Advertisements for products which offer some so-called “improvement” promoted as the Second Coming.
Sometimes (not often) it actually happens that the touted improvement really does confer some meaningful benefit to the consumer. It still isn’t the Second Coming.
“WE LOVE THE SUBS!”
Actually, I have grown to love the Quiznos ads; however, the mere stick-in-your-headness of the damn song should justify punishment by death.
Same goes for any other catchy, stupid, inane tune that embeds itself in your head and will not go away until a) you’ve sung it so much, your co-workers are about to kill you or b) you hear another ad with an even catchier tune. I have a theory that there’s only enough room in my head for one annoying, catchy song at a time.
There was a commercial for an antibiotic ointment a couple of years ago that had a little girl at the beach stepping on a piece of glass that was shown (in extreme, extreme closeup) to be crawling with horrible looking germs. They got a really tight shot of this little girl’s face and she cried “Mooooommmmyyy!” It was just a blatant, horrible, B. F. Skinner ploy. “My child needs me! I must purchase the ointment!” In the words of the Minutemen “Psychological methods of sales / should be destroyed”
I’ll add a few more.
Auto dealers on the radio: “All credit applications WILL BE ACCEPTED!”
Use of smooth jazz in local radio commercials, to make the business or product being advertised appear upscale.
Voiceovers by a beloved former local television meterologist or disk jockey vho retired some 25 years ago.
Neo-retro commercials: either playing the original jingle from a 1950s-era commercial by the company, or just replaying an old 1950s ior 1960-era ad, replacing
In TV commercials, this one has been running rampant for at least ten years now:
The very-wobbly handheld camera.
And it’s getting worse. Why on earth do you want to make your viewers puke? I cannot stand to watch any commercial that does this.
I loved reading all of these, and I agree with every one of them. If I responded to every one I’d just be saying “YEP, ME TOO!” like a doofus. But I agree.
Mine makes me want to spit at the screen whenever I see it.
The camera is panning over a crowd of people (or something), then it speeds up into fast-forward, then it changes into sloooow-motion.
I don’t know what it’s called, but it drives me insane. I understand it. It wants to capture your attention with the fast movement, then focus your attention when it’s moving slow, and it’s probably even effective, but the technique has been so OVERUSED by now that it’s meaningless. I just roll my eyes now when I see it. It takes me out of the moment of whatever I’m watching, and I mentally cry “F*CKING HELL, NOT AGAIN!” and try to weigh the benefits of boycotting the product/movie/TV show that hired such a lame marketing department.
UGH!
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I’m with you on the “next level.” In fact, that, along with “out of the box” should be stricken from the vocabulary, especially when mouthed by pop star(let)s when describing their upcoming offering.
Not really a “gimmick” but should be punished by death anyway:
blah blah blah: ---
blah blah blahblah: ----
blah blah: … Priceless.
God, how I loathe Mastercard and that stupid ad campaign. You know what would be “Priceless,” Mastercard? Retiring that used-up mold, that would be priceless. I know you spent money on it, but geesh, give it a burial already.
It is because of these commericals that I do not carry a Mastercard. Not kidding.
Another vote for lynching anyone who uses road hazard noises in a radio commercial. I almost got killed a couple of weeks ago when a commercial on the radio started with the sound of squealing brakes.
The commercials for home security systems really hack me off. Especially the ones that show a babysitter or old granny wandering around the house at night, as seen by a burglar peeping in the window. Trying to sell me a product by making me more afraid of my neighbors is not a tactic that I approve of.
Going down a little on the rage scale and just picking on the annoyance factor.
Local car dealership commercials are annoying just about anywhere I go. Especially the ones that have a split screen with the car zooming by on a country road on one side, and five pages of disclaimers zooming by on the other. It just reinforces the notion that they don’t want you to read the fine print.
The use of really bad celebrity impersonations or phony accents in commercials should render the offending business subject to fines. A very nice Italian restaurant I visit frequently had a campaign with the worst faux Italian accent I’ve ever heard in the voiceover. Sheesh.
Using popular songs a jingles, especially when new words are inserted, makes me cringe every time.
The worst worst worst WORST THING EVER:
Appending “My” to everything. As far as I know, this started with the Windows 95 My Computer icon. Then it spread to all sorts of special undeletable folders and started appearing at the beginning of URLs. Now it’s printed on the new Florida license plates: myflorida.com. It just seems so childish, like OOH, it’s the new Playskool My First Computer featuring My First Windows! I’m so blanking sick of seeing this everywhere it makes me want to scream.
