Tag Archives: TV commercials

It Doesn’t Ad Up

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Our theme today is advertising.

Not in the “good commercial / bad commercial” sense, but–well, you’ll see.

Personally, I find advertising intended to increase my engagement with a product I’ve already purchased annoying. Encouraging me to visit a corporate website isn’t going to make me like a product any better or encourage me to buy it again. But it’s a thing companies do today, so one would hope they’d do it well.

NatureSweet does not.

Here’s the top and bottom of the lid from a package of tomatoes I bought recently.

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Do you see the problem?

The key is the word “more”. How can I learn “more” of Salvador’s story when I haven’t learned any of it yet?

No, this is not just a grammatical gripe.

If NatureSweet wants me to visit their site to find out about their growers–or anything else–they need to provide a hook. Some reason why I should care.

All I know is that some guy named Salvador drives a tractor. I don’t even know his last name, much less why I should be interested in his tractor.

Don’t just tell me he’s got a story–everyone has a story. Give me a little hint and I might follow up. There’s a reason click-bait headlines work: they intrigue the reader.

Moving on.

Massage Envy has been a heavy advertiser on the MLB broadcasts. Mind you, every MLB advertiser is a heavy one; as I’ve noted in the past, there are so few companies buying slots that one can count on seeing the same ads every half inning for the entire game.

That’s not quite a digression. If your viewers are going to see an advertisement more than a dozen times in the span of a few hours, it had better be interesting or amusing enough to sustain all those rewatchings.

Nothing is. Even with my limited exposure to baseball this season, I’m thoroughly sick of Toyota’s Buster Posey ads. As for Massage Envy’s spots, they’re gone from the broadcasts, much to the relief of tired, stressed-out viewers.

Regrettably, the ad’s absence does not represent a bit of intelligent thought from the massage chain’s owners.

The commercials were pulled because the company is now defending themselves against a lawsuit. Specifically, the suit claims the company did nothing to protect its clients against rape and failing to investigate or report accusations that some of its massage therapists repeatedly assaulted clients.

I can’t speak to the validity of the claims. But note that the suit was filed after the company began heavy advertising. If the corporate executives had any reason to think they had skeletons lurking in their closets, they should have known better than to raise the corporate profile. And if they knew they were squeaky clean–and it’s possible–then they should have taken steps to guard their reputation before exposing themselves to greater public scrutiny.

The saying is that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Massage Envy is currently proving that wrong. Even if they prove themselves completely innocent of any wrongdoing, legal or moral–as unlikely as that seems right now–they’re still going to lose thousands of potential customers.

Why? Because by running the MLB ads, the company has branded their name in the memories of people who might otherwise have ignored or forgotten the legal case. Now they’re going to pay attention and a tiny bit of doubt will stay in their minds, no matter how the case turns out.

Moving on again.

Vegetarians are up in arms about Arby’s latest advertising venture.

The sandwich shop recently released a video documenting the preparation of a vegetable-less carrot. It’s an obvious parody of the meatless burgers such as the Impossible Burger.

What I can’t figure out is why it’s drawing so much wrath.

Look, Arby’s is never going to be vegetarian-friendly, much less fully vegan. Their very name is a play on the acronym for roast beef. They’ve carved out a niche (sorry) catering to a segment of the public that wants a meat-based meal. They’ve achieved a certain recognition as a company that doesn’t do what everyone else is doing–remember their experiment with duck last year?

Frankly, I’m giving them kudos for their approach. They’re not–as far as I know–putting up signs that say “No vegetables on premises.” They’re not threatening terrorist action*. They’re not even spamming the airwaves with marrot advertising.

* How else can you interpret “Eat mor chikin”?

Instead, they’re using mild humor to remind their loyal clients that there’s at least one chain that’s not jumping on the faux meat train. (Which is probably a minor relief to Impossible Foods, who have been struggling to keep up with the demand for Impossible Burger pseudo-meat from the companies they’ve already signed deals with.)

That said, I don’t think I’m quite ready for a carrot-flavored hunk of turkey breast. Honestly, they lost me at “skinless”. Most of white meat’s flavor is in the skin and the layer of fat just underneath it.

