The Baboon Congress

Ad (foolishness) Infinitum

98 Comments

Today’s guest post comes from Clyde.

I have been watching a lot more television lately, some of the bowl games and a few shows on HGTV and the Food channel. Most evenings my wife has been visiting my art room/office where the bigger TV is to watch some holiday specials, such as on Hallmark channel. She watches the shows, when she is awake, and I notice the ads.

4.1.1

I have some observations:

  • We are expected to choose an insurance company on the basis of how stupid, irritating, and over-repeated are their commercials.
  • As usual children are smarter than adults.
  • Perky women with big eyes and red-dyed semi-messy hair are the gold standard in advertising spokespersons.
  • We are fat, have too much stuff, and spend money we don’t have.
  • Women can boss, nag, or control men, but men cannot do any of those things to women. One of a few examples: the Walgreens ad where the woman crushes her husband’s sugared donuts to bits. It’s good that she did because that donut must have been very stale. This is not a pro-male or anti-female rant. I just notice the pattern.
  • Apparently men deserve this because men in ads are so often childish and driven by their appetite for greasy food, beer, and big-screen TV’s.
  • Speaking of beer, people in beer commercials are the antipodes of everyone sitting in beer taverns drinking beer. Are those people watching those ads as they drink? Do they think about that contrast? Should I go tell them?
  • All the ads for tablets, readers, and cell phones disappeared after Christmas.
  • Many women apparently take a picture of themselves in their underwear before they lose a bunch of weight.
  • Does Marie Osmond make a good model for health and beauty with her botoxed lips and over-lifted face?
  • Attention Food Channel – cooking is neither a race nor a competition!
  • The louder the spokesperson shouts in a commercial the more dubious are the claims.

What messages to you get from Television ads?

98 thoughts on “Ad (foolishness) Infinitum”

  1. Since most of the shows that get watched regularly in our house are the PBS kids shows, what I see are the “sponsorship messages” and not “commercials” (it’s a thin line, but at least there are fewer of them). These messages tell me that a) it’s okay to eat over priced junky pizza and play insidious games with an oversized mouse, so long as you jump around and make an idiot of yourself with your kids on the other days of the week, b) the right shoes will support my child as she grows, but only until she starts kindergarten, and c) cover your cough – it’s cold and flu season.

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  2. Good morning. I believe the ad people and the companies they serve think that the public is stupid and that we respond to shouting. The one that really gets me, in terms of insulting our intelligence, is the BP oil company ads about how the the area of the gulf where they spilled so much oil is now in good shape. In fact BP is still not taking proper responsibility for the damage they did and there are a lot of bad lingering effects of the spill that still need attention.

    Or how about those ads where the drug companies advertise their products and then quickly read off the side effects? Do they think I will not pay attention to the scary list of side effects because they are reading them the way they do? If you pay any attention to the reading of the side effects I think you would have doubts about using almost any of the drugs advertised unless you absolutely need them. I think they want us to discount the side effects by the way they tell us about them in a boring fashion.

    Then there is the shouting. Some advertisers were increasing the volume level of the sound during ads to a point where they almost seem to be screaming at us. I think a law was passed against this practice of increasing the volume during ads, but the law did contain a provision that allowed this practice to continue for a long period of time after that law was passed. I’m not sure we have reached the point in time when they are required by law to stop shouting at us.

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    1. I did a search and found out that the law about loudness during ads went into effect on Dec.13, 2011. I’m sure that I heard the volume go up during ads in 2012 and I think there are still some ads that continue to be louder than the sound level of the shows connected with them.

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      1. Oh, yes, the ads are still louder than the programs, law or no law. It’s extremely annoying when you have to turn up the volume to understand the dialogue and then get blasted by the commercials. My roommate mutes the ads, which is fine except then you have to actually watch the bloody things to tell when the show begins again.

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        1. Radio ads are also louder than the show – or louder than the game, since about the only radio I listen to are the Twins games (I don’t have cable tv, so can rarely watch the game). Unfortunately, muting doesn’t work for radio ads – how would I know when the game comes back on if the ad is muted? But the radio ads, at least on the channel the games have been on for the last couple years, are incredibly stupid and incredibly annoying, and they play the same 10 ads over and over and over again.

