I don’t watch a lot of TV anymore and when I see some of the truely assinine commercials out there, I am fairly glad that I only tune in for a few shows.
Have you seen the Motrin commercial where they’re saying, “Hey, we’ve all heard of Children’s Motrin, but don’t you Moms wish there was a Mom’s Motrin? Well, you’re in luck cause now there is.” Guess what it’s called. It’s called Motrin! :smack:
What?!? Didn’t Motrin come out like way before they made it for children? Did anyone out there actually think it was only made for children? Why does this commercial exist? If they’re assuming their customers are this stupid, do we even want to buy their product?
I am also confused by the commercials in this area for the Yellow Pages. I hope the point is to convince people to advertize in the Yellow Pages, cause I really don’t know where the book is sold. It just appears magically on my doorstep once of twice a year.
There are several Tampa Bay, FL area specific commercials that drive me bonkers. Bealls department stores, AutoWay car dealerships, Yellow Book ads…
I could go on.
Pain releiver commercials are clearly among the worst.
Another doozy is the one where the worried mom calls her pediatrician at what looks to be the wee hours of the morning (judging from the lighting) and, holding two bottles, says something like “Yes, Doctor? I’ve got Children’s Tylenol and Childrens Motrin here. Which one works faster at relieving my little Timmy’s fever?”
We don’t hear the Docs reply, but hopefully it’s something like “Jeez, Lady, thanks for rousing me out of a dead slumber to ask me to distinguish between two virtually interchangable products. Remind me to write you a generous dose of Valium DURING MY REGULAR OFFICE HOURS!”:rolleyes:
There used to be one a few years ago for a pain reliever specifically designed for “mild to moderate migraine pain.”
Um, jerkweed, there’s no such thing as a mild migraine. A mild-to-moderate migraine is called a headache! Trust me, if you really have a migraine (and it’s not just what some poor soccer mom labels a “migraine” because she’s had a tough day of running the kids around town), it ain’t nowhere near mild to moderate.
My new issue of TV Guide has an ad on the back for a Famous Brand of cancer sticks. A couple on a beach. The woman is on top pinning the man’s hands over his head. Both grinning.
I think the Yellow Book commercials are an attempt to convince (a) Businesses to advertise in the Yellow Book brand telephone directory, not the phone company’s directory; and (b) consumers to pick up the Yellow Book brand telephone directory, not the phone company’s directory, when they need to find a business’s number.
The problem is that, since the phone co. is no longer a monopoly, you have areas where there are often yellow pages from two diff. companies (I, for instance, get one from Verizon–well, 2 actually … a very local and a wider region–and one from Yellow Book).
If anything is ever going to convince me to inject heroin directly into my eyeball, it’ll be an anti-drug commercial.
Those “Truth” anti-cigarette ads have generally the same effect. I’ve smoked exactly one cigarette in my entire life, but every time I see one of those ads, I want to head down to Safeway and buy a carton of Marlboros. Then I found out that those ads are actually financed by the tobacco companies as part of their court settlement, and it all made a terrible, terrible sense.
My favorite (right) anti-drug ad currently in rotation is the one where the young teenage girl gets pregnant and they come in with the voice over “Marijuana impairs your judgement. It’s more dangerous than we all thought.”
Like no teenagers in the history of the world have managed to get knocked up without the help of an illegal substance.
Oh, the new (dentyne?) singing gumball commercials have got to go as well.
There is a commercial running on the radio here for a local “sportsman’s shop”… Translated, its a store that sells guns… Handguns… I’m neutral on whether people buy handguns or not, so long as they aren’t pointing them at me, but THIS commercial makes me want to picket the place.
It starts out with a woman’s scream, followed by a child asking “Whats wrong mommy?” and the mother yelling “Kids! Get in the other room!” Then some non-descript noises of an apparent struggle… The voice over kicks in talking about how single moms can defend themselves and their families so well with a handgun…
Its running on the most widely listened to radio station in the area and every time it runs I feel motivated to take up a picket sign and stand around in front of that store.
Any commercials that use scare tactics annoy me. There used to be an ad for some home security system that featured “interviews” with a variety of scary-looking criminals, played by non-white actors.
“Dey was asleep. Dey didn’t even know we was in the house.”
The one currently driving me round the bend is for a Kia (I think), where it finished by saying “Pretty impactful, isn’t it?”. I’ll give you impactful. Right up side the head with a brick. Now that’s impact! I swear, advertising writers need a course in remedial English that includes electro-shock therapy to ensure they never, EVER make up abominations such as “impactful” again.