Time once again for Most Hated Commercials

Cafe Society
41

<I>“I can’t recall the name of the service, but I can’t stand the ads that feature a guy playing a guitar and singing about how failing to use a credit-checking service ruined his life. One is set in a basement, the other in a seafood restaurant. The song gets stuck in my head, and both scenarios are ridiculous.”</I>

I actually like that commercial. “I married my dream girl, I married my dream girl…”

My most hated commercial is a little dated (thankfully, I haven’t seen it in a couple weeks), but it’s the Cingular (or Verizon–who knows? who cares?) commercial in which the dad walks around giving phones to his family, saying “Because you’re my number one.” What I really hate about the commercial is the way the guy is dressed–he looks like he just mugged a 17 year-old employee of Abercrombie and Fitch.

Coming in at a close second is the Visa commercial with all the douche-bags dancing around, and when the guy goes to write a check the music screeches. That commercial seems to be in every break of every television show I watch. I’m really starting to believe that the song is hypnotic. Also, the slogan “Life Takes Visa” seems so wrong; maybe life in America really is about perpetually owing money to credit card companies, but I don’t think it’s right.

42

[QUOTE=Galena]
I think a special circle of hell should be reserved for the creators of most prescription drug ads.

There’s a new one out for Celebrex, a prescription painkiller, that is nothing but fine print. Literally. All fine print. There are these park scenes - walking dogs, riding bikes, trees, etc., and all of the drawings are composed of little lettering which describes the side effects, warnings, and other information about how the drug will practically kill you. The long version of the commercial goes on forever in TV terms, easily longer than most normal commercial breaks.

Ah…here it is on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GvYI4VdVEI weighing in at 2 min and 28 seconds! Who in the world thought this was a good marketing strategy?

The only one I hate more is the Jarvic cholesterol one, but I know that’s been pitted before.
[/QUOTE]

That’s the one that I wanted to mention, but I couldn’t remember what it was for. There are several amazingly infuriating things about it:

  1. It’s so, so, so long. When it airs around here, it often takes up the entire commercial break.

  2. The slightly scolding tone of the voiceover, as though the viewer is some sort of misbehaving child for not being on the drug. This is especially infuriating in light of the fact that

  3. This drug will murder you. This seems less like a commercial and more like something that the company was sentenced to do, because the entire point of this entire commercial break-eating advertisment is to explain, over and over, that this drug will give you cancer and cause sudden death. But - scolding tone again - some people think it’s still worth it. So the whole point is that this is basically a murder drug that will kill you, but it’s worth it because you’ll feel better before it murders you, and you’re a stupid fucking baby for not being on it already.

43

[QUOTE=Mahna Mahna]
Is this the one that has her going through the rest of her day with various Walmart staffers cheerfully appearing periodically to let her know “It’s TRUE!” with smug little smiles? On the phone, sitting on her skylight, tucking her into bed… those pesky Walmart employees are worse than a locust infestation, I tell ya.

I’m still waiting for the version where she shoots one of them dead for trespassing and bugging the crap out of her. Sigh.
[/QUOTE]

Yes. Yes. Now fuck off. (Not you Mahna Mahna the commercial.)

44

[QUOTE=cruel butterfly]
Three words:

RICH

CHOCOLATE

OVALTINE

(and I also can’t stand that animated bee with the French accent hawking Nasonex)
[/QUOTE]

That bee with the “French” accent is Antonio Banderas.

45

[QUOTE=stw004]
This damn commercial on on whatever channel my daughter watches, for a giant ass piggy bank that makes the sounds of a train everytime you put a coin in. For real the damn commercial is like 5 minutes long and every so often they have the children of the corn chanting “Lionel coin bank, Lionel coin bank.”
[/QUOTE]

Then they start chanting “Save your money, save your money,” to which I reply, “OK, then, I will - I just won’t buy the damn overpriced piece of crap.” 3 easy payments of $19.99 + S&H, if I’m not mistaken.

46

[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
That bee with the “French” accent is Antonio Banderas.
[/QUOTE]

And it’s a Spanish accent.

47

[QUOTE=neorxnawange]
Thank you, yes. I hate that commercial too. I always respond to the ad as if I were her father, “ok then, you can ride your bike to the theater.” Not only is the girl a hypocrite, she is also being unconscionably rude to her father, who is doing her a favor by giving her a ride to the theater. Dad needs to teach his daughter some manners.
[/QUOTE]
He needs to teach her to how to read, too. There’s a great big “Hybrid” badge on the back of the escape.

