Recently I saw an ad on tv that really bothered me. I think it’s because I’m on summer break (I’m a teacher.) and I don’t have a lot to occupy my mind.
There’s an ad for something called “toaster strudel” This product seems to be an alternative to pop tarts.
A boy’s mom gives him a pop tart. The boy then puts the pop tart (unbeknownst to his parents) on one of those New York City clothesline contraptions that go between buildings, which to my knowledge were widely used in the earlier part of the 20th century.
He has a friend who trades the pop tart for a toaster strudel by using the clothesline thing.
Now if the pop tarts are so bad, and toaster strudels are so good, why is this friend in business? What does he want with the pop tarts? What is he getting out of it?
Why are these seemingly middle class families living in run down tenement buildings from 1930’s NYC?
Is anybody else bothered by TV ads?
Gail
“Any major dude with half a heart surely will tell you, my friend–
Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again…”
-Steely Dan
I just saw a commercial this morning for ecampus.com. Its a website for college kids, I think they sell textbooks and stuff. I thought it was funny, but I could see where some people would be pissed.
Anyway, the whole commercial was two obviously stoned girls laying on the floor watching a lavalamp and laughing. The girls’ eyes were half closed, and for 30 seconds they are just laying there watching the flow of the lava. Everyone knows a lot of people experiment (sp?) with drugs in college, but to use that to get name recognition could be viewed as bad taste.
There is a local ad running here in Toledo for a hypnosis clinic. I’m pretty skeptical about this kind of mystical crap but this strikes me as strange.
These guys are now offering a deal where your first visit is free. What kind of subliminal suggestions do you think they might implant during that first visit?
Maybe one to make you keep returning? Bizarre.
Abstainer:a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. - Ambrose Bierce
A while ago, a pain reliever (Excedrin, if memory serves) had a confusing series of commercials running (and may still have some of them going). In one commercial, a woman talked about why she uses this medication for her headaches and describes how there are scientific studies which prove it works best, etc. In another commercial, a guy said he uses it because it works for him, and he doesn’t believe all those charts and graphs from the studies.
Is it any wonder that the general public is confused about science? This company can’t even make up its own mind about whether to (correctly) point to the evidence or whether to sneer at the evidence and go for an appeal based on what some unknown actor says. I’d be interested to see if there was some sort of pattern as to when each of these is shown (for example, showing the scientific one during news shows and showing the anti-science one during daytime talk shows). In any case, just the fact that this company is trying to confuse the public is bad enough.
Another one that I griped about at the time was around the same time (a few years ago), when Nevada changed the name of Highway 375, which apparently runs near the legendary “Area 51” to the “Extraterrestrial Highway.” They then had big ads in magazines like Discover, promoting the “ET Experience” as a tourist attraction. Half of the ad was taken up by a drawing of a flying saucer with a beam of light coming down from it onto a cow in the road (what’s a cow doing in the road? I don’t know). It goes on to say: “A desolate desert highway. The allure of the unknown. And the possibility of that chance encounter. It’s Nevada Highway 375, the newly-designated Extraterrestrial Highway that’s the talk of the galaxy." I found it hard to believe a state tourism commission (even Nevada’s) would go to these bizarre lengths to get more business.
The flip side of this ad is the question: Do you really want to visit a state where they advertise that you might be kidnapped and have strange experiments done on you?
My favorite was an ad, a few years back, for a phone line called 1-800-DENTIST. The ad had a boss grousing about his toothache, and his perky secretary saying, “Try 1-800-DENTIST; here, let me look it up!” She then flips through her Rolodex for the phone number of 1-800-DENTIST–which is,of course, 1-800-DENTIST!!! This never failed to send me into fits of hysteria.
The ad that never ceases to amaze me is Head & Shoulders.
EVERY single time someone goes to these hairdressers (who, for God knows what reason are giving them H&S???) and they recommend H&S, the person getting the haircut says “Head and Shoulders?” like they’ve never thought of it before. It’s absolutely stupid. How moronic… It’s dandruff shampoo for f*%#'s sake!
“Minds are like parachutes; they work best when open.”
The strangest, most illogical comercial out ther HAS to be the one for “Quicken” business software. This guy is sitting in what is obviously his basement, when this woman, dressed like a Chef and obviously not his wife (obvious because of the way they behave towards eachother) is carrying a load of laundry and asking him about his software. Seems innocent upon first viewing, but if you really think about it the situation makes NO SENSE. How often to women in Chef’s outfits casually bring laundry over to YOUR house.
