No telling how many threads have allowed for criticism about commercials. I have contributed to some of them. This one is to try to go further than just pointing out particularly annoying ones and to try to determine why those in the position of authorizing, selecting, producing, or otherwise participating in the process of bringing them to life would settle for the most annoying ones.
For a short period much earlier in my life I worked in an AM radio station that had many (make that most) of its commercials produced in house with station-paid “talent” both in the writing and in the producing. Usually they had some sort of musical background, sometimes with sound effects, but lacked much in the way of pizazz and were just straightforward reading of rather drab copy. The pattern was for a staffer to be handed a stack of copy and come cassettes and told to make some timed spots, either 15-, 30-, or 60-seconds. I can’t vouch for others but I tried to make mine mistake-free and reasonably animated in tone. Other than that, originality and freshness wasn’t a concern.
Local radio spots still seem to follow similar approaches. Network or major market production companies get much more elaborate and (sometimes) much more effective results, but they all seem to suffer from the same problem: excessive repetition. Whatever might have been the “proper time” to be sure the maximum number of listeners had heard it at least twice and thereby “gotten the message” would be exceeded at least tenfold, to the point that virtually nobody could escape being bombarded by the same commercial dozens of times.
Eventually the sponsor would pay for a new commercial and the process would be repeated.
Lately I’ve heard spots that were promoting some drop-dead date running at least a week afterward. The same mispronunciation or glitch would be heard ad nauseum. The same mindless music or sound effects would just go on and on.
My main point is that somebody in the chain of getting the commercial from “idea” to “finished” product must have realized what dreck they had produced or paid for, must have at least suspected that they were pissing off their potential audience, must have themselves gotten fed up with hearing it so many times they could sing along, or otherwise had the good manners to kill it.
All of these concepts can be applied to TV or even movie/DVD/whatever commercials. All of them suffer the same ills.
Why is that?
What other consistent gripes do you have against commercials in general?
I’m not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but I have always wondered why local car dealerships use the same approach no matter where you go:
Ugly blinking graphics, irritating sound effects and noises, annoying pitchmen. The same tired phrases: “No credit application turned down!” “No money down!” et al
The local ad agencies must make their bread and butter on these spots because they have got to just cost pennies to produce. I have never understood why they are effective…repetition sticks in your brain, I guess.
I notice also ads running after drop-dead dates. I thought this was because many times the contract is for a certain number of spots and even if the spots run after the event they have to do this to honor the contract. I think there is an industry name for this but I can’t think of it now.
Why do some adversiters put such annoying music into their ads? The Vonage commercials and the Fido cellphone commercials up here have horrible yodely singing in them, and because of this I have vowed never to use their services.
I don’t get how a local radio ad can have a severe mispronunciation of a city or area in it. I’ve heard them over and over again all my life.
I always have to assume that the “voice” of the commercial is not local and doesn’t know better, but don’t the advertisers get to listen to a proof of the commercial before it airs? I could understand if it was some corporate entity from somewhere across the country, and they just have a local branch that had nothing to do with the production of the commercial, but I’ve heard this sort of thing with little local Mom & Pop businesses.
The main reason I got Sirius satellite radio was so I could listen to Howard Stern, but when he’s not on, the 100% commercial free music stations are great. They do still have annoying DJ’s, but the complete lack of commercials make them a little more tolerable. I’d much rather pay the $12.95 a month than listen to all that crap anymore!
There’s a theory that the lower the price of the car, the more razzle-dazzle. After all, when was the last time you saw a screaming Jaguar or Lexus commercial? They’re more “tasteful,” high-browed, more along the lines of the demographics. It’s your Used Yugo Dealerships that have to resort to dogs and bikini-clad models and hyped up salesmen in ill-fitting plaid suits.
Moving on to TV commercials, those new Earthlink fantasy related commercials terrify me. Why is everyone just standing there talking about internet service? SOMEONE FIND A GUN AND SHOOT THE FUCKING OGRE!
Car commercials, yes. Horrible. And I really hate the lawyers one, where the car crashes on the radio. Don’t do that when I’m driving, you asshole, makes me think there’s an accident. I don’t like any radio commercials that have sirens, car crashes, or horns.
I work in broadcasting. You are right, the contracts are for a certain number of spots, but they are also for a specific date frame, called a “flight.” There’s two parts to commercials, one is the actual ordering of the ads or spots, the other is the copy instructions, which tell the broadcaster which commercial to run when. You see this with movie openings. For the week before it premiers, an ad will run saying “Coming (whatever date.)” Then, the week of, it will say “Coming Friday.” Then on Thursday, it will say “Starting Tomorrow.” After that it’s “Now Playing.” The advertising agency has coded all those different commercials and provided instructions to the broadcasters on when to run them. So, 50 spots may be ordered to run over two weeks, but without the copy instructions, the broadcaster won’t know what commercial to run.*
Now, if something is running after its expiration date, that means one of two things has happened…either the agency provided the wrong instructions, or the broadcaster made an error and ran the wrong spot.
You will generally not hear or see commercials run after their flight date unless the agency has approved “makegoods,” ie, making up a spot that run incorrectly or was not able to air at all due to inventory issues or a program conflict. And dated commercials should never run after their expiration date.
*The department at a broadcast facility that handles the ordering, placement, and instructing of commercials is called Traffic. (Ivylass, who has worked in traffic for 13 years.)
I have never been inclined to buy a car from a dealership based on there advertsements. I decide what car I want THEN go to the dealership that has that car. A TV ad is not going to sway my decision mo matter how annoying or flashy it is.