48

[QUOTE=Fionn]
I can’t recall the name of the service, but I can’t stand the ads that feature a guy playing a guitar and singing about how failing to use a credit-checking service ruined his life. One is set in a basement, the other in a seafood restaurant. The song gets stuck in my head, and both scenarios are ridiculous.
[/QUOTE]

Most bad commercials I’m willing to just sit through, but those commercials prompt me to grab the remote control as though a horrible curse were going to befall me if I allowed the entire song to fall upon my eardrums.

49

I have TiVo so I don’t usually see TV ads, but there’s a radio ad I despise right now… it’s for diamonds, and part of the dialog is something like “…from a bygone era, when love symbolized intrigue and romance”.

First of all, diamonds-as-symbols-of-love is a relatively new thing in society, so no bygone era is involved. Second of all, in almost any conceivably logical statement about the topic, love isn’t a symbol of something, other things are a symbol of love. A diamond is a symbol of love. An engagement ring is a symbol of love. But love isn’t a symbol of anything. Grrrr!

50

The Pepto Bismol ads where contestants are auditioning to be in the commercials.

It goes something like, “Pepto Bismol for nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach or diarrhea,” pointing to the body parts affected by the malady. Pointing to the butt for diarrhea is particularly obnoxious.

Pepto Bismol Open Auditions

51

I still loathe the Mac/PC ads, but they’re, mercifully, not running very often any more, at least on channels I watch.

The ‘It’s true!’ Wal-Mart ad mentioned above is horrible, too, and the Whopper Freakout.

The worst I see with any frequency might be Canadian only, as I can’t remember the brand it’s for, but it’s for a slow cooker dinner - just add water, and turn the slow cooker on. It looks like a convenient product (but no doubt something that can be made cheaper and/or better just buying the ingredients), but the commercials drive me nuts.

In one, a mother is asked by her daughter (who’s talking with a friend on a cell phone) to tell her when dinner is ready. Mother walk off-screen, left background, and instantly comes out, foreground right, and calls her daughter on the phone to tell her dinner’s ready. The daughter screams.

Other, same scenario, but it’s her husband asking her as she comes home from work and he’s working on his car - she goes in the front door, comes out the garage door. The husband screams.

3 issues:

1 - ‘It’ll be ready in just a minute’ would be the sensible answer.
2 - The screams are annoying as hell.
3 - And this one is probably just me - the woman has no TIME to get from exit to entrance. Time and Space Do Not Work That Way!

52

[QUOTE=Galena]
I think a special circle of hell should be reserved for the creators of most prescription drug ads.

There’s a new one out for Celebrex, a prescription painkiller, that is nothing but fine print. Literally. All fine print. There are these park scenes - walking dogs, riding bikes, trees, etc., and all of the drawings are composed of little lettering which describes the side effects, warnings, and other information about how the drug will practically kill you. The long version of the commercial goes on forever in TV terms, easily longer than most normal commercial breaks.

Ah…here it is on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GvYI4VdVEI weighing in at 2 min and 28 seconds! Who in the world thought this was a good marketing strategy?

The only one I hate more is the Jarvic cholesterol one, but I know that’s been pitted before.
[/QUOTE]

I’ve just watched it, and to be honest I like it, (as a marketing tool). It gives every impression of being completely honest with you, whilst at the same time saying if you can live with these risks then our product is better than the others with no extra risk. The artwork is cute too.

53

[QUOTE=Fionn]
I can’t recall the name of the service, but I can’t stand the ads that feature a guy playing a guitar and singing about how failing to use a credit-checking service ruined his life. One is set in a basement, the other in a seafood restaurant. The song gets stuck in my head, and both scenarios are ridiculous.
[/QUOTE]

What’s bothers me about the basement one (“I married my dream girl”) is that the whole premise is that if he had known her credit was bad before they married, he wouldn’t have married her.

Problem is, I wouldn’t use any service that would tell my credit score to somebody else. How the hell would he have found out her credit score? Presumably she already knew she had crappy credit, and just chose not to tell him. I don’t think going to a credit reporting agency would have helped here.
I’ve mentioned this one before, but the Old Milwaukee Light “Men should act like men” commercials irritate me. Apparently, “acting like a man” means hanging around scratching your balls, eating fatty food, and treating your wife/girlfriend like crap because to show the slightest bit of sensitivity is to risk being crushed by a giant beer can.

If acting like a man means I get to drink crappy beer, I’ll pass, thanks.

54

The commercial for the psoriasis medicine that “may cause lymphoma”.

The asshole announcer says it so matter-of-factly, like 6 doses of near-lethal amounts of poison spaced a mere 3 weeks apart from one another is a trivial price to pay for clear skin.

And for sheer tastelessness, the pregnancy test ad I caught last night that announces that their product is, “the most high-tech thing you’ll ever pee on.”

