Business, Health, Media, Uncategorized

Just Say No

65 Comments

There are two State Highways that intersect our town. One goes east/west. The other goes north/south. The east/west route, known as Highway 10 or Villard Street, runs through our business district. The railroad runs parallel to it. There are, at intervals on either side, extremely large, full-sized billboards. Most are for local insurance agencies, for local companies advertising for new employees, or are displays of pro-life messages from our local Roman Catholic organizations.

I was rather astonished the other day to see a new billboard by the Hardees fast food restaurant boldly declare “SAY ‘NO’ TO INCONTINENCE” in huge letters with very little other information on it. Husband got a better look at it, as I was driving, and said it was for some sort of women’s spa.

I have no difficulty rejecting incontinence. Who would? I just wonder if this would make a successful advertising slogan.

What are some of your favorite or least favorite advertising slogans? Any beloved or despised jingles?

65 thoughts on “Just Say No”

  1. I don’t think I’m a prude but do you really need billboards talking about incontinence?

    I’m not sure which company it is but that talk about “down there care” bugs me. And as long as we’re talking about jiggles we don’t like, the Liberty Mutual song it’s just the stupidest thing to ever come out of an ad agency. Thank goodness for the mute button.

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    2. I am teaching my cats to look forward to my phone’s alarm going off at 7am and 5pm to indicate that meals will be served.

      So far they are still going into the starvation melodrama act ahead of time, but I think they are catching on…

      I also just read a story about a woman in the Florida Villages community who got in trouble with the law for talking to cats on the phone while driving. My first thought was , “what self-respecting cat answers the phone”.

      Now I know.

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  6. Maybe TMI, but like many other women my age, I’ve experienced a slight incontinence for years, and believe me, there is no use for this billboard unless they have some new discovery that hasn’t yet hit the medical community. I’d be curious to know what they’re talking about.

    Since we no longer have TV, the only ads I see are when we stream CBS Sunday Morning, so I do agree about Liberty Mutual. I’m sure I could dredge up another jingle I hate if I think about it, but then it would be an earworm for the next three days. If it happens spontaneously, I’ll let you know!

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      2. It had to. One more instance I’m sure of people sitting around a board room and giggling to themselves over what they’re putting over on people.

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        1. What is implicit in all the comments about advertising we find annoying is that moronic ads reveal to us the low opinion advertisers and their agencies have of their customers and correspondingly the superior attitudes they entertain of themselves.

          Liked by 2 people

        2. I guess I’m questioning whether it’s their low opinion of the consumer or their limited talent that’s on display in those adds. I choose to believe the latter. We know some of them are capable of producing excellent and memorable adds.

          Liked by 1 person

        3. In my experience, most advertising creatives are very young. It’s a young person’s business. They see things through the lens of their limited experience. Their points of reference are shallow. People over fifty are unimaginably old and scarcely worth consideration. When they have to represent products that are outside of their realm, they reach for cliche, having nothing else to draw upon.

          Liked by 2 people

        4. Also, it can be a fun job and kind of glamorous, especially when you are working with production companies shooting commercials. A lot of advertising creatives are pretty full of themselves.

          Liked by 1 person

        5. It is also based today completely on analytics they do A.B. testing to find out which commercial elicits the best response from there audience at hand they’ll do a test of 100 people and find out how the rate commercial number one versus commercial number two presentation and philosophy number one verses presentation and philosophy number two and go with the one that gets the best response
          Now that we all understand 42% of the population is someone other than us we know that their appeal is going to be different than ours I assume that the bowling shirt mentality appeals to a strong demographic that we don’t associate with or acknowledge as a strong entity but in reality we should understand that 30 or 40% of the population is exactly that

          Liked by 2 people

  10. Love how ads say that solving some minor annoyance, often an annoyance they invented, will make your life glorious.
    Save the treacle, save the menace, all your jingles do annoy us.

    Liked by 3 people

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  11. I’ll admit to a small fondness for the Geico gecko (not enough to do business with them, so not sure it’s working as intended).

