But they aren’t targetting the young audience - they’re trying to convince parents that their kids will be fooled into thinking that Ovaltine tastes like something other than ass. And it’s sooo good for them.
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The Sonic ads are really dumb around here. What makes them particularly dumb around here? There are no Sonic Drive-Ins within 100 miles of here
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Same here in the DC metro. I asked my little cousin (who moved from DC to Charlotte about 4 years ago and has become completely Southernified)about Sonics when I was in Georgia. I asked him why, in the commercials, the people were eating in their cars. They seemed to be in the drive-thru. Would’nt they be holding up the line? Nobody seems to honk at them. Weird. He tried to explain, but ended with “You’re not from the South. It’s complicated.”
The dumbest commercial currently on the air is a Wal-Mart commerical. A family is packing up their stuff for when the moving van gets there. The husband takes a big box of CDs outside and sets at the end of the driveway next to some other boxes. A garbage truck passes buy, and the garbageman picks up the box and tosses it into the back of his truck. Cut to the husband buying new copies of all of his CDs at Wal-Mart :smack: . I’m as against music piracy as the next guy (probably more, actually), but if you’ve already bought the music once, and the CDs get lost/destroyed by accident, I think you’d have to be a fool to buy it again when you can just download it.
I also detest the anti-piracy messages on DVDs and in cinemas. I’m reminded of a joke told by a comedian whose name escapes me: No, I wouldn’t steal a car, but if a friend were to say to me, “I just bought a mercedes. Would you like me to burn you a copy?”, I wouldn’t say no.
The Subway commercials featuring Jon Lovitz compelled me to boycott Subway for the duration of the campaign.
The local attorney ads on daytime and late night TV are the worst, especially the “accident victims” spiels, advising that one should NEVER accept a settlement from an insurance firm without speaking to THEM first. (and handing over a large percentage of your settlement.)
There’s a hilarious commercial for an on line loan company where Gary Coleman says, “even my own relatives wouldn’t loan me money”. I always say,“I wouldn’t either” in response.
I hate the “Truth” commercials. Especially the poorly animated ones with the talking dog with the flagpole, where the dog owner smokes a gigantic spliff, and the spaceship alien-girlfriend stealer guy flies off in formation with birds (fireflies? alien bugs?) with the "poignant music playing in the background. Arrrrggggh!
There is a Butterfinger ad with a bored girl listening to a monotone lecture. She starts eating the candy bar and starts giggling at the cartoon pictures being drawn behind the lecturer. All I can figure from that is that Butterfingers contain hallucenogens.
On the Geico caveman ads, while I do like them in general, my more cynical side sees Geico essentially saying “our customers are all brainless idiots so this will shame them into not calling with questions because they’d then be dumber than cavemen”.
:eek: :mad: WHAT IN THE NAME OF JIM HENSON’S HEADSTONE IS THIS VILE SLANDER? :eek: :mad:
I’m glad I’ve never seen that ad or I’d have to buy a new television.
Just to throw in my two cents on the Ovaltine discussion, I used to eat Ovaltine dry from the can. It’s nice and crunchy. I prefer chocolate syrup in my milk, though. Mmmmm, rich chocolatey syrup.
Aww. I love that one. Even the music. It’s so quirky. Ah, well, to each their own.
Personally I hate the ads for these nasty Yogos fruit snacks? I babysit and see them all the time. Basically this asshat with an annoying voice repeats various rhyming words while creepy, weirdly-shot video of kids eating Yogos repeat faster and faster, and when they’re finished with the bag they make a pouty face that makes me want to stab myself in the eyes.
I also think the “Life Alert” ads are hilarious because one of the women giving the “testimonials” looks and sounds very bitter to be living alone. It’s the one that says, “When you have a heart attack like I did, and there’s no one there, Life Alert was there for me.” And my favorite part of it is, the guy who invented it, I forgot his name, but he comes up on the screen and says “I wear one too” and he looks JUST LIKE COLONEL SANDERS. 