55

The commercial currently driving me nuts is the U.S. Cellular one where the attractive young woman gives us her heartfelt confession about how hard it was to go off to college and leave dear old Dad because Dad’s illiterate. She did anyway, though. But luckily, one day Dad happened to take a bill to U.S. Cellular and a particular employee read it to him. Problem solved. Huh??? Is that supposed to be heart-warming??? The poor guy’s still illiterate; apparently he has no family or friends to help him, and he’s entirely dependant on a U.S. Cellular employee who will probably soon be fired for spending so much unprofitable time reading Dad’s mail to him.

I don’t know why this bugs me so much, but it’s lunge-for-the-remote irritating.

56

The one that bothers me is a PSA about meth. It shows a guy having a relaxed morning in his kitchen when his neighbors house explodes. For some reason, the sounds of the guy putzing around in the kitchen bother me. It has the same gag-inducing effect as hearing someone smacking and slurping their food as they eat.

But that’s just a weird effect on me. Not really a bad commercial.

I like the “I married my girlfriend” commercial. But that’s just because the girl looks hot in jeans.

57

The diamond commercial where the guy gives his wife/girlfriend a huge diamond and she almost has an orgasm right there, with the implication that the size of the diamond is proportional to the amount of his LOOOOVE for her and to the number of blowjobs he’ll be getting afterwards.

Oh wait, that’s all of them.

58

[QUOTE=Fionn]
I can’t recall the name of the service, but I can’t stand the ads that feature a guy playing a guitar and singing about how failing to use a credit-checking service ruined his life. One is set in a basement, the other in a seafood restaurant. The song gets stuck in my head, and both scenarios are ridiculous.
[/QUOTE]

Those commercials drive me insane.

First of all, it’s the same guy in both commercials. Is it supposed to be the same character? Was his identity stolen before or after he married a girl who lied to him about having awful credit and who he now wishes he had never married? And why are they living in his parents’ basement? Where were they living before they got married? Why didn’t she just move in with him? And what should he have done, anyway - gone behind her back and contacted Free Credit Report.com, which apparently will just give away your credit information to anybody?

They show these commercials all the time on Bravo, so I’ve had plenty of time to think about this stuff.

The McDonalds commercial that drives me crazy is the one where the little kid comes to the dinner table wearing a bright yellow track suit and carrying a boom box. I’m not really sure that there’s a point to the commercial beyond cool kids eating McDonalds or whatever, but the commercial lasts approximately seven hundred years and is obnoxious as hell. It bugs me that the kid’s dad (who clearly just got home from work, as he’s decked out in what I believe is a 3-piece suit) doesn’t tell him to knock it off and eat his apple slices already.

I’ll chime in on the dislike for the Burger King ads. BK is actually my favorite fast food chain, and I patronize them far more often than is remotely healthy. These ads have actually made me cut back on my intake. Why on earth would I want to go there if there’s a chance that the staff is going to lie to me about not having what I order?

The Wal-Mart ad that bugs me is the ultra-schmaltzy one where the mom is standing outside talking about how a kid spending a Wal-Mart gift certificate is like Christmas morning all over again.

On the same note, I’m glad that Christmas is over so that they don’t have to show those incredibly annoying ads where the kids pitched some big expensive toy to their mom who then gleefully bought it for them because it was available “at the Wal-Mart price.” Yes, congradulations. You just saved $0.73 on some giant mechanical parrot for your spoiled child.

*Edit: reading about the Meth PSA reminds me how obnoxious I find some of the anti-smoking PSAs in New York. Particularly, the ones that threaten you with gangrene and loss of limbs as a result of smoking.

59

[QUOTE=zenith]
The commercial for the psoriasis medicine that “may cause lymphoma”.

The asshole announcer says it so matter-of-factly, like 6 doses of near-lethal amounts of poison spaced a mere 3 weeks apart from one another is a trivial price to pay for clear skin.

And for sheer tastelessness, the pregnancy test ad I caught last night that announces that their product is, “the most high-tech thing you’ll ever pee on.”
[/QUOTE]

Psoriasis isn’t just about having scaly skin. It’s an auto-immune disease that can have other consequences like arthritis. In any event, those drugs aren’t intended for mild psoriasis.

I can’t stand those Free Credit Report.com commercials, either. Until recently, I’ve never had a credit report pulled for a job, so I can’t believe the guy would have to work in a fast-food restaurant. I also can’t believe he’d throw a woman over because of her bad credit.

Robin

60

I’m going to have to go with the “Life Takes Visa” spots, where the popping and rocking twentysomehtings come to a complete halt when one of the borg pulls out a checkbook to pay.

Fine, we get it, life moves faster with credit/debit cards, the first spot was mildly clever, but now they are just stretching to find situations to use.

Plus the music and the dancers want make me really punchy, which is better than stabby, but only by a little.