But since the marrot, like most of Arby’s experiments, probably won’t make it to their permanent menu, I’m sure they won’t care if I forgo the experience.

Corporate satire often misses the mark entirely. Kudos to Arby’s for hitting their target in a largely inoffensive fashion.

Are We Really Still Doing This?

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I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I am.

Since the beginning of the year, Head & Shoulders shampoo has been running a pair of commercials promoting their product as giving you confidence to pursue your dreams.

Said dreams seem to be of smooching.

And I’ve got no problem with that. Other people, however, find the commercials offensive. See, for example, this blog post from somebody who finds the spot featuring a couple with mixed loyalties–Steelers and Patriots–to be highly unrealistic.

More serious, though, is the reaction to the other commercial. Because–oh, the horror; oh, the humanity; won’t somebody think of the children–the ad features a pair of young women.

Who kiss.

On camera.

Oh, woe!

Predictably, the commentary has been horrified. On one blog–which I won’t link to, because why would I want to give it any publicity?–the comments are running 15-1 against the commercial.

As I said, that was predictable. I expected as much. What did surprise me was the nature of the complaints:

Procter & Gamble shouldn’t be politicizing commercials and I’m never going to buy their products again.

What does shampoo have to do with lesbians? Fire whoever approved the ad!

Sex has nothing to do with shampoo.

Gay couples kissing on TV should only be allowed after 8pm! And certainly not during a Disney movie!

And–my personal favorite–If I ran a commercial featuring Christian values, I would be harassed and mistreated!

All these years of homophobic mistreatment and marginalization, and nobody has managed to come up with a new complaint? That is what really surprised me.

I’m not going to bother with a line by line refutation. If you’re reading this blog, you know the counterarguments at least as well as I do.

But it doesn’t speak well of the mental acuity of the complainers that they don’t know the counterarguments and see no reason to find new reasons to object. Another triumph of imagination over reality, I suppose.

Anyway, you may be expecting me to offer P&G kudos for not pulling the ad. I do, but only to a limited extent. See, there’s a message in this pair of commercials that I don’t think P&G intended. At least, I hope the didn’t intend it.

Consider: In both commercials, it’s a woman who’s nervous about smooching the object of her affection. A kind of nervousness that can only be cured by Head & Shoulders.

And yes, okay, it can be read as “We’re all the same under the skin, LGBT or not, we all have the same fears and desires.”

But something in the way the spots play out come off a little differently to me. I’m reading them as “Only women are so unsure of themselves that they need to take refuge in a bottle.”

Does anyone else remember when H&S was marketed exclusively to men? Maybe I’m watching the wrong shows, but I can’t remember the last time I saw it pitched to men as a confidence crutch. (I’d love to be proved wrong–let me know if you’ve seen H&S ads aimed at men recently.)

For that matter, the ads I remember pushed the shampoo as a cure for what was standing between you and the job of your dreams. Not the love of your life (or your casual hookup at the football game).

It’s an interesting shift of emphasis. Does P&G think women don’t want to be upwardly mobile in the office?

Anyway, if you want to see this hideously offensive ad for yourself, try here. Just don’t let your kids see it before 8pm, or they might turn into lesbians. Or, worse yet, Democrats.

Out, Out, Damned…You Know

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Since we were talking about commercials…

Unlike last week’s example, this is not a good one. Quite the contrary. But it is instructive. Warning: once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it.

I can’t embed it, so you’ll have to go here to see it. And, of course, once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it.

I feel a little odd about complaining about this commercial, since it dates from 2013 and hasn’t aired since. But criticism knows no statute of limitations. And I really don’t know how this commercial got made.

Consider what goes on here. We’ve got the mother who’s totally incapable of managing her family. We’ve got the large family (and, let it be noted, the large minority family at that) of uncivilized brats, intent on the total destruction of the house. We’ve got the tired father who has to call in help to fulfill the basic function of his role (literally bringing home the bacon–or equivalent. What did you think I meant?)

Am I reading too much into the commercial?

At least the Jimmy John’s delivery man isn’t white. On the other hand, there is that wink. Because we all know that [insert minority of choice] are wildly promiscuous, right? (I could go on in this vein–consider the shape of a submarine sandwich, for example–but I’ll spare you the rest of it.)