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    2. I think I’ve said this before in this forum, but loud ads (well, ads in general) are why the person who invented the Mute button on the remote control should be canonized.

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  3. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    During The election I learned that every politician has a seamy side that might threaten “The American Way.” Whatever that is. And apparently the American people were woefully uninformed and needed a LOT of information.

    In September, after Comcast got on our last nerve with complete incompetence, we cancelled them and went to antenna TV. I have found the rerun channels which I love–a trip to my childhood. The ads there tell me that men can buy a testosterone based wonder substance, that there are a lot of starving, neglected animals (I can’t watch those ads), and that I need a clapper because I might fall down and be unable to get up.

    I suspect I am watching the old lady channel. The truth hurts.

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      1. This is what happens when you (try to) type on your iPad with 2 dogs on your lap.

        Nice Post, Clyde. Thanks! (That’s better).

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        2. See, I can photoshop as well as Dale. Maybe not. maybe he did it.
          Maybe he made the mess I sent him into something that works.
          Maybe he chose the nasty-faced old Dr. Heartlander because what I sent had a sour tone to it.
          Yes, there are shows for the old and the commercials tell all. My wife watches Price is Right (for the elderly by the ads) and some things on Hallmark (for the elderly).

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        3. I really do like your guest blog, Clyde. If Dale did some work on it, that is good. Dale does that when I do a guest blog and I am glad to get his input. I think I am ahead of you on being sour, but that doesn’t stop me from putting in my two cents. As Bobby McFerrin said: “Don’t worry, be happy”, right? I have never been able to follow the rule about not saying anything if I can’t say something nice.

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  4. Did you see the Facebook repost by George Takei?

    “So, my son has learned about a disease that only affects dinosaurs, apparently. He saw it on the television and it’s called A reptile dsyfunction. Doesn’t understand the commercials at all, but he’s pretty sure that’s what it is about.”

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  5. My wife still does not have the flu. We are keeping her isolated as much as we can.
    Lots to do today. But let me say the thing that triggered my thoughts were the car insurance ads. who buys insurance because of those commercials?

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  6. Actually, I don’t have television. Don’t pay for cable. Didn’t get a converter box for the free channels. And, honestly, I don’t really miss it. The only twinge I get is when I go to a voiceover audition and my agent says, “You know what their commercials are like,” or, “Do it in the style of so-and-so.” Then, I’m a bit at a loss and have to admit my transmission transgression.

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    1. I am trying to talk my wife into going your route. But it is one of the few things for her. But what it costs for cable!!

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    2. Our TV is in the basement and I never watch it. We got cable last year after 28+ years of no antennae, cable, or dish, mainly to entice my ever restless father to stay longer when he visited us (bowl games, you see) so I rarely get to see any ads.

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    3. What I find hard to understand is saturating a time period. Last Sunday was a laze-around day for me. I spent most of the day reading, playing solitaire and doing online jigsaw puzzles, with the tv on in the background. I watched all those Tom Selleck/Jesse Stone movies, back to back. I don’t even remember what the ad was, but it played at almost every single commercial break for 10 hours! Again, thank the stars for the Mute button.

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  7. Pretty much what Clyde said. The overriding theme is one can only find true happiness or fulfillment in life if one buys as much stuff as possible. The corollary is that only all those idiotic talking heads know what will make each one of us happy.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  8. Morning–

    Boy, do I hate commercials. That’s what the remote control was invented for. Commercial = change the channel.
    We don’t have cable, just antenna, but we get 43 stations. (53 if I count the religious channels). Mostly I only see late night TV. News at 10:00 and whatever late night show I can find that looks interesting. A lot of public TV.
    Speaking of reptiles and their dysfunction, I don’t understand the one with the guy in the truck and horse trailer and he gets stuck in 4″ of water? Dude; learn how to drive!
    And radio; I try not to listen to commerical radio, but if I do I turn it when commercials come on. Sponsorship ads? Well, they’re tolerable.

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    1. That one drives me nuts too. I think all people with farm experience catch how stupid that man is. But how testoseronic can an ad get. Rugged big outdoorsy guy, big pickup, big horses, mud. All is in the signals not that reality of the situation.

