Conventional wisdom holds that the great majority of TV viewers consider all commercials Extremely Annoying. At best, they're welcomed as a break during which the viewer can make a snack or coffee, answer Nature's call, and do other quick simple things before the program comes back on. Anything other than watching the spots. It's also said that with TIVO and other innovations, TV advertising will soon go the way of the dinosaur.
That doesn't mean spots aren't still being watched. Because deep-pockets
corporate overlords
(as I some time ago saw some Kossack put it) pay beaucoup bucks for ad agencies to produce more and more inventive and persuasive ads for their goods and services. Because they know viewers will see these ads, then buy crap they don't need. So nowadays the TV commercial has gotten to be an art form.
Today one can see stunning visuals including animation and graphics in commercials. Some are beautifully filmed in scenic or exotic locales. Such as the new Lincoln Continental spot filmed in New Orleans, featuring Harry Connick, Jr. reminiscing about his beloved home town. Or the technique is unique--for example, black-and-white with light blue items.
Some spots feature good music, some familiar, some not--I wish that as MTV did back when they aired videos, they'd show the names of the artist, the title of the song, and the album. And some are entertaining on both levels, with enjoyable music and eye-catching video. Like the Visa commercial filmed in New Orleans with a soundtrack of "When the Saints Go Marching In." Then there are ads which are adorable and heart-warming, the way those showing children and pets often are. Some spots can be clever, offbeat, or even funny.
And then there are brilliant public service announcements--or PSA's, as they're called in the trade. Such as that poignant American Cancer Society PSA showing a lonely, depressed-looking woman with her equally-sad looking dog. She's lost her job, found out she has breast cancer, and may lose her life.
Most commercials or PSA's, however, are innocuous--bland enough, dull enough, and inoffensive enough to go in one ear and out the other. The only way they'll really attract your attention is if you're considering buying the product advertised.
But then there are the rest. Those spots and PSA's that can really get your attention--but not in a positive way. They may look ugly or feature unattractive people or animated characters. They may sexistly depict women by showing only their body parts.
They may have bad music, like an oldie you'd rather forget. Or, even worse, a stupid jingle that gets stuck in your head and may even pop into your mind at the worst times even years after you've heard it. (Now that can be Extremely Annoying.) Or the announcer or someone else in the ad may have a voice as pleasant as nails on a chalkboard. Or the spot may contain sounds that are jarring. Or the commercial may have been poorly written or have a bad, for example, tasteless, premise. Or a joke that falls flat.
And then there are those spots where the goods or services themselves, or the fact they're being advertised, are a turn-off. Like distasteful products. Or those people vitally need that cost a lot of money, such as prescription drugs. Or products that aren't good for you, like diet pills.
Or, last but not least, they may be for products or services that you either know from first-hand experience, or have heard, that they don't live up to their advertised claims. (Or they sound too good to be true--so you figure they wouldn't.) And you wonder how the companies hawking these goods and services can legally continue making such bogus claims in their commercials.
So here's my rogue's gallery of Extremely Annoying Commercials--some for specific products or services, others generic because most, but not all, commercials in that category are Extremely Annoying. Most will be TV, but several radio ads and PSA's will be included because I listen to the radio so often. Enjoy this list--which will be brought to you free of commercial interruption.
- freecreditreport.com Extremely Annoying on soooo many levels. One of the latest spots for this outfit features a guy in pirate costume singing about having to work at pirate-themed tourist restaurant because some hacker has stolen his I.D. The song is bad, both musically and lyrically. Another ad has a guy with a bad car who sings a similarly-bad song, and a third has a guy who has to live with his new wife in his in-laws' basement because unknown to him his wife has a bad credit rating. Also bad musically and lyrically. But the most Extremely Annoying thing about them, per what I've heard--I've never used freecreditreport.com---is the fact that (Surprise!) freecredtireport.com isn't! The name itself is a fraudulent claim because you actually have to pay for credit reports. And if you think you can avoid the pirate restaurant one by keeping your TV turned off, think again. It can also be heard on the radio! Bad premise, bad music, bad (as in deceptive) advertising make these Extremely Annoying Commercials in more ways than one!
