While browsing over the telemarketing thread, I got to thinking about the disturbing (and seemingly exponentially growing) trend of what I call annoyvertising – that is advertisments that serve no purpose other than to infuriate the consumer into buying their products.
Used car dealerships have traditionally been the primary culprits of this practice, with screams of ZERO DOWN THIRTY NINE CENTS A MONTH and 2 point text that flashes on the screen briefly at the end of the commercial explaining well … umm I’m not sure what it explains; I really can’t read that fast. I think “approved credit” has something to do with it, though, and that counts me out.
Anyway it seems that this practice has been spreading as of late, and not just on cheesy local commercials either. Take, for example, that 1-800-CALL-ATT buffoon, the one with the telephone keypad t-shirt, dark hair, and an apparent amphetamine problem. Does this screaming maniac in any way make you want to use your service?
Another thing I really can’t stand is the practice of naming college bowl games and sporting stadiums after corporations. If all the people who are going to go to these games want to see the stadium named after an old ball player, and a coporation comes along and says nu-uh. We’re gonna pay a bunch of money and they’ll name it Bob’s Dung Transportation Arena. Doesn’t this reflect badly on Bob’s Dung Transporatation in the eyes of the public? Why would they continue to patronize this business after Bob defaced the name of their park? (Worst example of this : The Poulan/Weedeater Indepedence Bowl)
I guess my question really is, why does this type of advertising work? Do some people like being shouted at? Do we like to have our intelligence insulted by someone repeating the same thing 10 times over in the space of 30 seconds?
How fitting for Satan to make a perverted point. I rember the annoying ads for much longer than the average, vanilla ads. So in that sense, the hard sell works.
But I really don’t want to buy a product from a screaming frootloop.
The latest local commercials I’ve seen have been for a certain seafood resturant on Richmond. I don’t know exacly why, but every commercial I’ve seen for this place just puts my teeth on edge.
I don’t get my news from TV anyway (I’m a newspaper junkie), but I vow upon penalty of death never to watch Fox 5 news at ten (DC area) because of their totally annoying current commercial campaign and “teasers” they run.
Oh yes, I remember the commercials. Oh yes, I remember the station. Oh yes, I remember the product (news at 10! It’s about time!).
I remeber so well that if I ever do watch TV news, it won’t be the local Fox affiliate.
I think the divemaster has the right idea here. I personally try to avoid buying products and services that “annoyvertise.” Nice term by the way, I’ll be using it. It’s my opinion that companies that insult me so deserve to be trampled in the marketplace.
“The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind.” - Humphrey Bogart
Commercials that annoy are not new. It’s what a client does when he can’t be creative.
And right now there sure doesn’t seem to be much creative out there.
Car dealers seem to be the worst offenders. One comes up with an annoying commercial and it seems only a matter of time before some other dealer tries to copy it.
Look for the word “balloon payment” in the disclaimer. As in: 54 payments of 39 cents and a final balloon payment of $32,357.67.
It’s heating season up here in the Northland again, and time for the Oil Business to start running their annual DUMBFUCK ads about why they’re a better heating choice than the Natural Gas Business.
These fucking ads run about four to the hour on WINS-AM, the all-news station in NYC. ONE FULL MINUTE (which seems like hours when you’re waiting for the weather forecast or transit report) LONG.
These seem to be aimed at THE lowest common denominator. Amid beeps and honks a la Clarabelle, the smarmy announcer makes it clear that anyone who heats his home with gas is a natural loser, a gibbering moron.
That’s the thing that kills me. He doesn’t say “Oil is cheaper.” He doesn’t say “Oil will heat you home more efficiently.” He says, in effect, “People who heat with oil are COOL BEANS. People who heat with gas are LIKE THIS…BGBGBgbggggfffffphhhh!”
What the FUCK are the oil boys thinking? That the people in the household who make the heating fuel choices are second-graders?
I took an advertising course and they said you read a phone number twice in a 30 sec spot, 3 times in a 60 sec spot, and you try to spread the repitions out over the spot. These loonies give out their number FOUR times, and all in the very last 5 sec.
And then there’s those dopey actors
Hello, can you send me the free information packet?
Sure!!! (In a voice that would give Danny De Vito diabetes…)
Amen on the stadiums. I agree it reflects badly, because I know I sure as hell, as a San Franciscan, buy any 3Com products. Same goes with Qualcomm, since Jack Murphy was responsible for bringing baseball to San Diego (good for him).
Oh well, I guess we have to deal with Astroturf first.
Don’t start me on stadiums – we are stuck with two brand-new, state-of-the-art stadiums here in Seattle, right next to each other, each usurping the required parking space for the other. They can’t build one stadium for both football and baseball? No! Both teams held the threat of leaving over the heads of the citizens if we didn’t line the rich owners’ pockets with our hard-earned dough. And this is the real kicker – both stadiums were put to a public vote, both were voted down, both votes were overridden by our local pols!
And after all that they sell the naming rights to the highest bidder while I and my fellows citizens (as far away as Spokane!) are paying the lion’s share of the cost. They can name it what they want. It’s Citizen’s Field when I mention it.
“And comb London’s teeming millions for him? Had we but world enough and time.”
Dorothy L. Sayers Murder Must Advertise
Hey Sealemon, would that be the King Fish Market, where fish is their middle name?
I actually like the concept of some of their commercials. Well, one. The one that played off of the Visa ads. But they are done very poorly. At least they’re not as bad as Wolf’s, or Soundwaves.
For the record, I avoided Soundwaves like the plague because of their ultra-low budget schlock commercials. Until a girl I was interested in told me the place was actually pretty good. The interesting thing is she hadn’t seen the commercials.
Back in the 80s, there was a trend in advertising: commercials showing people in offices talking earnestly among themselves, about computers, mostly. Manny people loathed these commercials, and I could never understand why. We had just come off a big wave of annoyvertising, and I didn’t see anything wrong with commercials that were easy to tune out.
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
My personal least-favorite are the radio spots that exhibit electric sounds, like pagers, alarm clocks or (by far the worst) car-engine-failure alerts. They never fail to give me a startle. And for the life of me I cannot remember what the ads are for.
Remember the old adage (often attributed to all kinds of different folks), “It doesn’t matter what they’re saying about you as long as they spell your name right!”
You know who was the first team to sell the name of its stadium? Believe it or not it was the Buffalo Bills. Rich Stadium was named after some Buffalo company whose business is unknown to me. Now the stadium is named after the owner.Cleveland sold the names of its entrances and exits to its new football stadium, but the place itself is simply called Cleveland Stadium.
Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to relive it. Georges Santayana
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