Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Subtracting By Ad-ding

Will someone please send the following message to Madison Avenue? With DVRs and TIVOs and several hundreds of alternate channels available to the television viewing public annoying commercials will not be tolerated let alone viewed. With remote in hand I stand at the ready to surf the tsunami of stupidity in search of sane commercial free shows.

There is an old adage in the ad agencies that any publicity is good publicity. This is a shame because the thinking is mired in the past. A sponsor is sold a story that says no matter if the public loves or hates an ad they will at least remember it and it will produce sales at a later date.

On radio they use the tactic of repetition. When a phone number is part of an ad it is not said once or even twice but at least three times and is sometimes sung! I heard an ad for some product that is now on my 'avoid list' in which their phone number was repeated SEVEN TIMES! I wrote the name of the product down in seven places to make sure I never make the purchase.

It is this same brain-dead thinking that has given us the likes of that incredibly ugly annoying; idiotic; moronic female blight on the entire universe who touts the Progressive Insurance Company. I cannot figure out if the female in the commercial really dresses and looks like that in real life because if she does Sally Struthers should make a comeback and hold a telethon for her.

Now I know it sounds harsh and many 'Mad Men' will say that the ad worked because I remembered the product but they are missing one very important point. As a result of the ads they have perpetrated on the American public in general and my television in particular I will in fact remember Progressive. That's because I would sooner be dead than ever buy a product made or offered by them!

Another advertisement that makes no sense to me and has turned me off the product in question is the one involving a young boy's annoying voice saying 'Zoom zoom' in an idiotic attempt to get me to buy his car! Do the ad people think that saying a word supposedly linked to speed is going to get people to fork over their hard earned money for their product? Well I hate to disappoint them, no correct that, I am happy to disappoint them. I shall never buy that car!

Another annoying piece of turd is some shirt-sleeved moron who calls himself a professor and wishes to sell his line of programs for the computer aimed at people with IQs in the 20 to 30 range. He starts his ad with "I'm the guy who..."
I didn't cut it off there to stop from saying his product but rather to emphasize the fact to the stations that air the commercial that I never hear the rest because I have turned the program I was watching off!
In fact it is probable that I will not come back to the station for a while because I may have gotten interested in a different program that is not sponsored by, "The guy who..."


And this brings me to the single most annoying jackass to ever make me pull a muscle running for the remote, Billy Mays. I do not give a rats ass what product this moron is touting I will never, NEVER buy it and if I see someone else buying it in a store I will go out of my way to deter them from their act. I want the sponsors of whatever this jerk is yelling about to know that neither I nor my family nor anyone within the sound of my voice will ever, EVER purchase a product offered by him.

In the spirit of Maria Von Trapp these are a few of my least favorite things. Whatever happened to funny commercials?

You might say "There's the beef!" And while I have only listed some I assure you there are many many more. Please feel free to add some of your favorite jaw-dropping PIA ads. But I must leave now; just writing about the ones above has given me indigestion and I am in need of some "plop plop fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is."

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