What make the spot so vexing is that it has many of the attributes of a good commercial. It gets its message across. It’s not gratuitously insulting–the insults are there, yes, but as part of the message, not a separate attention-getter. There’s even a story there. A clean, simple story, much easier to follow than Casper’s tale about goat hooves.

And yet.

I can’t help but wonder if the current occupant of the White House has seen this commercial, and how he feels about Jimmy John’s food. Probably not greasy enough, given his apparent preference for burgers.

But I digress.

To the company’s credit, they have stopped running the commercial. They make a decent sandwich, too.

But the ad does too good a job of getting its hopefully unintended message across. I haven’t willingly eaten Jimmy John’s since I saw the commercial, nor do I plan to change that policy. I’m not militant about it. I don’t shame anyone for eating there. I don’t urge anyone to boycott them. I’ll quietly eat the food if it’s served to me. I just won’t willingly spend my money on any company tone deaf enough to have approved this ad.

Good Spot

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Told you.
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Moving on.

For all the time I spend complaining about bad commercials–ones that insult their potential audience, are more than usually deceptive, or just plain don’t get their message across–it’s worth remembering that there are good commercials.

What’s a good commercial? Yes, it has to sell the product without insulting potential buyers or raising the general level of panic, doubt, and uncertainty in the world. But I’m going to raise the bar here. That describes an adequate commercial.

A good commercial does all that, but in addition, it entertains. It makes you want to watch it again, not just because you were too enthralled to write down the toll-free number the first time, but because you genuinely want to watch it again.

They do exist. Case in point:

 

By any interpretation, it’s an adequate commercial. No people doing idiotic things for no apparent reason, no flashing lights or blaring sirens, and it sells the product.

Full disclosure here: I haven’t been paid by Casper, nor do I own one of their mattresses. But I have been planning on buying a new mattress sometime in the mid-term future. I hadn’t considered Casper, but after seeing this commercial, I’ve added them to the “worth researching” list. I’m not laying down money, not yet. But any marketer worth their salt will tell you a potential buyer is worth far more than a non-buyer.

The question, though, is whether it gets past “adequate” and makes it to “good”? And the answer is “Absolutely.”

Those hedgehogs are totally adorable, I want to rub the rabbit’s stomach, and I could watch the black kitten fall asleep a dozen times. Heck, I watched the ad three times before I decided to write this post.

Mind you, as a viewer, I could do without the goats. I see those hooves and “relaxing sleep” is not the first, second, or third thing I think of.

But from a writing perspective, that’s a good thing. A story–and have no doubt about it, a good commercial needs a story–requires conflict. How do we get from hard, scratchy hooves to soft mattresses? That’s the story. And, believe me, it’s no accident that the spot begins and ends with the goats.

Heh. I just noticed that the black kitten has a grain of litter stuck to his paw. Talk about putting real life situations into your advertising!

Casper. Good commercial. Good mattress? We’ll see.

A Modern Headache

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Need a break? Too much going on in your life, and you just need to veg out for a while? Kick back, turn on the TV. You pick the channel, it doesn’t matter.

Because your relaxation will be interrupted. Probably by a telemarketer–but that’s a subject for a different post. No, I’m talking about the commercials. Specifically, the drug commercials.

Annoying as all get-out, aren’t they? Most likely you don’t have the condition the drug they’re touting is intended to cure. Even if you do, the list of side effects would make any rational person flee in terror.

I’m especially confused by the ads that say “Don’t take this if you’re allergic to it.” How are you supposed to know you’re allergic to it unless you’re already taking it?.

But I digress.

What really puzzles me about the whole phenomenon is how many people think this is new.

It’s not. Consider Allan Sherman’s classic paen to one class of medical ads from 1963:

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Disturbing scenes of body parts you’d rather not see. Appeals to bypass authority. Untested claims of efficacy.

Replace “Bayer Aspirin” with “Otezla” and the only way the audience could tell the difference between the 1960 commercial and the 2019 commercial would be that the older one is in black and white*.

* Anyone else remember seeing “The following program is brought to you in glorious, living color” on a black and white TV set?