Jason R Remy
“No amount of legislation can solve America’s problems.”
– Jimmy Carter (1980)
Or how about that woman who’s obsessed with everyone’s constipation problems, to the point where she brings it up to total strangers in public places, to her husband’s mortification? Why does he still go out in public with her? Why hasn’t he sent her to a therapist by now?
I dont’ understand auto dealership ads. They either:
[ul][li]Proclaim they’re number one in their region and beg you to come in and buy a car to keep them there.[/li][list=1][li]How many @!#?@! regions are there? It seems like every dealership is in its own.[/li][li]Why should I help support them, when they seem to be doing fine without me.[/list=1][/li][li]Say they’re overstocked, or they don’t have room for the new models coming in. Too bad they have poor inventory control. Don’t expect me to come in and help.[/li]
It’s not like the cars will go bad and rot. Proof of this is when I bought a “new” (unused) 1995 Escort in 1996 at near full retail. After driving it off the lot, it lost $3000 value.[/ul]
My favorite is still the on-the-go woman who is about to hurriedly make her son a frozen pizza for dinner, until he shows her a picture that he worked hard to draw just for her. She feels bad, puts the pizza back, and instead makes–Campbell’s Tomato Soup. Which requires, if anything, slightly less cooking than a frozen pizza.
David: the company that makes Excedrin (Bristol Myers) also brought brought out Excedrin Migraine last year. It is the exact same thing as Excedrin. Talk about confusing the public.
Not a TV ad, but a billboard ad for the Nissan XTerra. Has anyone seen this? The billboard has a lovely picture of the vehicle with big, bold, white letters next to it. They read:
TAKES YOU TO PLACES BILLBOARDS DON’T EXIST.
Is it just me, or is this NOT a sentence? Bugs me everytime I see it.
Another thing that bothers me is when a company disses it’s own product. The laundry detergent Cheer has an unscented detergent. Its ad says “no irritating odor”.
So that means that scented Cheeri is irritating?
Gail
“Any major dude with half a heart surely will tell you, my friend–
Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again…”
-Steely Dan
Wards (formerly Montgomery Wards) is running, in Southern California at least, a series of ads that irk me. One shows a family on a long trip singing “Frere Jacques,” oblivious to their luggage tumbling off the car roof and down the highway. I think the only person this would appeal to, other than a money-grubbing department store CEO, would be the kind of miscreant who likes to go into airports and take people’s suticases away from them, and throw them into the path of passing cars. Funny as a rubber crutch.
Jayron,the other day I was having problems with my software. I made a phone call, went down to the basement,… by the time the lady in the chef costume left with the laundry things were just fine. Any commercial that shows you a scientific demonstration, ''Imagine these locks are dirt in your clothes…" anybody remember the Gilliam cartoon from Monty Python? “Crelm toothpaste,imagine Crelm as these cars…”
One that always got on my nerves was one for a toothpaste for smokers (Topol, I think). Toward the end of the commercial, one person would say “Sure, it’s a little more expensive…”
The other talking head would add “…but compared to the cost of cigarettes…”
What’s up with this? Just because a person is willing to fork over a few extra bucks for a pack of smokes, he automatically becomes willing to spend more for hygiene products? What does the price of cigarettes (or tea in China) have to do with it?
DrJ, you have my vote on that Campbell’s Soup ad. I never quite understood the logic behind it. Maybe it’s because you have to actually DO something to soup, like add milk & stir it, that makes the whole thing more worthwhile.
Tv ad which bothers me is the one in which a truck of some sort is opposite a human player and there’s a chess board between the truck and the human. What bothers me is that there’s the ticking, very loud, of the chess clock, yet both sides of the clock are stopped!
I remember an ad for some sort of work-from-home software that featured a guy walking through an office with a church collection basket, explaining that everyone was chipping in to get the software for some co-worker that they couldn’t stand so that he wouldn’t come into the office any more. It was sort of amusing but I couldn’t figure it out as a sales pitch: they were basically saying that the guy was going to own the software because he’s a loser.
And since others have brought up Head & Shoulders, let’s not forget their old ads where a man would be casing a woman (or sometimes vice versa) and be thinking, “Pretty. But she’s scratching her head. Could be dandruff,” and walks on by. Not that he sees any flakes of course, he just assumes it. Has anyone out there ever passed up an attractive person because of head-scratching?
