I recently saw a razor commercial- didn’t pay attention to which brand. It went something like “if you shave in the morning, by evening when you’re on a date five o’clock shadow can be a problem. Use our super-duper razor.” Um, wait a second. No razor can shave smoother than smooth. If you have a swarthy chin by evening it’s because you have a fast growing beard. A four-blade razor isn’t going to help.
Any other ads you’ve seen that you swear were written by Dogbert?
Fed-Ex commercials. They all seem to feature clue-less idiots walking into the joint and making complete asses of themselves. Gee, are they trying to tell me Fed-Ex is so easy to use that an idiot can figure it out? No, the message for me it that stupid people chose Fed-Ex.
There’s an ad that’s running for a gimmicky extendable hinged paint brush.
There’s a shot of it being used to paint the trim around a corner up near the ceiling. Just a quick shot, but hilarious: The paint is splashed all over the place, with the sort of improbable messiness usually reserved for demonstrations of how hard life is without your innovative product. “Darn it! I can’t pour this pasta through a colander! If only there was some easier way!”
No attempt made to present the usual RonCo Platonic Ideal of product use-- they expect people to buy a product that they plainly demonstrate is completely unusable, in the commercial. WTF?
TV:“Does searching for cheaper car insurance drive you mad?”
Me:“No”
I think the current Barbasol shaving cream ad qualifies. No substance, just a wide-eyed kid informing his mother that she “better buy Barbasol[!]” for his father upon his running out of shaving cream. No further voice-over than a description of its “eight great flavors [sic?]”. Clearly done by individuals hoping mere brand recognition will get them out of the presumable slump.
I’ve seen an ad a while back for the Jack LaLanne juicer, whatever its trade name may be. When comparing it with an “inferior” juicer, they clearly misused the thing by ramming in the chunks of apple so the shredder-thing wouldn’t have time to catch the fruit and, ah, juice it. “Look at how little juice this produced (upon my reaming the poor thing against the manufacturer’s instructions)!” Then, when they demonstrated the “better” LaLanne model, they fed it gently and slowly, which was the same manner prescribed for our juicer, which in turn is vastly similar to the one they abused. :rolleyes:
My current rage inducing commercial is actually a 30-min infomercial around some book that says there are herbal remedies for cancer, diabetes, ADD, cystic fibrosis, migraines, and chronic fatigue syndrome (just to name a few) and if only you buy his book he’ll save you from the (wait for it) greedy drug companies that just want your money and to keep you sick. I always watch wondering why if he’s such a great guy he doesn’t post some of his ‘cures’ on the internet for free.
Another that bugs the hell out of me is those “The dish is the disease! We’re the cure” from Charter Digital. I had a dish for 6 years and nearly everything said in those commercials are total lies. Such as satellites fail during bad weather. I never had a real problem. Sure on really really bad days I might lose the picture for an hour or two but it was a regular miracle considering the cable went out on breezy days (maybe that could just be our local experience but still the outages on my dish were rare and short). Satellites cost more then cable. Huh our dish was free on some sort of deal and I got more channels for less money then I was paying and they increased the rates much slower then the local cable did. If all this wasn’t annoying enough hearing Dan (the ghostbuster) and that stupid tagline over and over is driving me slowly insane.
There’s a new dental whitening product that has taken note of the pitch for the $150 diet pill.
“This new whitener is much too powerful for people who just want to lighten their teeth by two or three shades. This is for people with ink-black teeth who want to shoot down passenger jets with their laser mouths.”
Or whatever. I mean, fuck.
How 'bout that MickeyDs commercial where the guy asks the girl (over his celphone) what she wants to eat? The unspoken message is, for me, thunderous: if you want to lie to your girlfriend, fellas, we’re behind you 100%! Not to mention that the guy’s interaction with the hapless counterperson demonstrates how he sees her as a mere machine that must service him on demand. Where’s the courtesy? Oh, that’s right, we’re supposed to see this guy as slick and in charge. Whatfrickingever. :rolleyes:
The “eight great flavors” is what really got me about that commercial. Barbasol’s schnozberries do not taste like schnozberries.
“I can’t find a store that will let me give my software away for free, so I have to do it in this commercial that you’ll see every single break for the rest of the night! Just send me $10 and I’ll send you this GREAT free software!”
And from another commercial hawking some sort of dietary supplement that’s supposed to make you smarter:
“They’re giving it away for free? It must be good!”
Lady, if you really think that, I hope the stuff actually works for you. It couldn’t possibly make you stupider.
This is well and amusing, especially as a rant, but I must say that a additional potentially interesting thread would be to mention those rare, rare commercials that don’t assume you’re stupid.
Isn’t there a famous quote by someone in advertising that advertising is based on the hope that human intelligence can be suspended for 30 seconds?
Three little words: “They’re people friendly!”
I would like to dip whoever came up with that shit in ketchup and feed him to Cthulu.
My favorite one during the Super Bowl - a FOX ad for 24 that was all about how expensive this ad is, and how you should appreciate it because it costs sooo much money to advertise during the game - er, it’s your own network. For you, it’s free. Duh.
Theres one-its for a bank, I think. A guy is sitting there and wanted a loan. The banker tells him “Look in your pocket.” The guy does, and theres the check! Then the guy says he’ll be going now, and suddenly his jacket is on him when it wasn’t a second ago. :rolleyes:
I think you missed the point. They were talking about how much money they could’ve got for the spot, but they didn’t want the money because the wanted to tell the world about 24.
A slight difference…
I think all adds are stupid. I have never bought anything in my life because of an add. Matter of fact, I usually hate anything related to advertising. It acts as a deterrent. Is it just me?
OOOOOH! OOOOOOH! MR. KOTTER!
Opportunity cost!
Product: Citi Advantage card.
Spot: Really bad magician makes a woman’s $20 bill disappear into a hat. He then goes to retrieve it for her and comes out with his pet rabbit chomped onto his finger in a death grip. Rest of spot discusses the advantages of the Citi Advantage card in voiceover with plain title cards, intercut with the magician howling frantically as he tries to shake the rabbit off first his finger, then later, his face. Fade out on the rabbit launching from the nightclub stage to ker-pow a passing waiter, who drops a tray of meals.
…huh?!
Honestly, folks. This is a textbook case of Remember The Ad, But Forget The Product. I was laughing so hysterically the first few times I saw this spot that a) not only did I have no idea in hell what the Citi Advantage card was after it was over, but b) I even failed to notice that the killer-rabbit narrative had absolutely nothing to do with the product.
Glad you mentioned it. I saw this ad the other day and it’s the first time in a long time that I’ve truly been baffled at an ad. Some are misleading or don’t really talk about the product. This one tried to make logical sense and fell off the bandwagon and into a pit of flesh-eating cheese-doodles.