- Sudafed PE. This is hideous--a congested woman's head quickly swells up until it looks like a balloon about to pop. The ugliness alone makes this Extremely Annoying.
- Advil. This isn't verbatim, but it's the basic plot: A woman's son gets his own place, so she has to heavily clean out his room and get rid of all of the junk he's accumulated over 30 years. Backache--so she buys one pain reliever. Then, she buys a computer and gets headaches. And buys a second pain reliever. After that, she takes up dancing--and her feet hurt. Then buys a third pain reliever! Is anybody in real life actually stupid enough to do that sort of thing? I mean, I buy Walmart's generic acetiminophen and use it for all my aches and pains. It's nice and cheap--no advertising! So the unbelievable premise that anyone might buy 3 different kinds of pain reliever when only one will do is enough to make this Extremely Annoying.
- Mucinex. Icky, green talking mucus, which actually looks like boogers with goofy cartoonish voices. 'Nuff said. Gross as well as Extremely Annoying.
- Edward Jones. Two engineers are inspecting a dam. There's a small leak. One takes a wad of gum out of his mouth, plugs the leak with it, says,
"That oughtta do it."
Then they mosey on, while behind them the force of water pushes the gum out, then the water gushes forth. Flashes me back to Katrina, not to mention the "heckuva job" the Bush Administration has been doing fixing New Orleans' levees. (Snark!) And that's Extremely Annoying.
- Company that "names" stars after people. I've been hearing this on the radio on and off since the late 80's. I can't recall their name, but supposedly if you send them money, they'll make you or someone else you know a star--by naming a star somewhere in the universe after you. (And I imagine if they get enough name requests to run out of stars in this universe, then they'll start naming stars after Earthlings in parallel universes--unless these parallel universes also are home to companies raking in the cash, naming stars after their own inhabitants...) The ads tout what a lovely gift this is. It is a gift that keeps on giving, for whoever came up with the idea and is now making money hand over fist. Because private individuals cannot really have stars named after themselves or loved ones. So the fraud alone is enough to make these ads Extremely Annoying.
- Prescription drugs. Generically speaking, the fact that these drugs are being advertised is Extremely Annoying. Because the cost of the advertising is passed on to the consumer.
(I know this is true for all advertised name-brand products, but usually when a name-brand costs too much, for example cereal, pop, cat food, pain reliever, etc. you can substitute a less well-known or a cheaper store brand. Or if it's not a necessity, you can do without. Or buy used, as I've done with clothes, books, CD's, and other stuff. Which is "green" because it's recycling, as well as economical.)
Not so with prescription drugs--many that are advertised are so new that they still have patents, which means no generics can be made. So the best anyone can do who first finds out he/she will need a prescription drug would be to ask the doctor if there isn't a cheaper alternative that can be tried first. So all such advertising is Extremely Annoying--but I've singled out one such drug whose spots are also Extremely Annoying on another level.
- Zetia. This med's spots are poorly written. To wit:
Zetia may not be right for people (my emphasis) who have liver problems, are nursing or pregnant, or may become pregnant...
Does that sound as weird to you as it does to me? I mean, generally-speaking, gender inclusiveness is a good idea--but here it just sounds bizarre because, as of now, only one gender can nurse or become pregnant. And that's Extremely Annoying.
- everydaychoices.org This is an "American Nanny" radio PSA put out by the Ad Council. (For some reason, most Ad Council PSA's are bad. But the Ad Council's a government project so what do you expect?) It starts telling all the cautious things a young woman does to make sure she doesn't become a victim of crime, like making sure her door is locked. Then it goes into the assorted diseases women can get if their lifestyle isn't the greatest--cancer, heart disease, etc. It contains the classic bad line:
Learn to protect yourself from yourself.
- Ad council radio PSA telling mothers to make sure their kids have the right size car seats or booster seats. (Britney Spears--are you listening?) But the premise and what the women in the spot are saying are so stupid--because of the way one of their kids who's playing football is stumbling around because his helmet's too big. One of the Moms says something like
What was I thinking?
