There are many indicators available. Teeth, behaviour, clothing, hairstyles, architecture, vehicles, non-ironic, guileless enthusiastic style of ad, but also video stock - US video is fuzzier and grainier than Euro stock, and the colours are more vivid.
The picture quality is different, not bad, but less sharp than British picture quality, thats how we notice the difference.
Ah, the PAL transfer. I hadn’t thought of that difference. It has always been my experience here that British and European commercials are darker and grainier than local stock, and the sound quality… well, it sounds muffled. It must be something in the way the signal is reprocessed for a different framerate, or something. And there’s probably a difference in the broadcast color standards, too. (Not that we get many European commercials here, but occasionally some of the clever ones will be shown on some ‘World’s Funniest Commercials!’ thing. Advertisers must laugh themselves sick over the fact that we sit and watch commercials in between the commercial breaks.)
Now that I think about it, there aren’t many American commercials shot on video, except for the cheap local ads for auto dealerships and carpet warehouses and so on. Most of them appear filmed.
As a person who refuses to connect my television up to anything that will give me television programming, I am painfully aware that American commercials are stupid and very… er, un-subtle. I would have thought that dubbing over the language would have helped disguise their appalling nature, but evidently not. 
I refer you to my previous post which was - as usual - long-winded and meandering, but the pertinent bit is here:
It’s obvious the ads are not Australian at least, because we have so few people of African heritage that it is very rare to see, on the streets, a person of any kind of African extraction (-American or otherwise). So, when we get an advert with a bundle of black-but-not-aboriginal kids it’s a clear sign we’re not looking at a local production. The advertising companies seem to be of the quite offensive opinion that black people are interchangeable.
*(Admittedly, I probably read too much into it, but I’ve spent years dealing with racist grandparents who will tell you that ‘all Asians look the same’ or ‘all blacks look the same’ and so when I see it being apparently perpetuated in advertising it just riles me right up.) *
There also seems to be a certain style to US commercials and UK commercials that makes them recognisable as such, but I can’t put my finger on exactly what it might be. Perhaps, as stated in other posts, it’s the film quality?
Don’t worry - stupid and unsubtle adverts are everywhere.
If I really wanted to torture you I’d send you Lisa McCune’s adverts for Coles Supermarkets. But I suspect that’d be classified as ‘cruel and unusual punishment’. 
Or there’s the ad for Boag’s beer (I think it’s Boags… guess it wasn’t an effective ad for them!) with a woman who may or may not be a cross-dresser (jury’s out on that one) sending a bottle down over a balcony via her stocking to a cute guy below. Apparently beer-in-a-sock from a strangely masculine woman is a sexy come-on in some parts of the advertising world. /shrug.
Andie MacDowell is a South Carolinian.
(and I think I’m the only person who actually kind of likes her)
(Watch this post kill this thread …)
A related question: are there commercials that cross the pond from the UK, Australia, or any other country to the United States? The only commercials I can think of are for Mentos, which IMHO have a German or Swedish feel.
There could be Mexican commercials on Spanish language television, but whenever I see a commercial break on Univision, the scenes are almost always lifted from middle America; the actors just happen to be Hispanic. Sure, the sight of an upper middle class Hispanic Spanish-as-primary language family living in a frame Colonial house in the suburbs doesn’t seem right, but then again I’m not an advertising executive.
Wayyyyy back in the late 80’s I worked in a pub in London and I served Mr Nail many a pint (that pub was opposite the National Portrait Gallery…hmmm I believe a Londope may have met there). I was in awe. Auf Weidersehn Pet was all the rage :). Ok it was a long time ago…NZ won the first world cup rugby when I worked there (I made shitloads in bets).
I also worked in a pub in Maida Vale where “Mr Are-YouBeing-served” (cap with lots of teddies and a pink cardie), Jacko from Brushstrokes and the oldest brother from “Bread” were regulars. My greatest claim to fame??? An episode of Minder filmed outside the pub and I was an extra! (they lunched in our pub everyday), I so damn in touch with old celebs 
(it was fun though).
Oh I almost forgot why I was here. Undubbed ads annoy me dubbed ads annoy me. There is no middle ground.
Well except for the VERY Aussie sounding ones (weght watchers anyone?)
We should all make our own version.
Yes, its the whole gestalt, lots of little things. But the US ads do tend to stick out, the people are just too, ‘Friends’, perfect looking. Which is fine until an English accent comes out from between those perfect teeth then it’s a whole disconnect.
I think it should be noted that the commercials in the US with British voice over usually features someone kind of famous. Patrick Stewart does tons of V/O ad work, as does Liam Neeson and I think Dame Judy Dench.
I was watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy UK Edition and they actually put up subtitles for one of the guys. I could understand him fine so I don’t see why they did it. Although sometimes they did put up some translations for slang terms and that was helpful.
The first Mad Max movie was dubbed for American audiences. It’s pretty weird to see that version sometimes with Mel Gibson with someone else’s voice coming out of his mouth.
In general I think it’s kind of funny the way some people feel the need to keep the English and the American language separate. Look at the Harry Potter books. “Oh my! We can’t let an American kid read the word lorry instead of cargo truck! It might confuse them for more than two seconds!”
Sheese!
elmwood writes:
> A related question: are there commercials that cross the pond from the UK,
> Australia, or any other country to the United States?
A famous example is the Gold Blend/Taster’s Choice series of TV advertisements. This was for a brand of coffee called Gold Blend in the U.K. and Taster’s Choice in the U.S. This series of ads ran starting in the late 80’s in the U.K. and in the early '90’s in the U.S. It had a couple making seductive comments to each other when they would go to the other’s apartment to borrow some coffee. For the American version, they remade the ads with the same couple. The guy is the actor who played Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
There were various differences, some subtle and some obvious, between the two series of ads. The man did an American accent for the American version, while the woman kept her British accent. There were various differences in the clothes, the sets, and the dialogue.
I suspect that the World Service is more picky about having ‘normal’ accents, because a large proportion of its audience are not native English speakers, and therefore will have more difficulty with broad accents. The BBC output within Britain has a larger span of accents - although still far from being representative.
ARRRRGH!!! I just saw the worst example of dubbing ever!
WHY OH WHY OH WHY bother to dub a character in an advert with an English accent when they’re in an American police uniform?!?!