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  9. Your thoughts about commercials are interesting, Clyde.

    You would remember–but many younger baboons would not–when it was normal for commercials to degrade, mock and condescend to women. Men in commercials were wiser and more rational than women. The worst of those might have been that Geritol commercial where the husband smugly concludes, “My wife . . . I think I’ll keep her.”

    That has been turned on its head. Now it is unthinkable that an ad would show a man being prudent while his wife acts like a ditz. Now we see the women (and sometimes the children) acting prudently while the man behaves like a fool. No ad agency would make the mistake of presenting an ad where the man is clever and disciplined while the wife is a dopey shopaholic who is obsessed with her appearance and cannot respect the family budget.

    I once believed that this way of presenting men and women was a movement that would run its course. I was wrong. So far, at least, men are fair game to be mocked and women are protected.

    And yet women continue to be disrespected in commercials. In ads that show us a couple, particularly a middle aged couple, the man is very likely to be a chubby couch potato but his wife will be relatively fit and attractive.

    Some things never change. We see people of color in ads all the time now. But I have yet to see a commercial featuring a mixed race couple. Any ad with an African-American in it will have an African-American spouse, and one of about the same degree of “blackness.” I’d like to live long enough to see a commercial for a car or impotence drug in which an African-American male is mated with a white woman. Or . . . come to thiink of it . . . I don’t really want to live THAT long.

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    1. I’ve remember seeing a commercial once in which the kid was Asian although the parents were Caucasian – I don’t remember the product, but I remember noticing it and think “aahh, that’s nice.” There is also an ad on these days… some kind of car… the kids are washing the car (with the windows open) and I remember thinking that the kids looked like they might have mixed race parents. It’s a long, slow road, I think.

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      1. OT – but related to the multi-racial family comment. I am acquainted with a few white parents who have adopted black or Asian children. I think it’s great that young families are doing this when it was pretty much unthinkable when I was young. BUT I’ve wondered for a long time — if society is getting somewhat used to multi-racial families where the parents are white, well and good, but what would society think if black parents adopted a white child? I’m willing to bet that lots of people who think it’s okay for white parents to adopt a child of any color would be shocked, upset, or taken aback by black parents adopting a white child. And until that’s okay, too, I don’t think we can say we are free from racism.

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        1. Just to clarify – this is not meant as criticism of white parents adopting a child of color. It’s just a reflection on society-in-general’s perception (and a bit of introspective evaluation of my own assumptions) of multi-racial families.

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    2. I’m always surprised by ads that make the man appear doltish or nebbishy. I wonder, “Has the advertiser determined that men are not making the purchasing decisions?” Or perhaps the creative team at the agency is comprised of young women? Some companies seem to have deliberately decided to give up on appealing to men altogether.

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    3. 25 years ago the studies showed 1) women were much more likely to manage the money 2) women did much more of the buying. 3) men buy very impulsively so are less likely to be very directly affected by an ad 4) women are much more affected by advertising. Add to that what Ben said, that men see an ad and go surfing. I assume all of this is still true, which is why ads are so aimed at women.

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      1. What I wonder is, is it necessary to overtly signal to men, “This is not for you. Go away.” for an ad to appeal to women?

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  10. As a person who worked for a decade or so in advertising, I suspect I have a different take on ads than the average layperson might. The thing to keep in mind is that those ads you decry are not simply the effort of a single stupid, venal individual. Every ignorant, irritating, insulting ad you see is the product of an extensive, expensive deliberative process.
    Typically the process begins with a writer and art director team. Likely, they are under thirty, since advertising is, for the most part a young person’s game. They are probably a little snarky and smug in the assumption that they are smarter, or at least cleverer, than their imagined audience. If the agency they work for is on either coast and their imagined audience is somewhere in between, that assumption is doubled. Unless the product they are promoting is of interest to snarky twenty-somethings, they have no real experience to bring to bear. The main experience they have with that other demographic comes from previous advertising they’ve seen.
    Clichés offer a useful shortcut where time is at a premium, as in advertising, but it’s no substitute for genuine insight. Once they’ve arrived at an attention-getting concept, or several, usually a Creative Director gets involved. Once he or she has filtered the idea through his or her personal limitations, the Account Manager has to present the concept to the client. This may be a small meeting or it may involve several participants on both the agency and the client side. The concept will probably get bowdlerized at least little; if no one makes any change, they won’t feel as if they had done their job. The point is, for any advertising, there are points where any one of a number of persons could have said, “This makes us look stupid. This is unacceptable. We need to look further.” The ad you see is proof that nobody did.

