Stupid TV Commercials
 

Another thread in this forum got me thinking... I'm irritated by many things, and that includes stupid TV commercials.

Like the recent McDonalds commercial where the three guys run out of gas just short of McDonald's and a gas station. They decide to push their car through the drive-thru and spend their last few dollars on fast food. That itself is stupid. But to top it off, they then proceed to enjoy their meal on the hood of the car with the headlights on! What exactly is McDonald's trying to tell us? "Idiots eat here. You should too"?

Another one that really irritates me is for a local casino here in Northern Michigan. A depressed man sits on a park bench looking at a picture of his ex-girlfriend when he's approached by a stray Golden Retriever. As the dog stares at him, this genius scowls and says to the dog, "Oh, what? You've never been dumped before?" I yell at the TV every time I see it. "No, he's never been dumped. He's a dog you moron!"

And as long as I'm ranting, how about that new Cherry Flavored Pepto Bismol commercial? Honestly, when's the last time you walked into a grocery store and witnessed the clerks gleefully dancing in-synch, clutching their abdomens and their asses to simulate indigestion and diarrhea? I cringe whenever I see that one. Whoever thought it would be an effective form of advertising deserves to be out of a job.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just too sensitive. Anyone else irritated by stupid commercials? Which ones?

I like the pepto bismol, and yeah, obviously it would never happen by catchy jingles are cute and sell the product.

The McDonalds commercials piss me off too. They have atheletes eating McD's food, when really we all know how bad it is for you.

Au contraire !

That is the main goal for silly commercials, to remember them !

It's all in the name of sponsorship ! :thumbsup:

Yep... it is a certain marketing technique to have a commercial so utterly stupid that it becomes popular. The terrible jingles, horrible "plots" ect, all help you in remembering to purchase that product.

Remember the Quesno's singing hamsters? Unbelievably annoying, but it certainly was talked about. I'd image that it would be similar for the Pepto commercial... retarded dance, semi catchy annoying song, ludicrous "plot"... but hey, you're here posting about it.

Mission: Accomplished

They can also help you in remembering to not purchase the product.

All of them. All praise TiVo.

Very true. They usually want to go really annoying and catchy or really repetitive. Both work to make you remember.

any old navy or gap commercials....same company, crappy commercials.

Bingo. I wonder how many marketing people take that into account when they come up with these ads.

Exactly the reason I will NEVER eat at Quiznos again.

I f the only way a company feels they can get my attention and to sell me a product is to insult my intelligence, then they failed. There are too many other compnaies that sell a similar product, I'll just choose one of them.

Only those that aren't getting paid / not doing good.

The pepto commercials bug me. The first, with the people at the copier, tells me that someone did not wash their hands after using the bathroom. Now everyone who usese the copier is getting sick. Disgusting!

I like the pepto commercial. It's kinda funny.

The ones I hate are: Bowflex, Bose Wave radio, Bosley Hair Clinic, and anything from Sharper Image. The discovery channels seem to spend as much time on these moments from hell as they do on their ever decreasing amount of decent content.

one on the radio that really gets to me is

"Frank Walker from national tiles...."

His *anoying* voice is enough to make me flick stations :P

Pizza commercials really annoy me...


http://www.penny-arcade.com/docs/10-6-04.jpg

Madd - I hear the first milisecond of that 'HELLO!...' and my head explodes! It's so... angry!

Speaking of annoying radio commercials, those Matthew Lesko, "Free Money" commercials are pretty bad. The TV spots are even worse since we have to be subjected to seeing him in that stupid suit with the question marks all over it.

Nearly every commercial in existence makes me want to put an axe through my TV.

Quiznos? That was one of the better ones by far. It's not insulting to my intelligence, it's just silly. Something like, say, car commercials are insulting to my intelligence - they pretty much go straight for the "buy the image we're selling, we know you're stupid enough to think buying an SUV/luxury Sedan/whatever will make you cool" factor - and lo and behold, people are that stupid.

I'll take dancing people with diarrhea over that any day.

I'd like to smack that little kid in the Mazda commercials who always whispers, "Zoom Zoom". Enough already.

I always thought the truth commercial were kinda annoying. I don't smoke, but I don't know, it's just so annoying to me.

The Quizno's commercials were actually kinda cool. Not so much the commercial itself but because the hamster things came from the rathergood web site and not some overpaid ad exec.

One commercial that I can't stand is the VW commercial for the Jetta where there's some dude test driving the car and he accelerates into a turn. He starts screaming like a little punk ass kid at other people while he's laughing hysterically. It just annoys me to no end.

You guys know that now you are talking about how annoying these commercials are, they are working better than expected! We are now here talking about McDonalds, Pepto Bismol, Quiznos, etc. I think in the commercial world it is really hard to stand out. But, when you get these commercials that you hate you really get the product stuck in your head.

