I have never gotten the Old Navy ads, especially the early ones that looked like some kind of bizarre Christmas party. Morgan!!! WTF?
It really doesn’t matter whether you disagree. A lot of people have spent a lot of money over the last 50 years on the idea that it’s worth it just to get people’s attention and make them aware of a brand name. Just because you don’t believe it has worked, doesn’t mean it hasn’t from the advertiser’s point of view. In reality, no one really knows what essential qualities make a good commercial.
The contracts between merchants and Visa/Mastercard prohibit them from asking for further identification. They are supposed to look at nothing more than the signature.
Any Joe Cowboy can lasso and take down a farm animal, but a sentient car? That takes skill and balls of solid titanium. And hot, studly men like that wear our jeans. You should too.
I think many commercials fall into that category of “look at how awesome this person is who uses our product. You should use our product too because it will make you just as awesome.”
Also, put me down for those Bob’s Furniture commercials. The one that made no sense to me had Bob’s father in it who–at the end–would say “come on down” while holding his nose, followed by off-screen laughter. Made absolutely no sense until I realized he must be imitating/mocking his son. Hey, let’s put an inside joke in our comemrcial!
I may be wrong, but I’ve always seen that commercial as a parody of/homage to the church scene in The Blues Brothers; Bernie Mac in the James Brown mold, the people leaping around like crazy, etc.
Their latest one really irks me…apparently it’s O.N.'s 10th anniversary, so they’re having a big 'ol formal bash. It’s 30 seconds of crappy dialogue, tuxedoes and evening gowns. A commercial for a clothing store featuring no clothing available at said store. :rolleyes:
Essentially. This spot is trying to draw a link between the rugged cowboys of yore with the jean-buying public of more modern times. And since old-timey cowboys tamed wild horses, modern cowboys must tame something wild and dangerous as well. Extend the metaphor from horses and you get…cars. We also sell shirts!
There’s a new truck commercial, and what I don’t get about it is why, after making their point, they go on and on and on with it?
Guy parks truck to go get coffee, and it’s a windy day outside. A “For Sale” sign accidentally gets blown onto his window, and a crowd gathers to eye his truck. Guy sees the crowd, walks out of the coffee shop.
End of commercial, right? Guy smiles a little, walks towards the mob shaking his head “no” and smiling? Nope.
Guy walks over to truck and says “What are you all doing here?” Random crowd people say things like “How much you selling it for?” and “I’ll give you blah for it!” Guy now annoyed says “It’s not for sale.” Crowd says “Yeah it is, there’s a sign on it…” Guy says “No, it’s not for sale…” crowd repeats comments, guy continues to say “it’s not for sale” and on and on.
Yes. Yes WE GET IT. Please stop this scene now, seeing as how this has never happened in the history of the World and never will.
There’s a series of Dodge commercials where a guy has little animated faces (just a mouth and two eyes) drawn on his toes. If he’s driving, he’s wearing sandals, so we can still see the faces as they begin to sing…
I actually don’t mind these commercials, and the song doesn’t bother me. But, when I brought up the commercial with a friend not long after they started showing them, I thought it was a Ford commercial…
A main part of the song the guys toes are singing goes like this…
“Born! Born to be alive!”
The thing is, the first “Born!”, even if you know it’s a Dodge commercial, sounds a lot like “Ford!” When I realized it was a Dodge commercial, I had to pay attention to figure out what the toes were actually singing. I can’t be the only one who made that mistake, and, IMO, that’s a bad mistake for Dodge…
The Britney/Beyonce/Pink/Iglesias gladiator commercial for Pepsi during the Super Bowl- whaasssup with that?
The company I worked for a few years ago, EDS, sponsored a Super Bowl commercial that featured cowboys rounding cats and herding them to market. While undeniably clever and very funny, I don’t understand how it connected enough to EDS to justify the millions it took to make and air it.