The following is generic--but appropriate for the season:
- Christmas ads with Extremely Annoying jingles. For example:
"Ho, ho, ho, the big, big O, Overstock.com!"
They crop up like Christmas trees at this time of year, which gets earlier and earlier. Before we know it, we'll start hearing them around Independence Day! And it's not the ads per se, but their jingles--which appropriately enough contain plenty of "jingle bells"--and are Extremely Annoying Bad Music that has a penchant for sticking in your head.
- The AIDS PSA with Jimmy Fallon. His voice is OK, what he says is OK, but Jimmy needs some serious hair and wardrobe pointers. He looks like a gray elf because it's black-and-white, and I'm not sure if he has droopy drawers or a shirt that's too short, but he either needs to pull up his pants or tuck in his shirt.
- AIG's
"Singing Can Add 15 Years To Your Life"
spot. There's an overfed, sweaty, obnoxious-looking dude murdering "Build Me Up, Buttercup," Karaoke-style in tacky, seedy-looking establishment. That's actually a rather good song, but you wouldn't know it from his performance. He shouldn't quit his day job. And I doubt that singing would add 15 years to his life-an Extremely Annoyed listener might shoot him! (The place is so icky-looking, it looks like the sort of place that would happen!)
And another generic category of goods and services in which companies are making money hand-over-fist from deluded consumers:
- Diet pills and other products, health clubs, etc. anything cashing in on the mainstream media-driven mania for slimness. Their marketing ties in with the frequent focus by the MSM on the "problem" of obesity (when, really, this country has more important things to focus on than the size of her citizens. Like the size of the President's heart, if he even has one.) And the use by advertisers in so many commercials of models who look like they probably haven't eaten a proper meal since they were six.
I mean, get real, compared with a lot of other countries like the Sudan and Bangladesh, this country has it pretty good when it comes to having plentiful, delicious food--and let's face it, when food is abundant and is even easily obtained by the poor, it's going to show in people's figures. Diet pills and strange diets can kill you and otherwise adversely impact your health. And by the way, if you're thinking of joining a health club either because you want to lose weight or just want some exercise to help yourself get into shape, try getting rid of your car instead. (There may be more about this in a future diary.) So both the diet products and their commercials and the media-driven hysteria over fat are Extremely Annoying.
Last but not least is another generic category... It's jarring, it's Extremely Annoying,...it's....(imagine a loud annoying male voice braying the following!)
- The Cable Commercial! More often than not, it appears on cable or even on network TV late at night. Often, the products are too good to be true. Like the gadget with what looks like a suction cup that supposedly fixes dents in cars. Then there's the spray that's supposed to make scratches in a car's finish look good as new. And other dumb items like jar openers, bags you can store stuff in, tray tables--the list goes on and on. And even worse, some of those have extended versions known as infomercials, which I've made it a point never to watch.
And who can forget:
"It slices...It dices!"
"Chi, Chi, Chi, Chia!"
"Clap on, clap off...the Clapper!
"I've fallen...and I can't get up!"
I also wonder if many, if not all, of these products are clients of the same ad agency. First of all, many in places have the same or very similar verbiage. I've heard several with the very same line, which goes,
"Use it while camping, on the boat, or on the RV!"
And then there are these two Extremely Annoying pitchmen: One, an American with an Extremely Annoying braying voice as pleasant as nails on a chalkboard, and the second, a Brit or an Aussie, with an Extremely Annoying braying voice as pleasant as nails on a chalkboard.
But here's what's even more Extremely Annoying: As noted early on, the products sound too good to be true--and there's an old caveat,
"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!"
I think it's a dead giveway when the ad says to phone in your order because the advertised product is
"Not sold in any store!
Because I think that if a store won't stock it, they must know something....
Well, that's it for Extremely Annoying Commercials. This time I'm not adding a poll--because of something Extremely Annoying that happened to the last one I tried to post--which, appropriately enough, was on my last "Extremely Annoying People" diary. But feel free to comment on my selections, or nominate your own!