# Didn't I Just See That Commercial??? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 28, 2003, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469 "2003-01-28T14:00:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Guy\_Propski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Guy\_Propski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guy_Propski)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2003, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469/1 "2003-01-28T14:00:14Z")
Okay, I guess this is more rant than question or discussion, but does anybody else get irritated by the repetition of commercials? What I’m talking about is when you see a commercial, then 15 seconds later, THEY SHOW IT AGAIN! The first time this happened, I wondered if I’d suffered a small stroke, or had become unstuck in time. After a few more occurances, I began to think that the TV stations had started hiring really inept interns. But after the umpteenth repetition of repetition, I started to get chafed. Do advertisers and marketing people not realize how incredibly annoying their commercials are in the first place? And, in the second place, don’t they realize that stacking them together multiplies their annoying factor? I’m at the point right now that I’m considering making of list of companies that employ this technique, just so I can stop buying their damn product. Okay, so I’m never going to buy a Mazda 626 anyway, but you get my point… Is anybody else cheezed off about this? And does anybody know why it’s being inflicted upon us? ---
**Author:** ![Neidhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Neidhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neidhart)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2003, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469/2 "2003-01-28T14:37:08Z")
It does seem to happen a lot more than it used to. Lazy bastards. ---
**Author:** ![Guy\_Propski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Guy\_Propski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guy_Propski)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2003, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469/3 "2003-01-28T15:02:39Z")
I wish it was just laziness. More than likely, it’s pure greed. ---
**Author:** ![gris\_gris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/439d5e/32.png) [@gris\_gris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gris_gris)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469/4 "2003-01-30T01:35:01Z")
The commercial that anoys me the most is that one with the peopl singing in the car, you know "ITS BEEN ONE WEEK SINCE YOU LOOKEDAT ME…BLAH blah blah"god i hate that overplayed peice of crap! ---
**Author:** ![HelloKitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecccb3/32.png) [@HelloKitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelloKitty)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469/5 "2003-01-30T01:41:02Z")
I think the reason they do it this way is to try to catch people who flip around the dial alot, it’s definitely not a programming error or someone hitting the wrong button. For example, instead of running one 30-second spot, they will run two 15-sec spots consecutively. It’s usually two separate spots for the same product, but lately I have also started seeing the exact same commercial run back to back. Both are annoying as hell, but the second on is the worst. ---
**Author:** ![SC\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@SC\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SC_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469/6 "2003-01-30T01:57:37Z")
I don’t work in the broadcast industry, but when they get the video tape of the comercial the company wants them to air, wouldn’t it be likely to come with more than one commercial on the tape? Either repetitions of the same spot, so that one commercial can be played several times without the tape having to be rewound and re-cued, or perhaps several different ads from the same campaign along with their 30 and 60 second variants? If this is the case, then it could just be that the broadcast technician just missed his cue to switch over to the next commercial’s tape. ---
**Author:** ![monica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a183cd/32.png) [@monica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monica)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469/7 "2003-01-30T02:37:35Z")
There must be a glitch in the matrix! ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469/8 "2003-01-30T03:01:47Z")
There are a number of possibilities, each irritating in its own right. The advertiser could, as HelloKitty notes, be trying to catch you while you’re surfing. The TV station could be playing a “make good.” – a freebie given to the sponsor after an earlier commercial didn’t play or didn’t reach the audience the advertiser paid for. The TV station might have overbooked – for example, an automaker wants to run two ads each hour, but wants them at least 15 minutes from any other auto commercial. If a couple of other automakers also buy time during that hour, the only way to handle it is by sandwiching the commercials into one break. SC Wolf, almost all the commercials on TV are scheduled by a computer and saved digitally now, so there’s no chance of an engineer accidentally playing the same commercial twice in a row. Finally, OF COURSE they realize how irritating their commercials are! Most of the most successful commercials in TV history (Anacin, Charmin, Wisk, etc.) ran for years and were so irritating that people are still bitching about them 30 years later. ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469/9 "2003-01-30T03:13:07Z")
The worst offender has to be those god awful Enzyte commercials on comedy central. They’re bad enough as it is, but then they show two back to back during every single commercial break. ---
**Author:** ![Dijon\_Warlock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9a28c/32.png) [@Dijon\_Warlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dijon_Warlock)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469/10 "2003-01-30T07:23:11Z")
Where I’m at there are commercials for a local technical college which must have bank vaults full of money to buy airtime. Not only do they often run durning every commercial break in an hour long show, but they frequently monopolize the _entire_ commercial break for themselves, and then go on to repeat their spots within that break. They have this guy who totally gives me the heebie-jeebies because he never blinks. It’s like he’s tryin’ ta hip-mo-tize me. Ruins the **heck** out of my Jerry Springer watching experience, I can tell you. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469/11 "2003-01-30T08:49:18Z")
The worst I ever ran into was some Bond movie that was being sponsored by Clorox. Every single commercial break was straight Clorox ads, nothing but. If I never hear that damn “Mama’s got the magic…” song again, I’ll die a happy man. ---
**Author:** ![Atrael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Atrael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atrael)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469/12 "2003-01-30T12:35:37Z")
I don’t know…the most irritating one lately had been the Radio Shack one. With Shaquille Oneal walking from one store with “accessories” to radio shack with “shaqcessories”. Then repeats himself almost exactlly in a very slightly different seeting…drives me up the wall. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469/13 "2003-01-30T14:47:04Z")
An additional reason is that the reaction “Didn’t I just see this a moment ago?” means that your thinking about the commercial and the product, which is the goal of advertisers. ---
**Author:** ![Atrael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Atrael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atrael)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/didnt-i-just-see-that-commercial/151469/14 "2003-01-30T15:10:54Z")
I don’t know…maybe when I was younger, that was true. Now I’m just more inclined to go to a store that I know has what I want. Electronice supplies = Radio Shack. Although with this latest irritation, I feel like going in to ever store I pass, and telling them that no, they can’t help me, because I refuse to shop in the store until they stop the insanity.