Comments originally posted on the original Commercial trends board

By MarkN on Monday, November 22, 1999 - 03:58 am:

They're all stup¡d and full of false advertising! That's their biggest and oldest trend.
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By MarkN on Tuesday, November 23, 1999 - 06:36 am:

Men are treated like we're idiots.
Women are smarter then men.
Children are smarter than men, cutesy or both.
Cars are always shown driving along the same curves on the same roads (or else the roads all look the same).
Some cars and trucks are shown skidding to the right with front tires turned into the skid.
Pickups are shown driving over very rough terrain that the vast majority won't be driven over anyway.
Feminine hygiene products are shown during women-targeted shows (makes sense, really).
Male-targeted products are shown during sports games (also makes sense).
Toy and cereal ads targeted towards kids are excessively shown during Saturday morning cartoons.
Adult oriented cereals are shown during primetime.
Fast food restaurants are portrayed as being smiley happy places to work and eat at cuz you're always welcome there.
Fast food products are shown much bigger and more perfect than they are in real life.

Speaking of restaurant ads, I hate the Olive Garden ones, with the big "Italian" families, like Italians are the only ones who eat pasta, have big families and take the whole brood to restaurants and they all have a jolly good time. What stereotyping!
And then there's their tagline: "When you're here, you're family." No. When you're there, you're paying their wages.
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By Keith Alan Morgan on Tuesday, November 23, 1999 - 09:59 am:

An old trend. Household ads aimed at the woman, because it was the woman's job to take care of the house.

A new trend. Women being just as, or more, sexist than men.
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By ScottN on Tuesday, November 23, 1999 - 04:35 pm:

A new trend. Women being just as, or more, sexist than men.

In particular that Diet Coke commercial with the women in the office drooling over the construction worker. Turn it around.
If that had been guys drooling over some babe in a bikini (maybe their office overlooked a public pool or something), NOW and the rest of the politically correct crowd would have screamed bloody murder!
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By rachgd on Wednesday, November 24, 1999 - 06:26 am:

Oh, but I love that ad, ScottN! It makes my evening if I see it! It doesn't make me wanna buy Coke, of course -- but nothing could make me wanna do that.

An advertising trend as old as time itself: celebrity endorsement. Here in Australia there is an added terror, because it seems local celebs aren't good enough. They have to import the stars. Thus we have Kramer plugging Vodaphone, and Chevy Chase doing ads for an insurance company, among others. It's one thing when the ads are international ones, like Jerry Seinfeld's Amex ads, or Heather Locklear's oh-so-appropriate spots for L'Oreal, but when a "big star" makes an ad specifically for us in the Antipodes, that just seems patronising.

And don't get me started on TV promos, and the use of visiting Hollywood "dignitaries" to legitimise our networks! Like we really believe Matt Le Blanc even knows what station Friends is shown on here! Puh-lease!
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By MarkN on Wednesday, November 24, 1999 - 06:30 am:

So let 'em, the big crybabies.

The Diet Coke ad has a cute girl in it, with curly black or dark brown hair, ogling Lucky Vanous from the window, and she's also in that Tic Tac ad being shown again. She's the one shown in closeup for a few seconds and just as she starts smiling they cut away from her. Why? SHE'S CUTE!!! BTW, does anyone know whose sister is the blonde spokesperson for Tic Tacs? Mark Harmon's.
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By Afix on Wednesday, November 24, 1999 - 12:03 pm:

Is there a point in using celebrity voice-overs for commercials? I suppose there can be some odd connection sometimes, like Patrick Stewart plugging the Plymouth Voyager (Star Trek -- Voyager). Of course, he does have a wonderful voice.

The ultimate in puzzlement was an ad for pie. It had a Don Knotts sound-alike as the announcer. I guess the relationship could be made that Don Knotts was on Mayberry RFD, a laid-back down-home show, where they ate a lot of pie. What sticks with me is the blurb at the bottom of the screen saying "Celebrity voice impersonated"! Really reaching a bit, don't you think?
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By Keith Alan Morgan on Wednesday, November 24, 1999 - 02:38 pm:

I think advertisers just figure if you like the celebrity you might like the product they're pitching.

