded me of the "spokesman" for a local one here. I won't tell you their name, but their initials are "Ron Miller Chevrolet" ;).

They had a character named "Tokyo Joe" (I think) that would tell people not to be Japanese cars. The problem, as you may have guessed, is the charicaturistic way he was presented. Probably every oriental ethnic slur in the book was used. The switching of "r"s and "l"s in the speech. The drawing of him as a shortish, rounded headed guy with extremely squinty eyes and glasses. I'm not oriental, but I was very offended. Everyone I know was, too. Even though the ads have stopped, I'll never, ever buy a car from that asshole, as long as I live.


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Carpe hoc!

[MrKnowItAll]

Sorry, I have a tendency to make typos when I'm ranting. That should be "not to buy Japanese cars," not "be".

Any commercial for any member of the Ricard Auto organization.

Um, I think any auto dealership in any area is going to have pretty bad commercials. I think of them as "vanity commercials". They don't want to shell out for professional talent, so it's either the dealer, the dealer and some family member, or the woman the dealer is sleeping with.

Oh, and when the dealer finds out about 'chroma key' the ads only get worse!!




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Ranger Jeff
The Idol of American Youth

[voguevixen]

Flora -- I don't remember that 1-800-DENTIST commercial, but a real life equivilent would be when I was working at my theater and a woman snatched up one of the 777-FILM cards from a display and joyfully blurted out "Oh good! I'm ALWAYS forgetting this number!" I kid you not!

[The Ryan]

This is just off the top of my head; I'm sure once I watch more TV, I'll think of even more:

Those nicotene gum (or was it a patch? I can't remember) commercials where the woman says that her doctor said that it's safer than smoking. That's realllly reassuring.

Those disinfectant that promise to kill 99.9%
of the germs. Thanks, I'm really conforted knowing that instead of billions of germs, there are now only a few million.

Those Tide commercials, in which someone recounts their entire life story, in which some article of clothing figures prominently, and is of course kept clean by Tide.

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-Ryan
" 'Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter.' " -Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

[Kakkerlak]

This isn't specific to TV ads, in fact it's more often heard on radio.

My irk is car dealers' ads which rattle off a bunch of promotional terms (low financing, zero down, the usual temptations)... and then comes the one I don't understand:

"And before we make a deal, we'll show you the actual factory invoice !"

Often, there's an excited voice in the background which adds: "Actual Invoice !"

What's that mean? I have an image of the sales manager teasingly holding up a piece of pink triplicate just out of reach - "This is the invoice, you can't read it, nyah, nyah, a-boo, boo"

Do they mean they'll let me quickly calculate the exact profit they're making on the car? How could that possibly matter to me? Do they want me to envy their profit? To feel like a chiseler because I negotiated?

I wouldn't tell my own grandmother how much I paid for a car I was selling. It's like a caricature of the vendor in a bazaar "Oh, you insult me with your offer, my children will starve...".

Anybody on the MPSIMS work for a dealer or ever get to see the magic invoice?

Another mystery of marketing.

[David B]

Thought of another one. The new candy "Milkfuls" (or something like that) -- a hard caramel-like candy with a milky center. The commercial features a woman who talks about how she used to go to spend summers with her aunt, and her aunt would give her these. Now that she's grown, she knows her daughter will enjoy going to see the aunt as well.

Only problem is that, as I said, Milkfuls are a new candy!

(No, I'm not confusing it with the ads for Werther's Originals -- I know they are similar ads, but I think Milkfuls was just copying them.)

[StStella]

I'm really bothered by commercials for food- specifically some kind of meat product- that use the actual animal the meat comes from in the add. I like meat, I wish I didn't, but I most certainly don't like to be reminded what it is. Look at the cute chicken, cow, pig in this add and then it ends up being an add for Beef, it's what's for dinner.....YUCK.

On a lighter note, how about that M&M's crispys where the M&M says to the guy eating the bowl of candy, "put yourself in my place, what if that was a bowl full of your relatives and I was eating them..." and the guy replies by popping more candy in his mouth and saying, "here goes your sister, and here's your cousin..."

[David B]

StStella, sometimes those ads bother me on some level as well. I think Subway is running one now for their Buffalo chicken sub, which features a singing buffalo and a chorus of singing chickens -- and the chickens are essentially singing about how you should come out and, well, eat them!

[Drain Bead]

Those disinfectant that promise to kill 99.9% of the germs. Thanks, I'm really conforted knowing that instead of billions of germs, there are now only a few million.


Yeah, and those million or so germs that are left are immune to Tide with Bleach or Mop N' Glo or whatever you used to kill most of them, and they're going to end up breeding new, improved super disinfectant-resistant germs. Joy!