Bottom line, this kind of ad has built more than fifty years of inertia. That means they must work, or the advertisers would have tried something different. And that means they’re not going away, no matter how many people scream for legislation.

Let’s face it: Allan had it right. The only way to ensure you’ll never be bothered by a drug ad again is to eat your TV.

Super?

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Yes, I watched the Super Bowl. Sorry, Jackie.

I could try to spin it, I suppose. An ecumenical gesture toward those who follow the Faith of the Oblong Ball, perhaps. But the truth is simpler and arguably less worthy. I wanted to see the Patriots lose.

Sure, I had some secondary motivations: wanting to see the commercials and the half-time show in context–important for proper snarkage–foremost. But the bottom line is that the Patriots exemplify all that’s wrong with sports teams setting themselves up as “America’s Team”. Like the Dallas Cowboys, LA Lakers, and Atlanta Braves* of yore, and the Yankees of, well, any day, they exhibit an arrogance and an attitude of entitlement that cries out for humbling.

* Ted Turner has much to answer for.

So it’s easy to root against the Patriots. It was harder to root for the Eagles, since–as Maggie reminded me–they’re the ones who brought Michael Vick back into football. But since they were the only team who had a chance to beat the Patriots on Sunday, we used the proverbial long spoon.

And I took notes, because that’s what writers do. Herewith, my thoughts on Super Bowl LII.

MassMutual served notice even before the kickoff that this was not last year’s television spectacle of Fox-sponsored odes to Amurrica. Can’t argue with the moral of the ad–don’t count on the government to help you through a disaster–but it would have been a stronger message if they’d mentioned Puerto Rico.

As expected, the camera angles during “The Star-Spangled Banner” made it impossible to tell whether anyone was kneeling or sitting. NBC’s not going to risk those glorious advertising dollars over three minutes of air time.

Apparently Sprint is fully prepared for the imminent robot rebellion, and is ready to placate our new robotic overlords from Day One.

Seriously, Turkish Air? If they think Dr. Oz is qualified to talk about the wonders of the human body, I’d hate to learn what they think qualifies someone to fly an airplane. Gonna put them on my “never patronize this company” list.

Bud Light’s sales were down 5.7% this past year. If their ads are any indication, those idiotic “Dilly Dilly” spots are the only thing keeping them in business. Hooray for living down to your smallest potential.

On the brighter side, NBC’s frequent promos for the Winter Olympics were considerably less annoying than Fox’s similar binge on behalf of the Daytona 500. Maybe because the Olympics aren’t a sport that glorifies unsafe driving and promotes climate change?

I’ll admit to enjoying the dual and dueling Doritos/Mountain Dew ad combination. I don’t like Mountain Dew, but the commercial didn’t drive me to forswear Doritos.

On the other hand, Diet Coke’s promotion of the desirability of uncontrollable, unstoppable dancing left me cold. Can I really be the only person in the world who still remembers Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Red Shoes“? Is a swig of mango-flavored Diet Coke worth pedal amputation and eternal damnation?

NBC hurried to assure everyone that no game action or commercials were lost to that eighteen second blackout. But they’ve been disturbingly silent on whether any jobs were lost.

I won’t bother with my screed about Dodge using MLK’s words to sell Ram trucks. Plenty of others have said more than enough. I’ll just put them on my list, right after Turkish Air.

Regrettably, Janet Jackson did not parachute into the stadium and rip Justin Timberlake’s pants off mid-song. But even in her absence, you have to know that NBC and the NFL paid close attention to the choreography of JT’s show. So now we know that both institutions believe it’s perfectly fine to hump a dancer’s leg on international television, as long as her breasts are covered.

And maybe it was just an effect of the television broadcast, but the much ballyhooed and equally derided “holographic performance” by Prince came off as a bare half-step up from projecting a movie on a bed sheet. And really, JT, choosing “I Would Die 4 U” was a damn tacky move.

Of course the blatant attempt to promote “Super Bowl Selfies” as a hashtag was mildly nauseating, if completely predictable.

All in all, I score it the most soporific halftime show since at least 2000, when we had Phil Collins, Christina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias, and Toni Braxton lulling us to sleep.

