Pet peeve: bad advertising

[GreatNews2night]

I don't know what some ad agencies are thinking. There are commercials that irritate me so much, that I make a point of never patronizing that business.

One example among many: "Bad-a-book, bad-a-boom" ads by Choice Hotels. What an annoying fellow! The ads show brainstorming sections with Choice employees, or customers. Anytime someone has a valid idea, that idiot comes up with his "bad-a-book, bad-a-boom" annoying line. I will NEVER stay in a Choice hotel just because of this stupid ad campaign.

Is it just me, or do you guys and gals have other irritating campaigns that turn you off so that you avoid the businesses being advertised? Any examples?

 

[WillyPete]

The anti-vaping ads with muppet style puppets (they are pushed 24/7 on Cartoon Network) are either poorly thought out or are intentionally using bad arguments. I'm leaning towards the later, as I believe they are largely produced within the tobacco industry.

They play number games like "you're 4 times more likely to start smoking if you vape" (unknowable, and misses the point) and "a vape cartridge has as much nicotine as 20 cigarettes" (it's designed to produce ~20 servings, just like a pack of cigarettes) or just literally drowns out any argument against them with a foghorn (like a dozen times in a 30 second commercial, FFS!)

The best argument against vaping is that it makes it easier to be a nicotine addict. The addiction is the problem, and it barely gets addressed. Commercials for vape systems have more nicotine warnings (they are obliged to) than the anti-vaping spots.

The upshot being that not only is it easier to be a nicotine addict (less lung damage, less smell, functionally no second hand concerns, less objection to indoor use, not inherently cancer-causing) but now we get to have TV\radio ads for it again, since the old tobacco advertising regulations don't apply somehow.

If I this had been going on when I was 16, I'd likely be vaping up a storm today (instead of eventually quitting cigarettes,) and I'd be convinced I was not harming myself by maintaining my addiction.

 

[sangha]

TV commercials never bother me.

I don't watch TV

 

[ModerationNow!]

I don't know what some ad agencies are thinking. There are commercials that irritate me so much, that I make a point of never patronizing that business.

One example among many: "Bad-a-book, bad-a-boom" ads by Choice Hotels. What an annoying fellow! The ads show brainstorming sections with Choice employees, or customers. Anytime someone has a valid idea, that idiot comes up with his "bad-a-book, bad-a-boom" annoying line. I will NEVER stay in a Choice hotel just because of this stupid ad campaign.

Is it just me, or do you guys and gals have other irritating campaigns that turn you off so that you avoid the businesses being advertised? Any examples?

I am SOOO tired of the 'Flo' ads for Progressive insurance, as well as the "Geico gecko"! Neither of those ad campaigns have been funny for years, and they've been around more than a decade! I should open an ad agency, cause I could come up with something more catchy and humorous than either of those campaigns..... ANYONE could(except for those crappy ad agencies, apparently)!

 

[nota bene]

I am SOOO tired of the 'Flo' ads for Progressive insurance, as well as the "Geico gecko"! Neither of those ad campaigns have been funny for years, and they've been around more than a decade! I should open an ad agency, cause I could come up with something more catchy and humorous than either of those campaigns..... ANYONE could(except for those crappy ad agencies, apparently)!

I love Jim Cashman ("Jamie"), and the current sitcom send-up starring "Flo."

What I hate is the Liberty Insurance jingle (if you can call it that). I hate them for coming up with that.

 

[Lovebug]

Most of the time I FF through commercials, simply because we DVR the shows we like to watch, including news. Now and then something catches my attention.

This is one
YouTube

another is the cold turkey commercial
Chantix TV Commercial, 'Camping Turkey' - iSpot.tv

the one I hate, at the moment, is
YouTube

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I love Jim Cashman ("Jamie"), and the current sitcom send-up starring "Flo."

What I hate is the Liberty Insurance jingle (if you can call it that). I hate them for coming up with that.

HA!!! And DOUBLE HA!!!
I've been saying forever that the jingle business is apparently on life support. Nobody wants to pay for a real jingle anymore, it seems.
They just hand the task to some tone deaf flunkie with a Casio keyboard, a couple of buddies and a 13 inch MacBook and think they've aced the job.

First, they got lazy and instead of creating original jingles, they just started outsourcing beloved contemporary rock, pop and country songs, but now they don't even want to pay artist royalties for that, so now they're just spewing whatever they can in house, it seems, and skipping real jingle craftsmanship altogether.

PS: I don't think I can pick just ONE irritating ad alone, but there is a current contender, a screechy opera soprano, bellowing about her Volvo. Her shrieks cut through the air at all hours, and it's bad enough my dog tries to sing along, but the shrieking is mixed perfectly if ear pain is the objective.

Imagine having this interrupt the quiet droning of your TV as you sleep:



After about the tenth time, I started wanting to do an Elvis Presley on the TV set but I can't afford that luxury.