I don't think there always has to be a link. Sometimes the celebrity just has a good sounding voice. Patrick Stewart has an elegant sounding voice. Ricardo Montalban's accent made "Rich, Corinthian leather" sound exotic. (Just imagine other accents pulling that off.
"Yo, it's got rich, Coorinthiun leathuh."
"Yeeehaw! It's got rrich, Curinthian cowhide!"
"Ohhhh, yeah. It's got that," *sniff* "richcorinthianleather."
Celebrity accents impersonated. ;-)
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By Curious on Wednesday, November 24, 1999 - 02:54 pm:

What is Corinthian Leather, anyways, and what kind of animal does it come from?

And do they have Poor Corinthian Leather, and does it get Welfare?
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By KAM on Wednesday, November 24, 1999 - 11:35 pm:

It's normal leather with a fancy name.

Poor, Corinthian leather is usually served as steaks in your lesser restaurants. ;-)
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By Slinky Frog on Thursday, December 2, 1999 - 10:44 pm:

As a babbling, soapbox, feminist, I want to respond to some above post. Now, to that remark as women now more sexist than men. Humnnnn, maybe it is what is due to them. I always had seen the folks behind commercials as power hungrey men, who feel women are only suppose to be wives, doing the housework and rearing the children. So every woman I have seen, always wears a wedding band. To me, I see them saying, a woman should never be independant of a man. Keep her home, and under the thumb. Of course, I could be seeing what I want to see, so I can bellyache, but I think this is what is being portrayed. As for that diet coke ad, where the office women are gogglie-eyed over that constuction worker, now I feel it's about time to exploit a man for the satisfaction of women! It's about time!
Now I don't think this is a beef, but are they running short of the up and coming actors for commercials? It seems that all big stars, who are movie stars and have tv series are also doing commercials. Why? They don't need the money. They are putting the up and comers out of work. And it is getting kind of embarrassing!
Also, they cant seem to find any good jingle writers either! They seem to take top 40 hits of the past, and use them for the products. The real blasphemy is using Chris DeBurgh's "Lady In Red" for weight watchers. It's horrible!! I curse thee!!!
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By MarkN on Friday, December 3, 1999 - 06:39 am:

Afix, I don't know who imitated Don Knotts but I've got an idea. Craig Shoemaker, a standup comedian who does the Love Master character in his act, and he's got a comedy CD with that character and Craig imitated Don as Barney Fife, and a pretty good job of it, too. He was also in the cable movie, "Safe House" with Patrick Stewart, as the groundskeeper who helped Stewart, a former Bond-like secret agent, to keep his instincts honed.
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By G'var on Sunday, December 5, 1999 - 02:09 am:

Actually as a male I wouldn't mind being seen as a sex object(or symbol) at least once and a while.
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By Afix on Monday, December 13, 1999 - 11:08 am:

I noticed a new trend this year -- making Christmas commercials that remind us of the Rankin-Bass specials. You know, Rudolph, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, those. I saw one for UPS (a rather negative ad), and another one for AltaVista. They only serve to remind me how much I miss the Santa riding the Norelco.
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By D.K. Henderson on Tuesday, December 14, 1999 - 07:43 am:

Remember the old Whisk commercials? "He's got ring around the collar!" Everyone in the shot turns and stares at the man's wife as though she has committed a mortal sin, and the wife looks like she wants to sink through the floor. I always wanted the woman to speak up and say, "Well, if the slob would wash his neck once in a while, we wouldn't have the problem, now would we?"

Also, I believe Miss Manners would have something to say about people who comment on another person's appearance.
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By Chris Booton (Cbooton) on Tuesday, December 14, 1999 - 08:07 am:

A comercial trend I find disturbing is how almost everytime without fail the people featured on comercial's have overly perfect bodies. For example guy have washboard stomaches , are slender , athletic , have muscular chests etc. Woman have, perfect slender figures , perfect legs , big breasts perfect hair etc. Why do I find it disturbing? it's not fair to people with 'normal' bodies. People see enough of those kinds of people and you begin to think it's the 'norm' and begin to expect people to look like that without question.