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      1. Do you care which ones, bill? Just compensating, as I do, for some of the ones not used by tim. Here are some spare punctuation marks, use as you see fit or where needed: ,;::!..?,;:.

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        2. Thanks. It seems I tend to think in dependent clauses. When I’m just throwing down copy and I fail to go back and consolidate it a little, that’s what you get. I’m so ashamed.

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        3. Just learned yesterday that shame is not a good thing. It’s OK to feel guilty; guilt focuses on behavior, shame on the person. I did something bad as opposed to I am bad. 🙂

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      2. It’s interesting to hear about the process involved in developing ads, Bill. I think there must be times when that process gets out of control because there are some ads that I can’t even understand. In these odd ads that don’t seem to have any point to them it seems to me they got carried away with doing something unusual to get your attention and forgot that they were trying to sell something.

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        1. We’re talking about the output of a committee. In one way or another, they are all out of control.

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    2. Bill – have you seen “Nothing in Common” with Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason? Tom’s character works in an ad agency and what you have described was how the movie presented the process. Which is why, every now and then I see an ad and think “what in heaven’s name were all those people thinking?”

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      1. I suspect that most of the time the parties involved are satisfied if the ad they’ve crafted resembles other ads they’ve seen. I doubt it goes deeper than that.

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  11. I am a poor housekeeper an I live comfortably until someone comes over and I see m y house through their eyes. The cardboard box in the living room with firewood in in that has been there for a year and a half. The stuff leaning in the corners that has been ther for who knows how long and the other things I meant to get to and will someday but in the meantime hang in limbo waiting for me to get back to. I live in the midst of this and step over the piles that are always there and suck in my stomach when I go around the corner where the pile of half balanced mix and match household goods will surely fall if I bump them.
    Since my daughter brought Enver the sil form Kosovo I feel the same way about television. I dismiss the idiot ads and the weight loss hotties with disheveled red hair talking to their husbands in a voice that if it were ever spoken to them would be basis for immediate ejection from the human race. My daughters are teens and Tweens and the stuff they enjoy comes with ads that would make a good sci if storyline. I listen to these the same way I listen to my wife and the drivel goes off into the vapors and innocently proclaims vacuum safe demands and wants that satisfy the authors and make the Tweens wiser as they progress through life and discover other things the world got wrong. Well Enver is new to our thinkin and his filter is not intact. I notice the things clyde points out when looking at it the same way as I do at the dust on my door jambs when company comes to call. Sex sports idiocy are different when you realize you are more or less what you eat.
    Someone once told me you are not who you think you are, you are not who I think you are , you are who you think I think you are. Television ads are embarrassing in that equation aren’t they?

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  12. The ads that I really don’t like are the “as seen on tv” type, in which the old way of doing something is shown to be horrible, dreadful, difficult, painful, etc. Then they show their product in all its glory. I’ve never thought that draining pasta was all that difficult, or flipping a pancake, or getting my feet clean in the shower….. guess America’s ad folk aren’t appealing to me!

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    1. I love the ones that say “If you call in the next two hours (or 20 minutes, or whatever) . . .” And we all know that ad is run all the time all over the country.

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    2. It’s hard to believe those ads appeal to anyone, though there must be a susceptible segment of the population. Those ads are blatently formulaic- no creativity whatsoever is involved. If there were such a thing as hack advertising, this would be it.
      Another example of formulaic advertising is the weak attempt at humor that follows the formula: This person, when encountering a particular product, gets so excited that he or she abandons all normal restraint and goes completely overboard! That seems to account for most of the supposedly humorous advertising on the air.

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      1. There is an ad running currently for a dishwashing something or other, I forget the name. They show women being so excited about how their dishes are coming out of the dishwasher that they are exclaiming about this to their friends and neighbors. I should pay attention next time so I know what brand it is, so I can avoid it the next time I need dishwashing liquid. (Which won’t be too soon as I only run the dishwasher once a quarter or so!)

