Television ads nowadays are widely regarded as being annoying. That said, television ads are without question more slick, sophisticated and entertaining now than in decades past.
My question for those old enough to recall the early days of television: how were television ads regarded back in the late 40’s & early 50’s? Were there ever any watercooler discussions of ads back then? “say, did you happen to see that humorous Robert Simpson Used Cars ad during Lucy last night?”
Were they uniformly regarded as being insipid and annoying?
Ads in the 50s and 60s were rarely humorous; it wasn’t until Stan Freberg came along that humor was recognized as a selling point (His Jeno’s Pizza rolls ad is still one of the best ever made (though some references in it are dated)).
Certain ad campaigns caught on as more then ads, mostly for their mascots: Charlie Tuna, Speedy Alka Seltzer, Bert and Harry Piels, etc., but humor was rare.
I have a DVD set with lots of 1950s ads. Many of them were done by the stars of the program, since the program was sponsored by a single company. Ernie Kovacs had a game show at the end of the decade sponsored by Dutch Masters, and he did some of the ads in his inimitable style. One won an advertising award.
Funny though? Not very, not like Freberg and even some of the better ones today.