You know-the chain restaurants and fast food places that you see ads for and maybe look good to you…but are nowhere near where you live.
For me, there’s Sonic. The ads are funny, the food looks good, and there seems to be wide variety to choose from, but there are none available where I live.
Northside Chicago here. I don’t know why Culver’s or Golden Corral advertise here, but they do.
Sonic. I get ads for this and so do my parents. The nearest sonic to my parents is 30 miles away, for me where I live it is a 25 minute drive.
Same here, no Sonic nearby but the ads run all the time.
I think Sonics are mostly in small towns, but their markets are reached, of course, through the TV stations that are in big cities. The same could have been said about WalMarts in the 1980s. Most people then had never even seen a WalMart, but there were thousands of stores within an hour’s drive of virtually everybody.
On the other hand, here in rural south Texas, I live a 2-hour drive from the nearest Olive Garden. But I get all the network TV channels that their ads are on;.
Sonic commercials on DC tv, no idea where one is.
I’d opened this thread to say Sonic, so add me to the chorus.
I’m not really exposed to commercials these days. The only one I can think of is Red Robbin.
And, aside from their onion rings, y’all ain’t missing much with Sonic. I ordered a chili dog from them once, and what I got back was a microwaved pile of mush. I wouldn’t mind so much if they microwaved the chili and the frank separately, but they didn’t do that. They put the chili, the cheese, the frank, and the bun together, then threw it in the microwave. :rolleyes:
There’s a ton of Culver’s in the Chicago suburbs, from north to south. None in Chicago proper yet, but they’re opening one up in Bronzeville, and one is coming to my neighborhood on the Southwest Side near Midway. There’s also apparently plans to open one up in Wrigleyville and Portage Park. There’s gotta be at least a dozen of them already open just outside the city limits. They all get Chicago media so, of course you’d see them advertising here. Plus many/most Chicagoans end up in the suburbs at some point or another, whether work or family. (Checking on their locator, I see 30 locations in the Chicagoland area.)
Sonic commercials are great. Sonic food is awful. I’ll tell you that my husband and I once got hot fudge sundaes from Sonic and after a couple of bites we threw them in the trash. Seriously. I can’t believe people eat there. Be glad there are no Sonics near you.
Those guys in the ads are great, though.
We used to get ads for CiCi’s Pizza, but there isn’t a CiCi’s in Oregon at all, or Washington either. I suspect that they were national ads.
That’s exactly it; same with Sonic.
In the case of Sonic (which was, originally, a chain concentrated in the South and West), they viewed running ads on national TV (mostly cable) as (a) being cheaper than buying “spot” ads in the individual markets where they actually had restaurants, and (b) building awareness of the chain in northern markets, where they were planning to eventually expand.
Completely agree! Think salt-lick with a coating of shit.
I don’t think I see commercials for restaurants that aren’t around here. There’s a Sonic just a few miles from our house. I drive past it 2-3 times a week, never had any desire to eat there.
I’ve seen some ads for Dave and Busters. Food, booze, and arcade games? Sounds like fun. But here in south texas there isn’t a one. Maybe San Antonio or Houston have one, but that’s a heck of a long drive for overpriced beer and few games of Street Fighter.
In Philly, we see ads for Hardees and Carl’s Jr. often, despite that I’ve never seen one anywhere near here. We had a Hardees near my high school (and it was horrible), but it closed 35 years ago.
They ran Sonic ads here long before they opened one. Oddly, I’ve seen fewer of them since it opened.
Sonic is the first one I thought of when reading the thread title. The commercials air constantly. I couldn’t tell you where the closest one is, and I’ve never been to one.
All the American ones not in Canada. There are many.
We started getting Sonic ads a few years ago, before I had even heard of Sonic. Since then one popped up out of nowhere.
Maybe they are expanding rapidly and rolling out commercials ahead of time?
And I’m shocked that anyone thinks their inane commercials are humorous. Instant channel-switcher for me.
mmm