Also, of course, now that TV's are all LCD flat screens, they don't explode and shatter glass everywhere when you shoot them anymore, so the whole thing is anticlimactic anyway. If you can't cause a shower of tinkling glass, smoke and electric arcs and blow a fuse, what's the point? :lamo

 

[SDET]

I don't know what some ad agencies are thinking. There are commercials that irritate me so much, that I make a point of never patronizing that business.

One example among many: "Bad-a-book, bad-a-boom" ads by Choice Hotels. What an annoying fellow! The ads show brainstorming sections with Choice employees, or customers. Anytime someone has a valid idea, that idiot comes up with his "bad-a-book, bad-a-boom" annoying line. I will NEVER stay in a Choice hotel just because of this stupid ad campaign.

Is it just me, or do you guys and gals have other irritating campaigns that turn you off so that you avoid the businesses being advertised? Any examples?

The Juan Valdez campaign is so old and stale, it makes me think of Colombian coffee as stale.

 

[Lovebug]

The Juan Valdez campaign is so old and stale, it makes me think of Colombian coffee as stale.

I love java

 

[ttwtt78640]

The insurance ad for Liberty Mutual (I think) that has someone bitching about paying higher auto premium rates after a making an insurance claim on "a scratch so small that it could be fixed with a pen" is moronic. Why would anyone make such a claim? Pay the "tiny" repair bill out of pocket and the problem is avoided. Insurance is for the rare, unexpected and expensive events in life - not to avoid any and all out of pocket expenses.

 

[Bum]

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[GreatNews2night]

PS: I don't think I can pick just ONE irritating ad alone, but there is a current contender, a screechy opera soprano, bellowing about her Volvo. Her shrieks cut through the air at all hours, and it's bad enough my dog tries to sing along, but the shrieking is mixed perfectly if ear pain is the objective.

Imagine having this interrupt the quiet droning of your TV as you sleep:

Oh wow. I love this ad. It's Mozart's The Magic Flute's (Die Zauberflöte) Queen of the Night famous second aria, "Der Hölle Rache." I've heard better sopranos sing it, sure, but this one did a somewhat decent job for the setting, a car commercial. I love opera.

Anyway, I guess it's your right to not like it, and I respect that. It goes to show that different folks, different strokes.

If you want a better soprano singing it, get this one, the great Diana Damrau, here live on stage, with the whole scene (the aria starts at 2:12):

 

[GreatNews2night]

Do you get tired at night? Drink water during the day? Feet smell? Feel the need to shower a few times a week? Have the urge to urinate more than once a day?

Then ask your Doctor if Oblivia Extended Release is right for you;


View attachment 67256722

Oblivia ER ( Opiodaddictazineselfmedicativdepressomidefukitolate) can help you overcome those feelings of adult responsibility and allow you to resume a childlike state of cluelessness while enabling you to commit crimes that allow your lawyer to claim in a court of law that you are not at fault.

Call our toll free number and speak to our customer service representatives in India who will diagnose you over the phone and send you a free 30 day trial of Oblivia to get you hooked!


*Side effects may include sense of entitlement, lack of adult behavior, explosive flatulence, flaming urination, a desire to remove your eyes with a plastic spork, homicidal rages while watching care bears cartoons, sloughing of your skin, tooth decay, sudden inexplicable cravings for waffles and play-do, day-glo pink nasal discharge, impaired judgement of members of the opposite sex, and Federal Grand Jury arraignment for Medicare fraud.

LOL, precious!!!

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Oh oh oh oh I just remembered!!!

Think for a moment about the personality profile of the average Duracell user, if one were to take them seriously...

They go into paroxysms of psychological torture over kids who make too much noise eating, they freak out if their neighbor is in the hall when they come home and even the pre-flight announcement is too much for their fragile psyches.

The poor poor dears, maybe they need to live in a rubber room!

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Oh wow. I love this ad. It's Mozart's The Magic Flute's (Die Zauberflöte) Queen of the Night famous second aria, "Der Hölle Rache." I've heard better sopranos sing it, sure, but this one did a somewhat decent job for the setting, a car commercial. I love opera.

Anyway, I guess it's your right to not like it, and I respect that. It goes to show that different folks, different strokes.

If you want a better soprano singing it, get this one, the great Diana Damrau, here live on stage, with the whole scene (the aria starts at 2:12):

No no, I know she's talented, it's just that at 2:30 AM or after hearing it ten or twenty or a hundred times, ay carumba.
And again, wait till you hear a dog try to accompany her, again at two in the morning.
First time it's funny, tenth time maybe not so much LOL.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I miss the really really funny commercials of old!

Mama Mia! That's a spicy meat-a-ball!!

Mikey Hates Everyting (except Life cereal)

Where's the beef?

Smart Beep ad

 

[nota bene]

HA!!! And DOUBLE HA!!!
I've been saying forever that the jingle business is apparently on life support. Nobody wants to pay for a real jingle anymore, it seems.
They just hand the task to some tone deaf flunkie with a Casio keyboard, a couple of buddies and a 13 inch MacBook and think they've aced the job.

First, they got lazy and instead of creating original jingles, they just started outsourcing beloved contemporary rock, pop and country songs, but now they don't even want to pay artist royalties for that, so now they're just spewing whatever they can in house, it seems, and skipping real jingle craftsmanship altogether.

I hesitated to even use "jingle" to describe the hateful, repetitive notes/words of that new Liberty ad. You're too kind. I think they consulted with psychologists who are experts in branding and "earworms" to evilly determine what was going to be the most obnoxiously memorable. :twisted:

I want to do an Elvis when that Charmin toilet paper commercial comes on--arrgh, that "My heinie's clean." Is there no boundary at all?

(I say this having watched an ad soon to be launched on the world's first wearable E.D. solution. Yes.)

 

[americanwoman]

The anti-vaping ads with muppet style puppets (they are pushed 24/7 on Cartoon Network) are either poorly thought out or are intentionally using bad arguments. I'm leaning towards the later, as I believe they are largely produced within the tobacco industry.

They play number games like "you're 4 times more likely to start smoking if you vape" (unknowable, and misses the point) and "a vape cartridge has as much nicotine as 20 cigarettes" (it's designed to produce ~20 servings, just like a pack of cigarettes) or just literally drowns out any argument against them with a foghorn (like a dozen times in a 30 second commercial, FFS!)

The best argument against vaping is that it makes it easier to be a nicotine addict. The addiction is the problem, and it barely gets addressed. Commercials for vape systems have more nicotine warnings (they are obliged to) than the anti-vaping spots.

The upshot being that not only is it easier to be a nicotine addict (less lung damage, less smell, functionally no second hand concerns, less objection to indoor use, not inherently cancer-causing) but now we get to have TV\radio ads for it again, since the old tobacco advertising regulations don't apply somehow.

If I this had been going on when I was 16, I'd likely be vaping up a storm today (instead of eventually quitting cigarettes,) and I'd be convinced I was not harming myself by maintaining my addiction.

Vaping is safer than *BOAT HORN*


So what vaping is safer than listening to boat horns? :lol:

 

[<alt>doxygen]

Farmers Insurance - any of them.

Any and all political ads, especially the ones that don't tell you who's REALLY behind them.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I hesitated to even use "jingle" to describe the hateful, repetitive notes/words of that new Liberty ad. You're too kind. I think they consulted with psychologists who are experts in branding and "earworms" to evilly determine what was going to be the most obnoxiously memorable. :twisted:

I want to do an Elvis when that Charmin toilet paper commercial comes on--arrgh, that "My heinie's clean." Is there no boundary at all?

(I say this having watched an ad soon to be launched on the world's first wearable E.D. solution. Yes.)

Oh how true, earworms for profit. No question about it.
And why spend inordinate sums on heavily crafted jingles, when an earworm can just be a few monosyllabic utterances?
It's almost the science of creating "blipverts". (If you remember the old Max Headroom TV show.)

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Farmers Insurance - any of them.

Any and all political ads, especially the ones that don't tell you who's REALLY behind them.

The Farmer's Insurance ads have worn out their shtick.
"We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two" was funny the first few times, but it's dead.

On the other hand, Allstate's Mayhem is apparently the gift that keeps on giving!

"Recalculating!"

 

[Rexedgar]

The Farmer's Insurance ads have worn out their shtick.
"We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two" was funny the first few times, but it's dead.

On the other hand, Allstate's Mayhem is apparently the gift that keeps on giving!

"Recalculating!"

<snip>

My favorite is the “put the grill away too soon” one. We went to a game at FedEx Field a few years back and the lot attendants were sweeping up what was left of a row of cars that were damaged in much the same way.

 

[<alt>doxygen]

The Farmer's Insurance ads have worn out their shtick.
"We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two" was funny the first few times, but it's dead.

On the other hand, Allstate's Mayhem is apparently the gift that keeps on giving!

"Recalculating!"

Yep, that Allstate series occasionally comes up with a new one that's worth a chuckle.

 

[Juggernaut74]

Any and all pharmaceutical ads.

But the most annoying ads ever created have to be the Turbo Tax “Free Free Free Free Free Free Free” ads

 

[stevecanuck]

I am mildly amused at ads that feature a smart person lecturing a stupid person about the benefits of product X. The stupid person is invariably a white male, while the smart person is always a NOT white male.

I saw a truck ad recently where a white guy was showing his black friend a picture of the boat he just bought. The black guy said, "You know, you're going to need a truck to pull that". The white guy gets this geez-I-never-thunk-of-that look on his face.