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      2. We used to sell our educational materials by bulk mailing into schools. It only took a .82 percent return, that is a point eight two percent, to make money. We got one year a 1.72 % return, which is in the world of bulk mailing very high.That explains those ads. Cable channels sell ad space in bulk in broad time slots at cheaper rates. That’s how they make money.

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  13. I have long been a student of advertising, watch it and read about, for the reason tim talks about, that it shows so much about us. I am a sort of amateur anthropologist. The whole thing fascinates me. I used to engrain this in my teaching of literature. But I had not watched that much TV until the last two-three months, watching shows with my wife. So I started watching the pattern again.

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    1. Advertising might show a lot more about us if the people crafting the ads were half as insightful as they think they are…

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        1. WordPress and I just had a serious disagreement.
          Speaking of WordPress, does anyone notice the ads on here? They go right by me.

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        2. I suspect that advertising tends to depict us as stereotypical and susceptible because that’s the image of the population that best supports the notion of spending a lot of money on advertising.

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  15. I’m not sure I know all the messages I get from television ads. The better ads probably get across a message without the viewer being completely aware of it. The ads demonstrably increase sales, so they must be working on someone.

    I buy car insurance from Western National and homeowners insurance from Allied – two companies I don’t think I’ve ever seen advertised. They were the companies that gave me the best quotes.

    Haven’t watched much TV since it went digital. The new technology is clearly inferior to the old reliable analog signal.

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    1. Linda – you’re the only other person I know who has Western National insurance. Many years ago I got a cold call from some other insurance company; when I told them I had my insurance from Western National, he basically said he couldn’t touch those rates and told me to have a nice day.

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  16. Happy 2013 All.
    I just got pulled/tricked into watching an ad that was placed after “What messages to you get from Television ads?” Wasn’t until it was over that I realized it was ad placement and not part of today’s post. But I won’t watch the Jenny McCarthy Show, the ad was more than enough. that is true of most of the ads I see for tv shows. I watch and say, I’ll never watch that.

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    2. Yes, I’ve accidentally clicked on the imbedded ad, but at least I was able to “pause” it when I realized…

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  17. Since everyone is so disparaging about ads, I might surprise you by noting that some of them are produced with great skill. I’ve been struck by the level of acting in at least two series.

    One is the Progressive “Flo” series. Flo is played (I learned last night) by an improvisational actress from the famous Groundline improv theater. And she is superb.

    Then there was the series of “Santa” ads from Cheverolet, the ones where there is a car salesman who looks just like Santa. One ad had a woman being just shocked when she saw him. She eventually is able to say, “Where is your suit?” He flaps his tie and tells her (misunderstanding her) that, “Oh, it’s Casual Friday.” The acting in that whole series could not be better. Your heart breaks for the fellow who tells the Santa character that he needs a truck because he is a big hunter of deer. When he sees who he is talking to, he is appalled.

    I hate many ads. But I am impressed by the skill and professionalism of some.

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        1. They used to be in the office next door to mine with a dozen employees. Now the only contact here is an independent agent. Not sure why that happened. One of their agents wanted to give me a bid. I told him what I tell all of them, that I have been with State Farm since I was 18 and only had two small claims, other than glass. He then said what they all say, that he knew that he could not beat the price I was getting.

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        2. Clyde, I used to get a decent price from Progressive. Then I stuck that little GPS gizmo in my car to show them how I drove. They dropped my rates 30%, and I think I’m paying rock bottom prices now.

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    2. “Flo” also appeared in one of those awful, awful ads for some brand of air freshener. If you pay attention at all to ads, you notice that there appears to only be a pool of about six actresses that shill for just about everything. Incidentally, the Progressive ads seem to be populated by uniformly doltish men. Is Progressive Insurance aiming at women only?

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      2. Burger King, or one of those other such places, has a clear Flo clone in its ads, which ran very heavily on the Hallmark shows my wife watched.