I often drive along a little road that has a official-looking small sign above a street signpost. Its advertising a pawn shop, I’m not entirely sure where this shop is, but its no-where near the sign.
I just can’t fathom whats going on there, I’ve never ever seen an advert on a street sign anywhere else, I didn’t think it was legal. And I can’t even figure out where this store is.
Are you sure it’s not a sticker that someone put on the sign? I see that a lot in the university district of my town, but they’re usually advertising bands.
Are you thinking of the ads with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (the old guy with the “Amish bandit” bearded look)? “Once I was the nation’s top medical official. Now I’m pitching this shit to old fucks whose families hate them.” Yeah, there are some deep undercurrents to those ads.
Speaking of which, given the demo for where those Ovaltine ads run, they may be pitching more to the grandparents rather than the parents. But point well taken, OtakuLoki.
I think the lesson of this thread is, all marketing people despise you, and they freely express their contempt in every contact they have with you.
The talk about Truth commercials makes me realize that I can’t remember having seen one since I moved down to NC. Are they still running them, or are they just not run here because of the vast power of the local tobacco industry. 
They still run, each stupider and more annoying than the last. I’m beginning to think it’s a contest to see if they can top each other for worst. ad. ever.
Maybe I’ve just been lucky and have been missing them (although it also may be that I don’t watch much network TV any more). I know I’ve never seen any animated ones…all I can remember is ads where people are doing weird things in public to illustrate how many people are killed by cigarettes.
It’s because the marketing people don’t know what they’re talking about.
When you want to see how fast you’re going, do you look for your “driving number?” When you’re getting ready to cook a roast, do you set your “oven number?”
It’s firmness, for goodness’ sake. If they called it that, it would make sense. “I can adjust my bed’s firmness” is clear and understandable. “I can adjust my bed’s sleep number” sounds like something from a four-year-old.
You would steal cars if it was easy and you could get away with it? And you admit it in a tone that makes you sound proud of it? Please tell me that’s a whoosh.
Oh for goodness’ sake. Obviously when we say that, we are mocking the silliness of the add by matching it with an equally exaggerated example.
These ads are VERY annoying-they used to feature a kindly gray-haired old man, who earnestly tells you that you can have your new carpets in 1 day! he’s been replaced by a computer-generated image, who speaks with a creepy voive. the main problem-it is on constantly, a f frequently, local TV stations put it on backto-back-what Is that supposed to do? piss people off MORE?
You live in the New York metro area, don’t you?
If you do, then you have to have seen those godawful Window Factory commercials.
Not the old godawful ones with the shrew wife and the guy who literally throws his money out the window, complaining that the drafty window they have is costing him.
No, it’s the new and improved in godawfulness commercial with the young guy/son who stands near by the middle-aged guy speaking with his elbow on the speaker’s shoulder and the funny pose, with a directly-at-the-camera look on his face that says . . ., well, I don’t know what it says and I don’t wanna know, but it can’t be good.
The “Truth” commercials are indeed horrible. The worst, IMO, are the one where they warn you that smoking even one cigarette will make your teeth look like they’ve been smeared with vitamin B. Riiiight.
I was thinking about mentioning that one myself, but I have no idea how wide the distribution of Blue Bell ice cream is, so I wasn’t sure how many people would have heard it.
I hear it on the radio almost daily and it drives me nuts.
YES. The very bitter lady is hilarious. Kind of sad, but hilarious.
I just saw one like 20 minutes ago with two little kids walking around sometime in the past (like the 50s or something) and one says to the other, “nobody ever asks what I want to be when I grow up.” and the other says, “maybe it’s because of your name. Smuckers!” and then the voice-over says something like, “everybody knows that people in the Smuckers family will grow up to make jam.”
So… great. Your company deprives little boys of any chance to have a dream that doesn’t involve making jam?