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Commercials You Hate/Trends in Commercials


Tommy

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This thread is for anyone who is exposed to television and the inane commercials that are on them these days. Now if you don't watch TV or have a way of bypassing the stuff you don't want to see, you don't have to point out that fact. I'm just really curious from our members what commercials you hate or what types of trends in commercials that you seem to see all the time and drive you absolutely crazy.

I have commercials that I hate which I will list a bit later but some of the trends I absolutely cannot stand are people who are smug and act superior to someone else, like the Dole fruit cup commercial where these 2 groups of people are in the park and the one lady exclaims, "Oh look....they're drainers...." So what makes you think you're better because you drink the friggin juice, lady? The next trend I absolutely hate is how commercials have smartphones in them constantly, especially those that they don't even really need to be in or have nothing to do with the advertisement, but they're there just for the sake of being there. It's annoying! The reason I can't stand being in public is because of the obsession to those things, I don't need to see them at home too.

Another commercial I cannot stand is the Domino's Delivery commercials. For starters, I think ordering pizza online is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of and second of all, if you ordered a pizza, why aren't you home waiting for it? Instead this guy just runs through backyards and jumps over fences to get to his house before the delivery person (whose car magically changes color and shape from the first one seen) gets there.

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One I do not understand is on Twitter. There are promoted tweets, which are ads. If that promoted tweet has a video on it, sometimes then that video will play an ad first. It is too much for me to handle this type of situation. I block the accounts where that happens, except for NHL. <_<

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It seems that's in response to people using other outlets other than television. Companies are so desperate for people to watch their advertisements that they tack them on to videos you watch online as well. I wouldn't mind ads half as bad if they weren't so stupid and obnoxious.

There's another that's on right now that I can hear in the other room. It's where the kid is giving his stuffed animals and apparently his little sister hair cuts and the mom just looks in horror and then looks relieved as she pulls out the Swiffers. Um, I'm pretty sure if I did something like that as a kid that my mom wouldn't look relieved and pull out the Swiffers, but rather a look of anger and then I'd end up with a tanned behind. :w00t:

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I mostly agree with your thoughts about commercials ... but I have watched and collected (downloaded) many TV commercials that really were made to watch more than once ... these commercials were worth keeping or at least watching more than once.

Who can forget the famous Apple commercial from years back with Ellen Feiss. It was the Apple 'Switch' campaign ... various people who had switched from a Windows PC to a MAC.

From Wikipedia:

"Switch was an advertising campaign launched by Apple Computer, Inc. (now Apple, Inc.) on June 10, 2002. It featured what the company referred to as "real people" who had "switched" from the Microsoft Windows platform to the Mac. An international television and print ad campaign directed users to a website where various "myths" about the Mac platform were "dispelled". The television commercials were directed by Errol Morris.

A young woman who appeared in the commercials, Ellen Feiss, became an internet celebrity. Feiss was a friend of Morris's son Hamilton Morris, who also appeared in a commercial."

Brown University Newspaper Publishes Interview With Ellen Feiss

November 22nd, 2002

https://www.macobserver.com/article/2002/11/22.10.shtml

The actual ad ... Youtube

https://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0#complete=0&q=youtube+Ellen+Feiss+apple

That was one commercial that I never got tired of.

Then there are two commercials from either 2015 or 2016.

One commercial shows a girl student working on a school project ... making an actual 'volcano' ... with some help from her dad. It was Clorox Disinfecting Wipes and the exploding volcano was great.

TV Commercial - Clorox Disinfecting Wipes

https://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0#complete=0&q=clorox+volcano+commercial

and this really funny TV commercial from last summer or before. The girl on her bike adventure ... a Neosporin spot called 'The Jump'.

She's sitting at a picnic table telling this wild story of her bike adventures ... Sam, the third grade daredevil, as she regales friends with her latest adventure. She blows up the whole story ... says she was going 100 mph on her bike and jumped a 50 foot ravine and has a scar to prove it.

Neosporin + Pain Itch Scar Presents "The Jump"

https://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0#complete=0&q=Neosporin+%2B+Pain+Itch+Scar+Presents+"The+Jump"

... there are others and I enjoy the TV commercials from Europe and other parts of the world. Many would never play in the US but they are on Youtube.

So there are some real gems out there mixed with mostly terrible, forgettable ones.

monroe

Edited by monroe
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There can be a few decent ones out there surprisingly. But most of them these days are irritating. Like that girl in the forever Graco car seat. I hate the last two where she is dancing stupidly to some dopey pop music or whatever it was and then when she's older there's this awful rock noise and she's failing her arms around like she's got some sort of mental problem. And just when you think they've retired the commercial, it comes back again.

And don't even get me started with the stupidity of Geico. *shudders*

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  • 2 years later...

The worst ones I've encountered are:

-McDonald's "da da da dum McDonald's / I'm lovin' it". I remember the inaugural commercial from 2003 which consisted largely of skateboarding scenes and was heavily rotated on some Canadian TV stations. Unfortunately they failed to scrap the campaign and its latest refresh includes a five-second sounder that is repeated for the entire length of the commercial. This is one of the reasons why I stopped purchasing their products (or maybe I should buy tonnes and tonnes of their loss leaders?)