    I hear we may be in for “some weather” later today, so add that to today’s post and my brain immediately jumped to this (even when I learned this in junior high- dinosaurs were long gone by then, but we did have mastodons- our music teacher had to explain some of the references to us, but we still loved it).

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    1. I, too, like that little Geico gecko, though like you, not enough to have bought insurance from them. I had never heard this Homer and Jethro tune before, very clever.

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  14. Since we stream all our programs, I am unfamiliar with most of the ads you all refer to. We do see advertising but it tends to be more narrowly targeted stuff and half the time I can’t make out what the product is or what it’s good for.

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  16. There’s a company that has “advertised” for years on PBS (I think This Old House is sponsored by them), and they show someone putting up a traffic cone beside a banana peel as some sort of “safety” measure.

    And every single time we would see it, we would say the same thing, “for Pete’s sake, just pick up the banana peel!

    I think there is a companion ad with a roller skate on the front steps of a building.

    Irritates me no end.

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  17. OT – Hope all baboons in the path of the severe weather that’s headed our way are hunkered down and safe. I’m particularly concerned about Ben, Chris, Clyde, and BiR, who all seem to be in the direct path of the winds. Be safe everyone.

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    3. I was supposed to be at. Townboard meeting right now. Yeah, in a one room school house out in the open is where I want to be. We postponed to tomorrow night.
      Raining, getting windy… the worst is still coming.
      Fingers crossed for everyone!

      Liked by 3 people

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      1. The rain didn’t amount to much. There was a little wind and a tornado warning for parts of the county. We live down in a valley so we don’t get the wind some people do. Warnings over in the Winona area. You OK BiR?
        The worst winds are still coming in the wee hours…

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    4. I quit driving at 12:30 and got excellent tips because of all the people who thought that I was braving the storm in reality it was nothing there were 31 minute downpours that were easy to maneuver through the weatherman are consistently off with their forecast and predictions

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  18. There are a lot of ads that are supposed to give you a warm fuzzy feeling about a brand, without really making any sense. For a number of years, there were Subaru ads with the slogan “Love. It’s what makes a Subaru a Subaru.” Then they shortened it a tiny bit. Now it’s “Love. It’s what makes Subaru Subaru.” Either way, it’s nonsensical. Whatever they try to tell you, it’s a car. You might love your Subaru, but it’s not going to love you back. And there is no ceremony at the factory, I’m pretty sure, to imbue each automobile with mystical love energy. And I say this as someone who has a nice reliable Subaru.

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  21. The incontinence ad is an ad letting people know that if they come to this women’s club and learn the exercise that is like a kugel for after pregnancy exercise to tighten the sphincter muscles this is how incontinence can be beat
    When I had my prostate removed a year ago they told me that I needed to begin the kugel exercises immediately after surgery starting out with 10 five second repetitive efforts about 5 to 10 times a day after a week increase it from five seconds to 10 seconds and after another week from 10 to 15 after another week 15 to 20 and after about two months I have my continence back
    I got a little cocky no pun intended and stop doing the exercises and found that if you backslide so does your incontinence so I am still on a regiment where I do this Google exercise daily weekly monthly and will continue to do it until my sphincter is strong enough that it’s not an issue even when lifting 100 pounds or going through one of the other four or five hot buttons for me
    Say no to incontinence Justin kugel daily weekly monthly the same way that you should be doing your shit up and your deep knee bands

    Not doing those either ?
    Well piss on ya

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  22. in my driving I listen to a lot of radio and I enjoy listening to the Timberwolves in Minnesota gophers basketball games the Timberwolves have four Timberwolves highlights from the last 30 years of basketball that they play over and over again they have a doctor from the mayo athletic clinic who comes on and does commercials that speak of why you should choose mayo as your surgery or non-surgery option they also have a commercial that is so annoying that I turn it off every time it comes on
    I don’t even know what the product is but they talk about crocheting and it is horrible and repetitive and played 20 times a game

    I think that philosophy that getting a response whether it’s good or bad is what you’re after and that’s what Geico and the Fidelity insurance and so many others countdown is that if they can make it bad enough that you remember the year stupid awful commercial that you watched their name or ring true

    Too bad analytics tell them that is the way to success

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