But anyway, thats besides the point. The commercial that really freaks me out lately is the one with the Burger King king in bed with the guy handing him a breakfast sandwich.

Bob Rorman is the bane of my tv watching existence.

That's not always a good thing. I've grown to hate the Pringles commercial where the little girl sits on a lawn chair with her Pringles, next to a guy eating bagged chips. It's not that bad of a commercial, but Spike TV was airing it during every commercial break. I got sick of it.

I used to buy Pringles at least once a week. Now I haven't touched them in more than a month.

:rolleyes: "Can you here me now?...Good!" :rolleyes:

:rolleyes: "I use Wellbutrin because of the low risk for sexual side effects" :rolleyes:

:eek: "If you have erections lasting more than 4 hours, you should seek the care of a physician" or something like that :eek:

I can not stand that McDonalds commercial with the one guy just using text messages to talk to his friends, it supposed to look like a very modern scene. I think it just is a poor attempt to grab the younger generation.

I am pretty sure that this is the intent. Idiots do eat there... therefore the marketing is geared toward idiots...


I seriously want to hurt someone when I see this one... And wasnt pepto always cherry flavored? I always thought it was.

Any car commercial with beautitful woman in it who's not actually playing a part. Watch them with the sound off. Don't pay attention to what they're saying, just what the ad is showing you. The shot list will be something like:

Car/woman by car/car on the road/woman stroking car/car in the desert/woman standing by car looking at you/car with woman stroking car and looking at _you_

It's almost classic. "Hey, buy this car and the babes will be all over your studly self." Right.

There's a commercial where three guys are in an office, one holding a stereo and the other 2 dancing in a way men shouldn't dance.. The boss comes in and asks if so and so is done; they reply they used the advertised product, and turn the music back on to dance some more. It's very funny, and one of the funniest commercials I've seen in a long time... Unfortunately, it seems it wasn't effective for me, as I don't remember what was being advertised.

One commercial that was effective was a Doge commercial in which a boat on a trailer was detached and riding out of control down the mountain.. I have a lot of gripes with this commercial..

First, the boat manages to stay in the right lane while going around a curvy mountain road, secondly the Dodge Ram that chases it, passes it going around a blind curve, and thirdly, when the Ram manages to "dock" the boat and pull it to safety on the shoulder, the RV it was attached to comes down the road AFTERWARDS. Therefore, the boat had to have passed the RV it was being pulled behind at some point.

I often find myself analyzing commercials and picking out what's wrong with them, and I often wonder if ad agencies purposely leave in errors and discrepancies so that the observant viewer will notice the flaws, and thus remember the commercial more.

For instance, I took issue with a lot of the things wrong in the Dodge commercial mentioned above. If I hadn't noticed these errors, the commercial wouldn't have stood out from the others.. So were these errors intentionally left in, or did they not just care and think anyone would notice the discrepancies?

Lastly, I like the commercial where the red headed guy goes to the game with his friends, and gets a "body double" that looks nothing like him. The fact that his name happens to be Jim is also a few added points in my book.

I tend to enjoy commercials for their content, and not really the product advertised. I don't care what's being advertised, but I do like commercials that are funny and have unique/interesting scenarios that set them apart from the "usual" commercials aired throughout the day.

I used to get really annoyed with commercials and having to sit through them, but more recently I've started to analyze them and look for flaws, and I kind of like seperating the good from the bad.. Seeing the same one over and over (even back to back sometimes), does get very annoying though.

Old Navy comercials. Worst comercials EVER! I refuse to buy anything Old Navy now.

The Cadillac commmercials. The Zepplin music just doesnt cut it all.

On the topic of commercials, I love those Emerald Nut commercials. Has anyone else seen these?

Nope, never seen 'em. The commericals I hate are the ones Lewis Black talks about, in that
you have no idea what's going on. "Three rabbits are sitting on a log and one goes home
and hangs himself. Buy a bike!" Except Aflac, I love those commericals, even though you
really don't have any idea what they're advertising, hell, they even tell you to ASK someone
else what it's all about.

I hate the Charmin toliet paper commercial where the young bear takes too much toliet paper because it is "extra absorbing". He then proceeds to sh*t right there in front of everybody in the woods. What are commercial coming to where I have to see bears taking dumps in the woods?

Also how absorbant does toliet paper really have to be?

Pretty much all the commercials that sells some kind of house product. They always show some idiots screwing up by using a normal product, but then when they use their products, those people suddenly became master of the crafts. And the spoke persons are so damn excited too, they make it like buying the product will cure AIDS or something....makes me wanna shoot the t.v.

Yeah, like the commercial for the new Ziploc Snap and Seal containers that you can snap shut with one finger. They try it with Gladware and the poor kid has his lunch spill all over the place.

Is Gladware really that hard to close? You'd have to be a moron...

That commercial gives me that embarrassed chill up my spin.