-Nissan "You Pay What We Pay". This campaign featured a commercial with Nissan employees and a customer in Brady Bunch-style squares while they sang the eponymous phrase. Very annoying, as it was in heavy rotation on Canadian TV as well. And on the day when this promotion was set to go away, along with its abhorrent commercials, the singing hit me like a brick wall along with a caption indicating that the promotion was extended another week!

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  • 4 months later...
On 5/11/2020 at 2:06 AM, Frost The Loser said:

Oh my god... All those gimmicky and goofy Geico and Progressive commercials on Hulu nowadays. Okay, cool, you want to advertise insurance... but why make these ads so unbearable to watch?

Kinda like LiMu Emu, especially with that stupid siren they have. All a bunch of ear rape to ensure you stop what you're doing and look at it.

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7 hours ago, Tommy said:

Kinda like LiMu Emu, especially with that stupid siren they have. All a bunch of ear rape to ensure you stop what you're doing and look at it.

And also "Liberty biberty".

They're not nearly as bad in Canada. Canadian commercials are generally far more conservative than American ones.

But we now have all of these companies clamoring about how they are there for their customers during the pandemic. Very generic virtue signaling stuff.

Though there is one for a brand of chips airing here which talks about "bodegas". The problem is that "bodega" is NYC-area slang for "convenience store" and probably doesn't make much sense to air here.

At least McDonald's has abandoned "i'm lovin' it" and the associated jingle. Not that I'm ever going there again anyway.

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  • 3 months later...

And now, in the U.S., most commercials for services promote them as mobile-only (we're on Google Play and the Apple Honourable Supreme Ruler Tim Cook App Store, but if you just have a PC, get lost). Even those where proper URLs are given, they are often typed in on smartphones. Sometimes laptops. Desktop computers are no longer acknowledged in North American marketing, even for computers themselves.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/17/2020 at 5:32 PM, win32 said:

And now, in the U.S., most commercials for services promote them as mobile-only (we're on Google Play and the Apple Honourable Supreme Ruler Tim Cook App Store, but if you just have a PC, get lost). Even those where proper URLs are given, they are often typed in on smartphones. Sometimes laptops. Desktop computers are no longer acknowledged in North American marketing, even for computers themselves.

I have to agree with this.  WAY too much emphasis on smartphones nowadays!  This has been a growing trend since at least 2013, it's really gotten out of hand in the past three or so years (particularly the emphasis on social media such as Facebook and Twitter;  the more people flock to those platforms, the more inclined I am to stay away from them).

I'm beginning to feel like the world as we knew it before the mega-corporate info snatchers came along (Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, to name a few) is forever ruined.

This, of course, probably isn't true.  I'm just being cynical.

Be that as it may, there are many modern commercials I don't like.

Go back about 20 years though, and they start getting better (the farther back you go, the better they get in general, although every era has its fair share of flops).  I remember not liking many of them much then, but after being bombarded by the junk that has come along in the 20 years since, I've warmed up to them considerably :crazy:

c

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On 8/30/2020 at 12:34 AM, cc333 said:

I have to agree with this.  WAY too much emphasis on smartphones nowadays!  This has been a growing trend since at least 2013, it's really gotten out of hand in the past three or so years (particularly the emphasis on social media such as Facebook and Twitter;  the more people flock to those platforms, the more inclined I am to stay away from them).

I would say the emphasis is "narrower", almost exclusively on the quality/features of the camera, as if one would fork from an awful amount of money[1] only to take "better" photos and videos (and of course senselessly share them immediately on social media).

The "showing off" implied in the above is what is perplexing to me, we have shifted from exalting the user's eperiences to exalting their showing to the world. 

jaclaz

[1] I mean, we are talking of more than US$ 1,000, what else can you buy with the same amount of money (to remain in the area of appliances)?

A more than decent desktop, or a not too shabby laptop/notebook, or a laaarge television, or a dishwaher and a washing machine.

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  • 8 months later...

I hate any ad that is repetive and intrusive. Good example is one loan company which advertises on Kutonen (tv channel owned by discovery) now.

During everytime commercial breaks starts and it shows channel intro it keeps playing longer and on bottom of screen shows smartphone with slider with amount of load above (since it must be smartphone to sell loans to new gen) then advertising starts "Do you need get a loan? We here in <company name> want help you save on loans (and of course not squeezing extra profit off you). Visit at <website>".

 

Same is showed during every single commercial break begin and end. They must have had very bad sales on loans since they been trying 2 other channels already, company logo changed multiple times and peoples on finnish board are annyoed to it advertising. I do not need loan and if I would I would get it from my bank not from some small company which owners were previously failed IT company. Nowadays I recored that channel on DVR and remove adversiting using video editor. Now all ads are either loans, buy streaming service or operators trying push me new contract and smartphone constantly. I miss TV commercials from normal things like food, decorations etc.

On mobile I do not see ads since got old symbian phone with only few apps installed. On pc I use adblocking scripts for safety and privacy so only places I hear/see commercials are on TV/Radio and side of roads while driving

Edited by Mr.Scienceman2000
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