Think about it this way, in a comercial for beard trimmers why are they usuing a man with a body like that? How does it make the product look any better? Or in a comercial for makeup for your face what does it accomplish having the women have figures like that?
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By ScottN on Wednesday, December 15, 1999 - 02:31 am:

Dave Barry (I think it was him anyways), summed up advertising in two sentences.

If you are a guy, this product will get you dates with bikini models.

If you are a girl, this product will make you a bikini model.

By Keith Alan Morgan on Wednesday, December 15, 1999 - 04:01 am:

This trend is, so far, restricted to the Disney Company, but I hate it when they have the kids talking about the movie, saying lines & acting out scenes from the movie.

Why not just show clips from the darn film, instead?
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By Chris Booton (Cbooton) on Wednesday, December 15, 1999 - 08:05 am:

I hate that too, or like how they always say how all of the biggest and post popular critics out there say it " a wondeful and throughutly enlightening film" . These are basically meaningless as I dont recall ever seeing a movie comercial that has says everyone said it 'sucked'.
It's just as bad when they show people who saw syaing how wonderfull it was.
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By ScottN on Wednesday, December 15, 1999 - 11:33 am:

I could picture that...

Now, playing... THE RETURN OF TITANIC
"Worst film I ever saw..." - Gene Shalit, NBC
"Four hours of Tedium" - Los Angeles Times
"You'll hate yourself for seeing this" - Daily Variety
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By Afix (Afix) on Wednesday, December 15, 1999 - 11:50 am:

Check out the new section devoted to movie ads!
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By Matthew Patterson (Mpatterson) on Wednesday, December 15, 1999 - 07:03 pm:

Which is why quotes are always altered. That way, if the original is "Biggest piece of I've ever seen!" it can be changed to "Biggest[movie] I've ever seen!" Also, everything is advertised as having two thumbs up, regardless of whether or not it was Siskel and Ebert. For all we know, it could have been the one guy who came to see it died cause it was such a horrible film and left his thumbs sticking in the air
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By MarkN on Thursday, December 16, 1999 - 06:32 am:

Hey, Chris! What's wrong with big breasts? haha! Now, what bothers me are those late night phonesex ads with the women that you'll never talk to if you called. Same with the print ads, showing porn stars or models just to intice lonely, horny guys to waste their money. Of course, if they're stup¡d enough to believe they're really talking to those women then they deserve what they get. Remember Beavis and Butthead calling that phonesex line, and they were really talking to a heavyset woman and her skinny little husband? Most likely so are you.
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By Dan R. on Thursday, December 16, 1999 - 12:55 pm:

Now Mark....how would YOU know if you really don't talk to those beautiful women??? Hmmm...you seem to have extensive knowledge of this type of thing...;-)
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By MarkN on Friday, December 17, 1999 - 07:24 am:

LOL. Not really, Dan. But it does makes sense, when you think about it. After all, you can't see just who you're talking with now, can you? That's what webcams are for. haha!

Ok, I have called a few chat lines years ago but after running up a humongous bill I stopped right then and there. Now I just go into online chat, like ICQ or MPlayer, on which you can use cams. And before anyone can accuse me otherwise, I only show my face. *smile*
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By Keith Alan Morgan on Monday, March 6, 2000 - 03:48 am:

The disturbing nature of the Sunny Kobe Cook commercials.

For those of you who don't live in the Pacific Northwest, Sunny owns Sleep Country & does ads for it. Recently she seems to have gone with a new ad writer/ad agency & the last 3 commercials have really had a really creepy element to them.

#1. A guy wakes up to find Sunny in bed with him. No, that's not the creepy part. Well, on second thought... Anyway, at the end the guy asks where his wife is & Sunny just smiles. So, is the message buy at Sleep Country or Sunny will kidnap your wife? (One funny element of this commercial is that the guy looks like the husband in a series of ads for a competing mattress seller.)

#2. A woman goes for a midnight snack, opens the fridge & there's Sunny. This was just a bad idea from the start. What if some kid saw this and thought it was funny to hide in the fridge to surprise someone? Seriously Creepy with a capital c.

#3. A guy is sleeping and Sunny is dropping bowling balls on the bed. (Because the mattresses she is selling also use a bowling ball on the bed commercial, although they don't use living targets.) Again, what if someone thought this was a good idea.