I got a chuckle out of the self-referential commercial for The Voice. But then, I’m an easy mark for self-deprecating, self-referential jokes.

Budweiser partially redeemed themselves for the stupid “Dilly Dilly” nonsense with their “Water” commercial, which did mention Puerto Rico.

My two favorite commercials of the day ran in succession. My Number One was the Jack In the Box / Martha Stewart spot. Juvenile throughout, but with a nice twist on the old “Got Your Nose” bit. And then, Number Two, the payoff to the sequence of apparently pointless Peyton Manning spots, recreating Dirty Dancing as a touchdown celebration. Stupid and pointless–perfect for the message that the NFL isn’t going away.

We’re putting Tide on the list, too. Not that their ads were bad. The concept was mildly amusing the first time. But by the end of the game, they’d completely run it into the ground and arrived at “thoroughly annoying”.

Unrelated to the actual game or the commercials: We discovered that Dish doesn’t think anyone has a four hour attention span. With about ten minutes left in the game, right on the four hour mark from when I turned on the TV, they popped up a message box that said (I’m paraphrasing here, because I didn’t get a picture) “It looks like nobody’s watching TV right now. If you don’t click ‘Continue’ within 20 seconds, we’ll shut the receiver off.” Uh, guys, you’re going to be sending the satellite signal whether the receiver is on or off, so why do you care if I’m watching? If I want to waste electricity by leaving the TV on all day, let me!

And, finally, my prize for “Worst Commercial of Super Bowl LII”.

No, it’s not Tide, Bud Light, or even Turkish Air.

Not only did this company completely ignore the well-documented complaints about their business model, but they’re actually promoting class violence. Congratulation, Groupon, come up and claim your trophy.

Or am I the only one who heard the message “He didn’t use Groupon, so we sent a couple of thugs to kick his rich, white ass”?

Seriously, there’s a right way to do things, and in this case, TV commercials aren’t it. If we’re going to have a revolution of the proletariat and forcibly redistribute the wealth, can we please do it as a spontaneous popular uprising, rather than because a coupon service wants to improve their bottom line?

Almost There

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We’re almost there. The MLB preseason is just about over. Opening Day is Monday, though as usual, we’ve got Scheduled For TV games on Sunday–three of ’em this year.

As we all know, the beginning of the season means two things: cats are making predictions and this year’s baseball video games hit the shelves.

Let’s start with the bad news.

Check out this commercial for MLB The Show 17.

Assuming you haven’t fled, screaming in horror, let’s talk about what’s wrong with this.

For starters, did you notice that every single person in the commercial is “this guy” and “he”? I’m not sure whether Sony thinks that women don’t play video games or that there aren’t female baseball fans, but either way it’s a damned offensive assumption.

Then there’s the celebration of Manfred’s Kool-Aid. “Quick three inning games”? Are you kidding me?

And speaking of that guy–four jobs and twelve kids? Come on! As Groucho Marx once didn’t say, “I love my cigar, too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while!” Maybe if the dude hadn’t dropped $300 on a PS4 and $60 on the game, he could afford to quit one of those jobs.

I don’t play video games–not even baseball games–but I’m tempted to buy a PS4 just so I can boycott MLB The Show 17. The only thing stopping me is that Sony makes the console too.

Moving on.

Of course we’ve begun indoctrinating Rufus into the household traditions. He’s seen some baseball on TV (about ten seconds worth of highlights), so we figured he was qualified to make predictions for the 2017 season.

On the other hand, he is new to the concept, so we decided to start him off with something straightforward: predicting the final standings for the American League West. We’ll keep working with him during the season, and if his predictions pan out, we’ll give him a shot at the playoffs.

He used a treat-based methodology to make his selections.

The final prediction:

  1. Texas Rangers
  2. Houston Astros
  3. Seattle Mariners
  4. Oakland Athletics
  5. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

It’s not the order I’d have liked to see, but it’s not completely unreasonable, based on the preseason predictions. For comparison, FiveThirtyEight has Houston, Seattle, Texas, LA, and Oakland.

Rufus definitely enjoyed making his picks.

He was, however, rather less enthusiastic about the obligatory Wearing of the Cap that followed.