I was driving into work this morning, and the radio played a commercial for a certain home improvment store. This particular commercial promised that they’ll have everything you need to “take your bathroom to the next level.”
ARRRRGH! I hate that “next level” crap! Not only is “taking [something] to the next level” a horribly overused cliche, but it’s totally meaningless. How do you take a bathroom to the Next Level[sup]TM[/sup]? How do you take anything else there, for that matter?
What advertizing gimmicks elicit this kind of response from you? What are the cliches, gags, recurring motifs, and other gimmicks which, if you ran the world, would never be used again?
Also, whoever comes up with the Fruity/Cocoa Pebbles “Fred and Barney in the fad of the week” should be locked in a portable toilet, which would then be set on fire.
One thing I’ve always felt should be illegal is sirens in radio commercials. I don’t know how many times I’ve thought there was an emergency vehicle approaching and it turned out to be on the radio. I think this poses a serious traffic hazard. But I guess the FCC is too busy cracking down on real dangers like Howard Stern.
“Think you’ll never find a (X) which (Y)?
Think you have to settle for (Z)?
Think Q?
Think again!”
Some day, I want to hear one where instead of “Think Again!” it ends with “yeah, you’re probably right”…
That’s just what I was going to say. There was one a while back for a brake repair place that had squealing brakes and a car crashing sound effect that was a little too realistic. Scared the crap out of me every time I heard it.
Yo. Our local radio station (yes, the town is that small) calls itself “The Bug” (trademark is a yellow New Beetle with the station’s logo all over it) and apparently has a big ad deal with a VW dealership about 60 miles away (don’t ask me why) such that they play the VW ads several times an hour. The ad ends with a loud VW horn: “BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!”
Startled the crap out of me the first time I heard it. (I listen to the radio only when I’m in the car.)
"This is <characteristic A> (sound of flutes, guitars, whatever)
This is <characteristic B> (sound of different musical instrument)
Put them together and you get <something insanely great that you must buy right now, dammit!> (different instrument tracks joined together, in a spritely little melody)"
This was cute the first twenty three thousand times. And it’s not like this approach actually tells me anything about the product or service! :mad:
Now I’m just waiting to hear it used for something like a septic tank cleaner.
I dunno, sometimes it’s appropriate. Admittedly this wasn’t an advertisement, but once in a roleplaying game who was undead, and in the habit of eating fallen enemies. I’m not sure how, but saying that that takes hostility to the next level just felt right.
(I wouldn’t have mentioned this, but you’ve got a nearly perfect view/post ratio going and I didn’t want to mess it up).
Commercials which masquerade as news broadcasts*. I have seen quite a few examples, but the current one is the Gieko ad where the reporter is reporting from the scene of a volcano. It’s just plausible enough for you to do a double-take if you catch it out of the corner of your eye.
I guess it’s the same as radio commercials with car horns or sirens – it’s too easy to mistake it for the real thing.
LOST of commercials piss me off, and I take it to the next level insofar as avoiding doing business with the worst offenders. I mean, it’s not like an organized boycott or anything and I don’t think I’m going to make a dent in these practices, but I’m not going to pay them to piss me off.
Most recently, my local talk radio station has 6 or 7 different commercials for different companies that all go something like this:
You are watching your children playing in the snow.
You see that their faces are red with the cold, but you know that the smiles on their faces mean they’re having fun, like you did, when you were a child.
You put your hand on the window and are shocked to find how cold it is.
You feel the windowsill and find that it is equally cold.
You know that if there is this much cold air coming into the house, there must be an equal amount of warm air escaping through these windows.
You stop and wonder just how old are the windows in your home anyway?
And THEN it goes on with the informative part of the commercial, the part they could have played by itself without all the BS before it.
I donno, maybe it doesn’t bother other people, but when I’m bombarded with these types of commercials a couple dozen times a day, with advertisers trying to suck me into their little BS warm fuzzy world, I have to turn the radio off.
Any law firm advertisement should say in plain english “Have you been hurt? Give me a call. We’ll sue their ass off. You and I will make money!”
Improvements on products that really didn’t need an improvement, i.e. those new water bottles that are “virtually unbreakable”. I don’t really remember the last time I broke a water bottle.
Weight loss pills or supplements that promise you’ll lose weight guaranteed when combined with a healthy diet and regular exercise.
Hell, you could lose weight eating dirt if you combine it with a healthy diet and regular exercise.
insofar as avoiding doing business with the worst offenders. I mean, it’s not like an organized boycott or anything and I don’t think I’m going to make a dent in these practices, but I’m not going to pay them to piss me off.