I hope she dumps the new writer/ad agency & goes back to her more bland style.
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By George on Wednesday, April 12, 2000 - 07:33 pm:

One annoying trend that's hopefully going to end soon is these Internet ads that act like the Internet is this mysterious, mystical place. Northern Light shows this guy sitting in a chair in this room, where the walls, ceiling, and even floor seems to be monitor screens. He is bombarded with images (and somehow, without getting sick from trying to look at it)--then, the announcer says that Northern Light organizes the Internet into these neat little folders and packages. This seems to imply that unless you use Northern Light, it's hopeless to be able to find anything. It looks like this ad would do more in the way of discouraging newcomers from using the Internet than in using Northern Light as a search engine.

There's one commercial where all these people are saying stuff like, "What do you want the Internet to be?" (I'm not sure which company this is from.) What do I want it to be? On! How about "easier to stay connected to"? What's the point of that ad? Shouldn't it be worded something like, "What does the Internet do for you?" or "What do you want the Internet to do for you?" as that would make a little more sense. "What do you want the Internet to be?" makes it sound like the Internet is this big shape-shifting blob that can change its form at will (or someone else's).

There was the "I was born to be an Internet junkie" ad (I forget which company). It sounds somewhat insulting. It makes it sound as if all these people willingly enslave themselves to the Internet, or computers in general. I usually set out to do something, then maybe get too carried away looking up stuff, but the getting carried away part wasn't my original plan.

The MSN Project ads make it sound like everything you need can be ordered over the Internet. Maybe, but is that always the best way? If I wind up ordering something over the Internet, it's usually because I can't find it anywhere else (within a reasonable driving distance).

Not related to the Internet-as-mysterious-place-the-average-person-can't-possibly-understand trend, there's this trend of flat-panel LCD (standalone) monitors popping up in ads, making them look like they're really this commonplace already.
I had thought that these LCD monitors are at least $800-$1000 each if not more. How can these people afford them? I think one ad shows a single mother who owns a computer, and yep, there's a flat-panel monitor on her desk--I'm sure a working mother really would want to splurge on an expensive LCD monitor when she's got a kid to raise. TVs, VCRs, etc.--things like that vary in price range, but most are cheap enough that they're quite commonplace. But with 15-17-inch CRT monitors around the $200 mark or so these days, it doesn't make sense to show all these $1000-flat panel monitors being so common.
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By ScottN on Wednesday, April 12, 2000 - 08:04 pm:

Gateway does have a relatively reasonably priced all-in-one with a built-in LCD.
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By Mark Bowman on Wednesday, April 19, 2000 - 01:26 pm:

Any radio ad that butchers a song (especialy a good one) I can't stand.
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By Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Saturday, July 1, 2000 - 01:21 am:

Commercials which take an activity, like sorting coins or squeezing oranges, and trying to make it seem like the worst job in the world, just to sell their little gadget.
"Have you ever tried to put coins in a pack? Isn't it horrible? First you have to count, which means you have to think. Don't you just hate that?" etc., etc.
Some of the gadgets seem like nice ideas, but the way they sell them really insults people's intelligence.

2 commercials may not constitute a trend, but a few months ago there were 2 spots that featured couples being embarrassed by intimate videos they had made.
Although, both spots had nits.
1. The couple who has the wedding video they want to show their families. The guy pops it in and it sounds like it was paused halfway through the action. I suppose it's possible they could have stopped the tape for some reason (Eeek! It's the Jehovah Witnesses! Stop the tape!), it just seemed odd.
2. The couple who 'return' their tape to the video store, then arrive and it's playing on the store TV's. (Obviously inspired by Ruthless People.) First off, homemade videos either don't have a label on them, or they have a label which looks much different from the labels on mass produced for sale or rent videos. The husband was not paying attention to miss that, and the video store clerk definately should have noticed. Also what video store sticks a just returned video into the store recorder?
Good thing there were no children or upset adults in that video store.

"It's all about......."

the new over-used phrase. First noticed it when a commercial started with "It's all about the new Capri jean look!" Now I hear it being used in car commercials -- "It's all about performance. It's all about comfort. It's all about our commitment." etc. I also heard it three times in a company meeting today.

