Please stop putting the following into your commercials:
[ol]
[li]Alarm clock alarms[/li][li]Sirens[/li][li]Car horns[/li][/ol]
I hear an alarm clock every morning and it makes me want to stab a baby. I don’t need to hear it again on my way to work.
Additionally, sirens and car horns are just plain dangerous to put in your ads, as most people are driving when they’re listening to it.
Unless you’re selling alarm clocks, sirens, or car horns, there’s absolutely no need for them to be in your advertisements. Thank you for your attention.
I hate when they take funny sight gags from TV and attempt to translate them to radio with some kind of stupid narration or dialogue explaining the sight gag.
Radio ads are a low form because radio has become a low form. Like the programming, they’re so murderously formulaic that anything that might attract more listeners and/or buyers never gets tried. What gets to continue is merely what piece of the current formula pulls the best numbers. Priority one is not to innovate.
The sirens are the worst. I know they’re included in the ads specifically because they grab your attention, but seriously, don’t put something in your radio ad that is liable to make me cause a traffic accident by whipping my head around looking for where the emergency vehicle is.
I have never noticed sirens, but recently there was a Mazda ad here in Ontario that had a periodic car horn for no apparent reason. The first time I heard the ad I thought my neighbour following me was trying to get my attention. I kept slowing and looking very conspicuously in my rear view mirror for him to gesticulate something of importance, and he never did. Next time I heard the commercial I was all :smack:.
Do such ads work, though? When I hear one in the car, I’m spending the next 30 seconds brooding in anger over its use, not even remembering the advertiser, which is likely some car dealer or auto body shop.
Also, I’ll add very realistic brake screeching, mixed in a way where it sounds like it’s coming from outside the car.
Here’s a weird one: Don’t include the Windows shutdown music in your ads!
My local station had an ad that was basically “When you shut down your computer at work, don’t forget to tune to us on the way home in the car!” and they used the Windows shutdown noise.
My dog is absolutely terrified of this noise. I have my clock radio come on a half hour before I need to get up, and if the dog hears this ad then I have to get up early and it ruins my whole day.
Bit of a tangent, but Steve Dahl (currently-unemployed Chicago radio guy) used to play radar detector sounds at random points during his show, without making any reference to doing so. I admit it always amused me to picture drivers all over the area simultaneously slamming on their brakes for no reason.
At least one of our local radio stations plays a cacophony of car horns as a lead-in to their traffic report. It is irritating so I don’t listen to them.
Other things in radio (and TV) ads that are automatic shut-off triggers are unbewievably cute widdle kiddie voices and pop/rock songs. Even if I don’t like the song in question, I don’t want to associate your crappy product with it.
I love having an on-off button for the radio on the steering wheel.
I think streaming radio is even lower. On the air, WABC in NYC has an ad for laser treatment for toenail fungus where the guy comes home and asks his wife for a foot massage. The wife says something like “not until you deal with your disgusting toenail fungus”.
On streaming, they do an ad for the same product but instead the wife is in the middle of giving the guy a massage but his ooohs and ahhhhs make it sound like she’s buffing his knob. He asks her to do his feet and she gasps in disgust upon discovering his toenail fungus and the ad is peppered with saucy gibberish from the couple. Yuck.
A few years back, there was an ad on the local stations that featured a coughing child. I think it was some kind of asthma awareness campaign; I’m not sure because I never listened to the ad in its entirety. The coughing sound was mixed really, really low and produced a horrible, prolonged bass-thumping noise. It was especially annoying when the volume was turned up more than usual.