[pmh]

Roach, the dealer will let you read the "invoice". Unfortunately the only connection this peice of paper has to the vehicle in question is the VIN (but you're not supposed to know that). The idea is to make you think he is only making a couple hundred on this car when it is in reality closer to 2 or 3k.

[Satan]

My all-time favorite illogical commercial was during an informercial for some weight-loss body-sculpting crap. It has the testimonials of several happy consumers who used the product (I have no idea what it was, nor do I particularly care). One is a woman, who tells of her seven year old who came up to her while in a bathing suit in front of a full beach ran behind her, grabbed her butt ans said, "Mommy, look at all of this cellulite you have back here!"

I know a lot of 1st graders who speak of "cellulite," don't you?

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Brian O'Neill
CMC International Records
rockuniverse.com/cmc/cmc.html (http://rockuniverse.com/cmc/cmc.html)

ICQ 35294890
AIM Scrabble1
Yahoo Messenger Brian_ONeill

[Omniscient]

The subject line belongs in the oxymorons thread.

[Drain Bead]

There's a new commercial out with this tape that you use to correct errors and write over it. In it, this seven-year-old girl is looking at her mother's grocery list, crossing out all the icky stuff like brussels sprouts, and replacing them with "ice cream" and "a pony." Later on they show her shopping with her dad and getting all the stuff on the list. Now, I don't know many seven-year-olds, but I doubt many of them would be such accomplished forgers, considering they can barely print.

[Byzantine]

These ads have bothered me for a long time. The Money Store or any of their ilk that promise to get you out of debt by, yep, that's right, getting you FURTHER into debt! ARGGGGGG! That drives me nuts!


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The moon looks on many flowers, the flowers on but one moon.

[Astroglide]

AFRTS, the military television provider we get overseas, bombards us with propaganda and military-themed "commercials" constantly.

They are the most moronic, cheesy, intellectually insulting commericals you can possibly imagine. I can feel myself getting dumber when I watch them.

One such series on American Military Tactics ends with two halves of a chessboard meeting in the center of a screen, then one king moves directly in front of the opposing king. I mean, I ain't no Bobby Fisher, but c'mon people!

For the record, this series is among the best produced ones shown.

[soulquest7]

I just saw a commercial this morning for ecampus.com. Its a website for college kids, I think they sell textbooks and stuff. I thought it was funny, but I could see where some people would be pissed.

Anyway, the whole commercial was two obviously stoned girls laying on the floor watching a lavalamp and laughing. The girls' eyes were half closed, and for 30 seconds they are just laying there watching the flow of the lava. Everyone knows a lot of people experiment (sp?) with drugs in college, but to use that to get name recognition could be viewed as bad taste.

Does anyone know what this commercial is? I remember it as well, but can't remember what it was trying to advertise.

[Ludovic]

Not a TV ad, but a billboard ad for the Nissan XTerra. Has anyone seen this? The billboard has a lovely picture of the vehicle with big, bold, white letters next to it. They read:
TAKES YOU TO PLACES BILLBOARDS DON'T EXIST.
Is it just me, or is this NOT a sentence? Bugs me everytime I see it.
In addition it seems pretty illogical. It's saying "hey, if it weren't for this billboard, you'd be looking at a pretty tree or field right now! HAW HAW HAW!"

[emcee2k]

Does anyone know what this commercial is? I remember it as well, but can't remember what it was trying to advertise.

I'm guessing it was trying to advertise ecampus.com.

Unrelated but, I'd like to point out that children born the day this thread was started are now in high school.

[JKilez]

Does anyone know what this commercial is? I remember it as well, but can't remember what it was trying to advertise.
United Zombie College Fund (UZCF). Brains are a terrible thing to waste. :D

[soulquest7]

I'm guessing it was trying to advertise ecampus.com.

Unrelated but, I'd like to point out that children born the day this thread was started are now in high school.

I found the commercial on youtube: http://youtu.be/vTIvUBWDxHc

[Ponch8]

Unrelated but, I'd like to point out that children born the day this thread was started are now in high school.

Maybe a few prodigies. They'd still only be 12 1/2 years old today.

[emcee2k]

Maybe a few prodigies. They'd still only be 12 1/2 years old today.

:smack: Middle school.

[Digital is the new Analog]

It's time for some commercials for a service planning Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, then!


-D/a

[twickster]

Welcome to the SDMB, soulquest7. This thread is what we call a "zombie" -- one that has been inactive for a long time, like over a decade.

Since this thread is so old, I'm going to close it. If people want to start a new thread on the topic, feel free to do so in Cafe Society (which didn't exist when this thread last saw the light of day).

twickster, MPSIMS moderator