Wow, no posts in 4 years?!?! O_O

A trend in the local car dealerships around here seesm to be using actors portraying old black and white comedian's. One of the Ford dealerships was using the three stooges now a chevy dealer is using laurel and hardy actors (in an actual 20's chevy at least) and a competing chevy dealership had a phil silvers/rochester one. Rather interesting.

In Washington state, at least, the phrase "protecting your constitutional rights" or similar wording has been popping up in commercials for Democrats & Democrat-backed judges.

I'll avoid nitpicking that to stay out of Political Musings territory.

Does anyone else realize that those MasterCard commercials that list a bunch of things and then one thing that is "priceless" have been on the air since 2001?

Is that all? I thought they'd been around longer than that.

Script - Thousands of dollars
Actors - Thousands of dollars
Sets, props, film crew - Many thousands of dollars
Nitpicking the finished commercial? - Priceless

Actually, I suppose they might have been around longer. I know for sure that they've been around since at least 2001, though. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

The latest trend I've noticed is for a commercial to be in black-and-white, save for the product which is colored normally. I realized this this morning in three separate commercials. I predict it's going to get old really fast.

According to Wikipedia the Priceless commercials started in 1997.

Oh, wow.

I wonder if the prices remain the same...

The way the volume on comericals is always far louder then on the TV shows. That should be illegal IMO.

Certain commercials are just so bad that they are practically begging to be parodied. So a parody of the Vonage commercial where the two guys are standing next to one another, except one is hanging from the ceiling was inevitable. Strangely, though, this parody is really the next commercial in the actual Vonage series!

Dos Equis beer has a new "Most Interesting Man In The World." He is Augustin Legrand, who replaced former title holder Jonathan Goldsmith. Who, I guess was no longer interesting enough. Regardless, stay thirsty, my friends.

Actually, a Dos Equis commercial from earlier this year retired the previous "Most Interesting Man" by having him take a one-way journey to Mars. So, he's technically no longer the most interesting man in the world since he's no longer in this world.

Of course, many of his adventures were out of this world to begin with.

Can i ask something, as I'm among friends here? I'm sorry if i'm doing anything wrong. Have you noticed that a lot of television adverts featuring children use girls? Femininity is seen as so fragile that it's the go-to to evoke the innocence of childhood.

can you imagine a boy in this commercial? a boy wouldn't have worked in her place - the cuteness factor would be different for a start:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5gRG4od5NY

Femininity is seen as so fragile that it's the go-to to evoke the innocence of childhood.

Bwha?

The only thing you need to evoke the innocence of childhood is... a child.

And yes I do think a boy could have worked in the commercial, but, like kittens, girls tend to be seen as cuter by a larger portion of the population. Or maybe there were no boys the right age when they cast this?

I seriously doubt your premise of femininity being seen as fragile had anything to do with it.

A continuing trend in commercials is that there are just more of them per hour. Especially since Rap Master Ronnie lifted the limit on hourly commercial time. Back in the sixties, an episode of Star Trek ran 52 minutes without commercials. Today, an episode of Law & Order runs 43 minutes without the ads. Plus, many of the ads are shorter, so more can be crammed into the time allotted.

They now run the same commercial twice during a single commercial break (NBC, I’m looking at you)

Just a matter of time till we have Blipverts like Max Headroom predicted. ;-)

A mere 20 minutes into the future.

Let's not forget how stations will also insert an advertisement into a show (and at times right after 8 standard commercials delayed it) by plastering a banner or cue card at the bottom of the screen. Sometimes it blocks subtitles in a show, because it's sooo important for you to know that TLC is going to air a '90 Day Fiance' marathon next week or this is a good time to buy a Kia.
So annoying.

Doctor Who did something like that, years ago.

I remember because Emily kept ranting about it to anyone who'd listen.

Commercials with clapping or finger snapping in them.

Commercials for a certain chocolate chip brand that show the person dumping the entire bag into the cookie mix. All I can do is cringe at the amount of sugar they're subjecting themselves or other people to.

Diabetes anyone?

Chris - Commercials with clapping or finger snapping in them.

How do you feel about the opening to The Addams Family TV show? ;-)