I dont know, i have a fair amount of stuff from his store, and if you shop carefully you can get fairly good stuff. i got a twin captains bed, mattress and box springs for $150 2 years ago, and despite a very active 11 year old it still looks like new. The mattress compares very favorably to my sealy posturepedic=)
And the 2 dressers I bought almost 10 years ago are still wonderful, wel made and very solid. They are a very good quality oak veneer plywood, not particalboard.
What bothers the living hell out of me about that one is that the guy has no ass. I mean conspicuously no ass. You’re trying to sell the jeans, you give it a nice long ass shot… but there is no ass to put in the jeans. The jeans are hanging from what might as well be a coathanger. This is not flattering to the jeans at all. Who the hell would buy jeans if they seem to make your ass disappear?
Speaking of which, I don’t get the ad that has the president of some late-night-cheap-ass-commercial-buying company trying to sell his CD-ROM set that teaches you how to use your computer. I can never remember the damn name of the “product” because I don’t think he ever says it. But he does say, incessantly:
“Try MY PRODUCT” … “You’ll love MY PRODUCT” … “Our PRODUCT will…” ad infinitum. Bugs the living crap outta me! Who’s brilliant fucking idea was it to have the president, who doesn’t even know the friggin’ name of his product, try to sell it? Wasn’t there some lackey around that could have told him that rule number one in marketing is to name the lousy product?
Bad example. Pets.com (and many other internet companies of the time) were propped up on fatally flawed business models. They were never, ever going to succeed, which some of us realized at the time.
Actually, that’s a great example of branding. Pets.com has been gone for what, five YEARS? And we’re still talking about them, pretty much entirely because of their advertising. If there had been a useful company behind that advertising, they would have been off to a great start…
That commercial has SO MUCH wrong with it. First the beat to death joke. Then we’re supposed to swallow the idea that the truck is so perfect for that variety of people, then that they’ve never SEEN the truck before, then that they assume that it is the ONLY ONE and have to buy it from that guy, like they don’t know you can go to the auto mall and pick from dozens of trucks. The thing that really freaks me out is that if you saw a brand new car with a “for sale by owner” sign, wouldn’t you wonder what the heck was wrong with it?
I hate commercials that not only assume YOU are an idiot, they assume everyone in the world is an idiot and make the actors behave accordingly.
Talbots
A couple during the Christmas season, and a new one last night.
Well dressed couple walking through , what appears to be a hotel hallway/lobby? The second of a mother and young daughter looking at a figurine in a store window. Figurine is not there during a second visit, but shows up as moms Christmas present. The latest one, I don’t know yet. Is Talbots a hotel? A clothing store? A figurine shop? Have no idea.
Talbot’s is an upscale women’s clothing store, with a definite “preppy” side. The newest ad I’ve seen is very strange… a young, hip couple is walking around, and the man keeps leaning in trying to kiss the woman and just as he gets close she pushes him away, over and over, and she laughs and walks away from him. She’s something of a tease. Finally at the end, she lets him kiss her. I just don’t get what it has to do with clothes. I know, I know, it’s all about “branding” but the ad makes her look like a bitch.
I was about to start a thread on this, so y’all better answer!
There’s a series of ad on TV for flavoured milk. In one a guy is drinking flavoured milk while waiting in line for movie tickets with his girlfriend. He gets to the ticket window and the lady says, “that’ll be one adult and one child, then” and his girlfriend stalks off in a huff. The guy then shrugs and the slogan “Tastes good, but” comes up. This I understood and deemed very witty by TV standards. Enter next ad in series.
Guy comes out of cornershop drinking flavoured milk. He steps onto the pavement and whistles to his dog and says “c’mon boy” or something similar ( I don’t THINK it’s important). The dog sees the flavoured milk (presumably) and slinks away whimpering with it’s tail between its legs. Once more the guy shrugs, drinks the milk and the slogan “Tastes good, but” is heard. When I first saw it I thought it was something like “cats like milk not dogs” but this would be a LOT crapper than the other one so I’m thinking I missed something. WAG’s welcome!
