How about the ads where you can obtain complete physical ecstasy thorugh the use of an herbal shampoo?
La franchise ne consiste pas à dire tout ce que l’on pense, mais à penser tout ce que l’on dit.
H. de Livry
I’d mention the much-maligned Old Navy ads except I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to hate them.
I’m getting sick of the dot-coms. When everything’s irreverent, irreverence just ain’t all that irreverent anymore, get it? Most of these I can’t even remember which company they’re for.
I have only heard these on the radio, but for me the number one commercial when it comes to irritation is that damnable Corbet Canyon…Canyon…Canyon
Well, shut my mouth. It’s also illegal to put squirrels down your pants for the purposes of gambling.
The Welch’s grape juice commercials with that mutant little girl. Physically turns my stomach every time I see her - I can no longer watch the commercials. The second they start I either change the channel or leave the room.
Same thing for a local radio station TV ad - some office droid woman says something like “What if radio stations had to tell the truth? <imitating a dj> ‘And now it’s KBLAB, all talk all the time.’” Or something like that. The way that woman’s mouth moves just gives me the willies.
StoryTyler
I am too in shape! :::muttering::: Round is a shape.
I think it’s an AT and/or T commercial…
Woman wakes up to the sound of an alarm clock on “buzz.”
…the sound of MY alarm clock on buzz. Makes me cringe every time.
JMcC, San Francisco, JJM’s page from the Bay
If I were a baseball player, and I got beaned by a fastball, I wouldn’t want medical attention. I’d want my limp, lifeless body flung to 1st, cause, dammit, I earned it!
The DeBeers diamond ads. Like the style, hate the message. It degrades both men and women. The recurring theme is: Buy her affection with a diamond. Just ignore the fact that diamonds aren’t really that scarce, and their market value is artificially inflated by a worldwide monopolistic cartel.
(Note: This is from a guy who likes buying jewelry for women. Just give me an emerald any day.)
How about
“Color. That’s Holiday.”
from the Gap, with spacey looking models gazing off into nowhere. ugh.
on the other hand, I dig their TV commercials. “Everybody in leather”.
“Argue for your limitations; sure enough, they’re yours.”
I hate that shampoo commercial that has the woman moaning and carrying on like she’s having an orgasm - jeez, do they think we’re stupid? I guess they figure when we spot that shampoo in the store, we’ll think “orgasm!” and buy it. But the DeBeers commercial - love those. Romantic. Random - diamonds ARE a girl’s best friend. I know it would help my current relationship a lot- if my guy got me diamonds - I’d figure he cares enough to give the very best!
ramesh, I hate the AT$T commercials too, but not as much as every single one of the friggin 10-10-xxx comercials!!! Aarrgghhh!
“Teaching without words and work without doing are understood by very few.”
-Tao Te Ching
I don’t know what’s going on over at Taco Bell, but they’re on a roll. This is one that still gets stuck in my head, even though they stopped running it eons ago.
Gorditas! Gorditas!
Taco souls are we
Whose lives are pledged
To warm flat bread
Your salsas make us free
Gorditas!
Let’s go eat one now!
If I’m gonna have it stuck in my head, then EVERYBODY’S gonna have it stuck in their heads!
“That’s entertainment!” —Vlad the Impaler
Oh, and by the way, when did you get back, OfficeGirl?
“That’s entertainment!” —Vlad the Impaler
Sigh. I never said the ads weren’t effective, and I guess this is proof. Diamonds aren’t the best. They aren’t particularly rare, and their lack of color is actually kind of boring. DeBeers has successfully overcome these problems through years of ads, to the point where young couples bankrupt themselves to buy expensive engagement rings. (“Look, Joey must really love me! He bought a ring that was bigger than the one my friend got! Too bad we won’t be able to afford a house until we are 40.”)
And now they’re trying to get everyone to buy into the expectation that diamonds are essential for anniversaries and (for god’s sake) the millennium. Just remember - there’s a reason they have to advertise. Diamonds have little inherent value. Also, if you’re rating the gift based on its cost, emeralds, sapphires and rubies are in the ballpark. Last time I checked, a near flawless emerald with good color was significantly more expensive than a similar weight and quality diamond. And trust me - the times I’ve bought non-diamond jewelery, it was attractive, and went over real well. One difference? The price was as a result of real scarcity, not clever ads and artifical market combines.
Hmmm…okay, I’ll take an emerald, with a couple small diamond accents. You are right Random - I think we’ve been caught up in the advertising, but there’s tradition also - diamonds mean love, marriage, happiness, blah, blah. Actually, when all I’ve gotten so far in four years are a couple pair of gold earrings, I won’t be persnickety - emeralds, rubies will do.
I think the new ‘Tampax was here’ campaign is especially disgusting. That’s the one where they show cheerleaders jumping around and dancing, and then, at the end, the slogan "Tampax was here’. That’s really what I want to think about, all those girls with tampons up their hoo hoos. Yuck.
That Gap Leather commercial sucks eggs!
I will give just can’t get enough.
(Takes his baseball bat across their knees)
Gorditas! Gorditas!
Flatbread cradles three
Try Supreme today
Then Santa Fe
Fiesta we love thee
Gorditas!
Sorry grrrl.
Drop the chalupa!
I hate the guy on the Sprint PCS commercials, all local car dealership ads, and all long-distance ads. Old Navy commercials are in a class by themselves and I think there have been several threads devoted to them in MPSIMS over the past few months.
The one halfway clever “Herbal Essences” ad was where the brainless chick was having a rowdy shampoo orgasm in the middle of a grocery store. Dr. Ruth toodles up and chirps in her German accent, “Just vait until du try da body waaash!”
And that wasn’t a knee-slapper, either.
All McDonald’s ads. McBanal greedbag schlock aimed solely at turning kids into whining, lobotomized consumers of marginal food and worthless manufactured fads.
Veb
Bad commercials, bad commercials, oh so many to choose from so where do I start? Well the only commercials that make me scream in agony, lunge for the remote, and press MUTE so hard my fingers get sore are the Gap ads.
I lose a tiny bit of respect for people that like these ads, kinda like the Seinfeld episode where Jerry dumped a woman because she like a certain commercial. (Was it Dockers? Some kind of pants.)
Local commercials are the worst, bar none.
Especially when they try to shamelessly drive the name of the business into your head via brute force repitition. One local commercial for a place that sells mobile homes has at least 10 different people say “A-1 Homes? A-1 Homes? A-1 Homes?” over and over followed by a Cheech Marin-sounding guy saying “A-1, holmes!” Then they proceed to interview a “satisfied customer,” a woman who not only sounds like she’s reading directly off a script, but sounds like she’s been smoking for 60 years. Yeah that gravely -voiced old lady is going to make me yearn for a hurricane-trap trailer. COME ON!!!
I particularly hate commercials with dogs and cats with computer-generated buggy eyes and mouths that move when they talk. I like the Bud lizards, though. Go figure.
I also hate the commercial where the guy has to explain what a coelocanth is at the end. Up until that point, I thought the commercial was clever. Then they had to go and ruin it. Is there something so terrible about making a clever reference, either assuming that the viewer is smart enough to catch it or intrigued enough to look it up?
I’ve also noticed this trend (of wimping out at the end) in quite a few other commercials, especially those where you are led to believe that a person or dog met an untimely demise, only to catch the final glimpse of the person/animal obviously recovered. Examples, the guy hit by the speeding bullet train, the guy blowing himself up at the BBQ grill, the dog that smells the skunky beer, and many others. I think pulling the punches at the end lessens the impact of the ads.