So, yeah. I shall.
Or phones ringing or doorbells belling.
I’ve got two problems with Nextel ads. The first is just simple conditioning - for about five years, I carried one of those damn radios around everywhere, and every time I hear that be-beep, I flinch and wonder what the job I left two and a half years ago could possibly want from me. But that bother me less than the other problem.
THAT’S NOT HOW THOSE THINGS WORK! If you tried to use a Nextel radio the way they do in their ads, you’d have nothing but interminable pauses followed by lower pitched, longer buzzers indicating “User not available.”
They’re great tools, and they make a lot of jobs much, much easier, and the construction grade phones are damn near indestructible, but they just don’t work the way they do in the commercials.
Not really annoying so much as funny:
I heard a radio ad for a grocery store called FoodMax that started going on about how extreme they were and all, and then whipped out their tag line:
“We lower prices… to the MAX!”
Well, I don’t know about you, but I want MY logs of shit to float in a next-level toilet!
Use of the term “most unique.”
Unique means one of a kind, nothing else like it.
If something is “most unique” then it ain’t unique.
Infomercials in general, but particularly the ones with second-bananas from 70s/80s TV shows wearing the same hairstyle they had in their ‘Grizabella the Glamor Cat’ days having orgasms over a new kitchen appliance demonstrated by a “chef” who looks like he’s probably legally unable to enter three states.
Ersatz chef: Try this (Has-been TV actress name here, the Whoppermatichoppergrill has just ground up three live rodents into a pate and used them to baste some spinach that it grew.
(Has-been TV actress name here: Mmmmmm…mmmmm… OH GOD! OH F*CKING MY! OH SWEET JESUS AS PORTRAYED BY JIM CAVIEZEL IS THAT GOOD! And you know what, I’ll bet this would go great on the cat-milk ice cream that this other one was making…
And the other infomercial annoyance: If you call in the next thirty minutes we’ll include four plastic placemats and a spoon, a $400 value, absolutely free with your $39.95 purchase.
I hate pointless celebrity endorsements. Thom from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy on Pier One makes sense at least: he’s known for his ability to decorate, so his endorsement may actually mean something other than he was finally able to buy that gold Miata, but who the hell cares what long distance service Meredith Baxter uses or, God forbid, what ambulance chasers paid Robert Vaughn $20 and a case of Manischewitz to say use them. Is there anybody out there who is so stupid that they honestly think that Robert Vaughn is so impressed with the efficiency and ethics of a settlement mill in Rabid Squirrel, Tennessee that he’ll attest to the wonders and glories of a settlement mill there? Why didn’t they save the firm save their money and hire an actor from the local Jr. College who’d cost only $7 and three bottles of Manischewitz and would be glad to get it?
And speaking of lawyer commercials, the ones I really hate with an irrational passion are the ones where the entire thing is scripted, pre-filmed and cast with hack actors with a fill-in-the-blank name for the law firm.
[close up and voice of hack announcer]Heh heh heh heh… because we’re so evil we’re not going to give any policy holders a dime… who is the lawyer anyway? It’s…
[close up of inanimate object and voice of completely different hack announcer]Bendham, Ober & Fukkim
[close up and voice of original hack announcer]Oh no… not those Jews… settle.
It’s just so goddam cheesy- it’s like a commercial made with clip-art.
A grammatical error that drives me nuts (not that I have room to talk with all the typos in my last post):
“Save up to 50%… AND MORE.”
Does anybody else keep expecting a CNN announcer to say “One hundred and seventeen students were slaughtered today in a school shooting in Perdition, Oregon today… but there is good news… I just saved $239 on my car insurance!” Geico.commercials.just.need.to.go.straight.to.hell.and.occupy.a.rung.between.Stalin.and.Carrot-Top.
My God. I can’t believe I’m the first to mention:
12-year-old girl: “Hi, Jamie! What’d Dad up to now?”
7-year-old-girl: “He’s … lowewing pwices on. Every! Fing.”
12YO girl: “Fabulous?”
10YO girl: “Our Daddy. Makes the best! Deals on. Carpets in the! Whole, area.”
(all girls together) “Shop at _______'s because we love our daddy!”
Please, anybody who pimps their children in their advertising, just all go straight to hell.
How about: “We’ll beat any advertised price on a (insert one) mattress/carpet pad/car wash/muffler, etc or YOU GET IT FREE!!!” Um, yeah. How does that work exactly? You don’t want to knock $5 off the price so you knock off the ENTIRE price? How often do you want to bet THAT happens? :rolleyes: