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Commercials
As the Superbowl approaches, I've been thinking about commercials. Carole thinks those Geico-caveman commercials are hilarious. They're ok, I guess, but they might be on the verge of getting stale. I liked those Fruit-of-the-Loom music video commercials, but I think an obscure Hardee's commercial is near the top of the list. It had a manager interviewing a punk kid for a job. During the interview, the manager was talking about his management philosophy, and Tommy James' "It's All in the Game" was playing in the background. The music volume would change as they walked from room to room. It was very cool. I think they were playing it in '88 or '89. Little Caesar's had good commercials. Do they even exist anymore?
Best Commercial EVER: Ridley Scott's Mac commercial. I remember when they played that during the '84 Superbowl. I was in my first year of college. That commercial was better than a lot of movies.
What are your favorite and/or most hated commercials?
Best Commercial EVER: Ridley Scott's Mac commercial. I remember when they played that during the '84 Superbowl. I was in my first year of college. That commercial was better than a lot of movies.
What are your favorite and/or most hated commercials?
Comments
In the spirit of over-generalizing the response to your question, I'll volunteer all Japanese commercials, or really any East Asian commercials. It's not because I believe their culture is innately superior to ours (don't get me started on that kind of raging fanboyism), just that they're different, and, as a result, interesting. I could watch Japanese commercials for hours.
Least favorite commercials? How about when a station decides to use its precious commercial time to advertise it's own shit, particularly when they show the same preview for the same show every single ad break, possibly several times. This is exacerbated when you're seeing spoiler previews, such as those for Battlestar Galactica when you haven't watched any of Season 3 yet (on account of there not being a fricking DVD). Actually, come to think of it, only Sci-Fi pisses me off in this way. Everyone else just advertises cars and car dealers. ENDLESSLY.
My family took shifts recording the shows we liked sans commercials so that the rest of us could watch them in peace at the time of our choosing. (This had the added bonus of having tapes filled with every show we ever liked one after another with no interruptions).
Pretty-much the day I got actual Internet access, I almost entirely stopped watching television. I spent long nights in the family room with dozens of web browser windows and IRC channels open, as opposed to the living room where the main TV was situated. While I had a cable box in my room, I mostly would turn it on for background entertainment while I was engaged in other pursuits.
It's not about TV being "un-hip." It's about TV never having been what I wanted it to be. Before the Internet, I just mitigated its failings as best I could. Once I had access to the net, TV was immediately and permanently obsolete to me.
But do you mean to say that you've never once in your life seen a commercial that you liked? Not even the Ridley Scott masterpiece? You've never sat transfixed before a TV demonstration the Ron Popeil pocket fisherman? You didn't watch the ginsu knifes cutting through the soda can? You never once thought of buying an LP from K-Tel? You never said "Where's the beef?" or "I can't believe I ate the WHOLE thing."?
Are you sure you aren't Canadian?
And, back then, the Mac was as new and shiny as the iPhone.
I honestly, sitting here, can't recall one commercial that I would find worth discussing. And I'm not emotionally vested in them enough to care about hating them.
Plus, when I sit down to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, I'm going to be WATCHING THE FOOTBALL GAME. When did the ads become a spectator sport? This annoys me greatly. So many viewers are getting all excited about giving advertisers a chance to sell them something. What a loser mentality. Sell me something, please! I can't wait any longer! I've got to see the new Pepsi ad, as though I've never tasted Pepsi and need to be coached about its merits! Won't anyone help? Wherefore art thou, oh Pepsi Co?
Grrr.
It began when the TV station realized how valuable the ad timeslots during the SuperBowl were. They started charging more and more for them. This clued in the advertisers, who realized that it was worth their while to ensure their ads were noticed; after all, when you're paying $2.5 million for 30 seconds, you want to get the most out of your time. The companies starting shelling out more money and finding better ad agencies to get their ads noticed. Quirky, creative, and sometimes annoying ads served their purpose.
Now, like all things, it was driven to excess, and what was exceptional became the norm. However, that's when marketers came to the rescue! Companies started making preview ads, teasers for the ads you'd see in the upcoming game. The media supported it in that dumbass way they do. They became a cultural phenomenon, due in no small part to the efforts of the advertisers and the station.
There's really no difference between Super Bowl ads and normal ones; they both make money for the station and content owner and generate business for the advertiser. These just happen to have a lot of popularity, generated by a feedback loop of capitalism.
I know they may be targeted towards Pentagon types, and it is weird but not unusual to see field-grade officers riding the Metro, but I would hope they make their procurement decisions based on research, not ads they see on the way in to work. I have this other mental picture: "Damn. We really do need some new guns and shit. Where can we get more guns and shit? Hmmmm. Oh yeah! I saw a Raytheon ad on the Metro this morning. They'll sell us more guns and shit." I might be too paranoid with this line of thinking, but do you think they might advertise just so they may exert control over programming?