2024, Business, home, TV

No Purchase Necessary

41 Comments

Now that I have a little more leisure after the holidays, I’ve had more time in my studio which also means more time with the tv on.  It’s astonishing to see what some actors are willing to do in commercials these days.  I will admit to a bit of snobbery about seeing quite famous folks doing commercials but even so….

Drew Barrymore and Sarah Jessica Parker are both hawking gaming apps right now.  (I’m not sure I want to know where these apps are getting the money to make/run these commercials.)   SJP’s commercial isn’t too silly but I’ve seen three DB adds so far and she acts like a moron in all of them. 

Ty Pennington, who used to do those makeover shows is also doing ads for a casino app.  Luckily I’ve only seen one – he is hanging upside down in a chimney wearing a Santa hat.  Idiotic.

John Travolta is selling something by wearing a Santa suit and doing disco, although his age is really showing as he dances.  It’s probably problematic that I’ve seen the commercial a couple of times in the last week but can’t remember the product. 

I’m not the target audience but I do wonder how much money these folks are getting paid to act stupid on national/international tv.  Part of me thinks they couldn’t pay me enough to do this but part of me thinks that if some product wanted to cough up a TON of cash, I might weigh the pros and cons.  I think “well, it would only run so long” but then I remember some of the old commercials we’ve dredged up here on the trail (“it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature”)… maybe my ad would go viral and I’d become famous and then where would I be?  But an infusion of cash wouldn’t be so bad either. I suppose it’s a good thing that I’ll never have to make this decision in my lifetime!

Any particularly heinous ads bugging you these days?

41 thoughts on “No Purchase Necessary”

  1. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I did not realize that the Santa commercial was John Travolta. I did not recognize him–that is for Capitol One Credit Card. The Emu commercials I still find really dumb and having to do with nothing at all and the rest of them I just tune out. However, I do play a game on my ipad and there are ads there. A particular game has really aggressive ads that pop up and last forever. I only noticed what the ad was advertising so I am sure to never ever buy that product. I don’t want to encourage them.

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    1. Lucky you. Nonny and I were talking about ads last week and I was explaining one I think is particularly stupid and right then, it showed up on the tv (watching Hallmark of course). What are the odds?

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  3. i’m watching way too much tv these days
    there is a commercial with shaq o’neill selling icy hot and the commercial is fine but at the end of the commercial he comes crashing down and the camera focus’s on his very aged design shaq brand tennis shoes that he has to be embarrassed he designed and put his name on
    i realized the ad is 30 years old because i bought them for my dad at tj max
    i guess icy hot doesn’t change its message and shaq didn’t sign for a 5 year contract
    they can run his stupid shoe long after he’s dead if they want to

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  4. We stream all our television and are spared most of the big name commercials. The audience is too fragmented to make that a worthwhile ad buy.

    In an entirely different vein, I’ve noticed some billboards, especially ones for insurance and lawyers, that feature local athletes of some sort as endorsers. Even if I knew who these people were, why would that be persuasive?

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  6. There has also been an increase in ads popping up in my email feed. They are so off-target it’s ridiculous. Why the increase? Is Google hurting for income?

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      2. I’ve always used basic html view in the Chrome browser for gmail, and it doesn’t have ads. They keep warning me they’re going to discontinue it. I have looked at the newer view, and I’m not seeing any ads there either. I like the older view better, nevertheless.

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  7. The channels I watch (mostly Hallmark & Great American) constantly remind me of how old I am. Sooooo many pharmaceuticals, health foods and assisted living commercials.
    Pluto and Spectum know me.

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    1. I watch the Ovation channel a lot. Murder mysteries for the most part. And international. Anyway, it’s clear that I’m in my right age viewing bracket because the number of Medicare and Medicare supplement commercials that run is just mind boggling.

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  8. I have Spectrum too. I don’t even know how many channels are available and some appear to be repeated. I like to watch local news at 5 or 6 p.m., but it can be streamed now. I should really take this cable box back to Spectrum and stop spending money on it. I barely use it. They must know I’m considering canceling it because they just sent me an email letting me know that they’re going to include Disney Plus now. I’ve never watched it before. I know I should catch up on movies and popular culture, but I don’t make it a priority.

    I watch PBS a lot so I don’t mind most of the ads. I actually like the one for Viking River Cruises. I really like the music and imagery. Unfortunately, I’ve seen it so much that I have it memorized.

    The most embarrassing ad I can think of is the one with the bears and the toilet paper. I feel so offended by that ad. How stupid do they think we are?

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    1. You reminded me about the Viking River Cruise ad, the one with the plummy-sounding female announcer of posh but indeterminant accent. The ad shows clearly well-heeled travelers enjoying leisurely lunches and personal engagements with the locals as if the boat hadn’t just disgorged thousands of passengers on the locale. My feeling is that I couldn’t bear being stuck on that floating Grand Hotel for fifteen minutes.

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  9. “Any particularly heinous ads bugging you these days?”

    How much time you got??

    I don’t care for watching much TV—mainly sports when I do, or a few streaming shows w/ my wife. But she likes to “spend time with me” watching TV, especially while we eat dinner. Yes, I know, a lousy habit, but it’s tough to make even polite dinner conversation when you’ve been married 45 years and your wife rarely leaves the house (she’s a nester with a cap N!). So I suffer through “Big Bang Theory” or “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives” reruns. Sometimes, I can channel surf through meaningless sports games. Woo hoo. I swear some games have more commercial time than actual game time.

    She has TV on constantly for background noise while she sews or does Wordle or whatever else she does on her iPad. But at those times, she doesn’t really watch or listen. TV’s just “there.” As it is for many people, I think. Just a comforting, mostly friendly background noise.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  11. I only stream but streaming is adding in ads now. But when I am with Sandy she watches HGTV or Hallmark, old fart TV, so filled with quackery ads. Apparently Kathie Lee Gifford doesn’t have enough money yet so she brings on her snare drum tight face to tell old people they can get all the fiber they need for the day from two little pills. Ad after ad is pure quackery people are willing to ruin the health of old people to be rich. In between come ads for St. Jude’s. A wonderful place I assume but on comes I guess Marlo Thomas with eyes distorted to slits, skin so tight she can’t pronounce her words. That face is pushing health. Yeah.
    Clyde

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  12. Re ads for online gaming: my son used to work in that industry. Huge amounts of money to made. But very volatile. What’s hot one day, can fall below the profit line the next.
    My meditation site says it has had 814,000 users so far today. Wonder if that is true. It is a world wide site. If everyone of those has paid the fee, that represents $137,000,000.

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  13. Pretty much every insurance ad is annoying – especially the Liberty Mutual and State Farm ones. I used to like the little gecko but even those ads have gone downhill.

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  14. Hi-
    the guy about not turning into your parents. We still laugh at those. But otherwise, I hate ads and will turn the channel. Worst is Pluto TV turning a 1.5 hour movie into 3 hours with ads every 20 minutes. Trying to watch ’12 Angry Men’ the other night and Kelly finally said, ‘Just tell me how it ends’.

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  18. The ads I hate the most these days are the Consumer Cellular ones – they run on PBS as underwriting announcements, and also on commercial TV as ads. As soon as I hear “Consumer Cellular, this is Sam,” I lunge for the mute button.

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