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      3. Whether you like her or not, and I find her very annoying, you have to admit that we all know what insurance company she represents, and that, I think, is the point. But I admit that in our case that doesn’t work to Progressive’s advantage. A company that spends that much money on irritating ads isn’t getting our business. On the other hand, I love most of Geico’s ads, especially those with that little gecko.

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    3. I must be much more hard-hearted than you, Steve. I think I’ve seen that Santa/car salesman ad…and my heart did NOT break for that fellow.

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  18. I don’t find, as others apparently do, that the volume of ads is much higher than programming. That used to be my impression. I don’t find it that way now. But I’m bugged by the speed of dialogue in many ads. The Toyota year-end clearance ads with “Jan” at the desk of the dealership have the dialogue jacked up to such a speed that I only understood them after seeing the ad at least a dozen times.

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    1. I believe there is a technical trick in which they make the ads louder by speeding up the ads and then not really raising the volume itself but it comes across louder. This bypasses the rule against louder ads while making them louder. Lots of ads are run at a slightly higher speed than the rate at which they were shot to fit the pace of their primary targets, the younger folks.

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  19. Killing time doing some channel surfing, which I seldom do. Channel 103 keeps changing what is here. I think it’s part of the TLC, HGTV etc combine. Right now it is DEA Destination America. They are running in marathon today one of my favorite shows, Meteorite Men, about two guys who hunt meteorites. Clearly the ads are not matched to the content of the show.
    Also: in one show they were in Canada in the winter frozen to death, saying it was dangerously cold to be outside, and they kept showing the temperature to prove their point. 19 degrees with no wind.

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  20. I don’t have much knowledge about this any more, but I miss some of the old, truly funny ads – my mom jsed to call me into the room when it was showing that wonderful woman who would say “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature…”

    The one show I regularly watch is CBS Sunday Morning. (Well, now that Downton Abbey is back there are two.) The one ad that drives me nuts is one where they play it twice IN A ROW, back to back. Each time it catches me, and as I realize I’m watching the same thing again, I just shake my head wondering how DUMB they think we are.

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    1. My daughter was on it. She had a bad experience with their interviewer and crew. They tried very hard to get her to say things that they wanted to hear that would have been a problem for her to say, not to get at the truth, just to spin the story they wanted and ad drama that was not there. But I still love the show.

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  21. I bet the “I Hate Flo” movement is a sure sign of success to the advertisers.
    Anyway, I have had about 8 hours of sleep in the last two days, but things are now at the point where I can go sleep. I knew some Babooners do not watch TV when I wrote this. Sorry it missed you. Love the comments today. You have kept me awake for the time I needed to be awake.
    An Aside, my seven-year-old grandson, Mr. Tuxedo who is reading The Hobbit, has been indignant for two days because he reached the part where the dragon is killed. He cannot believe Tolkien did not have Bilbo kill the dragon. We cannot wait to hear what he thinks about Bilbo not fighting in the battle of seven armies.

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  22. I have problems with ads that would bother nobody else. Any ad that has fishermen in it is almost sure to infuriate pr amuse me. Ad directors are in love with the look of fly fishing, but they totally do not understand it. Any fishing ad is almost sure to feature fly fishing (which is statistically a small part of the angling world) and is SURE to feature an actor who is hopelessly inept with fly gear. Moreover, the agencies are so confused they almost always get the gear wrong. A current ad for a drug company features fly fishing, only the poor schlubs have been given some deep sea gear that superficially resembles fly fishing tackle.

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    1. ah yes, you remind me of the toilet paper ad that was the scorn of the costume shop-I believe it was for a variety we were to consider “quilted”. There was a good old-fashioned animated quilting bee, with ladies sitting around the frame extolling the virtues of toilet paper being quilted, all the while wielding 2 sticks in a very knitterly fashion.

      The company responsible for this must have heard plenty about it , because a month or so later, those same ladies were in fact drawing thread through framed toilet paper.

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  23. This is Beth-Ann in case I show up as anonymous again….. I am concerned that I have a testosterone deficiency. Given the frequency of the ads it is obviously one of the great cripplers of young adults

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  24. I love envelopes like this.
    No return address shown anywhere.
    Says Important Information Enclosed, which is highlighted in yellow
    Address in the window is Clyde Birkholz or Current Address

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