December 29, 2007
Villain: Television Commercials
Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.
Getting furious at advertising may seem so early 2000's, but commercials this year have not only annoyed, but shown an outright aversion to creativity. It's like advertisers realized that, since people pay to see crap like Alvin and the Chipmunks and Saw IV, quality isn't such an issue. With television in a creative renaissance, the clunkers during the breaks make us glad Tivo has arrived.
Loblaw is a double offender this year. In the ad for their Tarte au Chocolat, the announcer butchers the product name speaking French that's fit for an American in Paris. Then, there are the Joe Fresh dancing ads, which are the ad equivalent of a sleeping pill (not to mention bad knock-offs of the Gap holiday ads).
But where the Loblaw ads are dull, the Everest College ads are rude. A man scolds the viewer for being lazy before he storms off frustrated by the viewer's inaction. It's pretty big talk for a guy whose commercial plays between back-to-back episodes of Blind Date. Instead, couldn't he yell at the skanks on the Ashley Madison ads to stop cheating on their spouses?
Maybe the woman (or man) is cheating because waiting at home in bed is the Dad from Rogers Home Phone. Dad reminds us of a Stepford husband, especially when he rambles on about fishing buddies named "Rod." Every time he warns us at the beginning of the commercial that "it's Dad," we try our best to tune him out like good children should.
We also tend to zone out when people pretend they're characters from Sex and the City. Of mind-blistering mediocrity are the Special K ads that feature a gay, an Asian and a hottie in a red dress girl-talking at the office. We'd have lunch with the cat lady in accounting before we dine with people who use phrases like "ring, ring, it's obvious calling!" and respond to "join the club" with "honey, you started the club!"
The worst ad of the year, though, belongs to Global Television. Global has the balls to have sponsors for the previews of upcoming programs. Yes, the ad for next episode of Cane is brought to you by the Simpsons Movie. And for having ads sponsoring ads, Global Television is the supervillain of 2007's television ads.
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On a few occasions I watched some of those new game shows with my parents on TV, and at least a dozen times the hosts of the shows made comments that amounted to "watch these commercials to show your loyalty to capitalism".
Mininova.org is my #1 source of commercial-free TV downloads.
I think it's safe to say all of Rogers' advertising was especially bad this time around from the 'Nana network' to that girl whose phone might not have a plan yet, but makes video-calls for free I guess because Rogers is cool like that.
Global TV!!! Oooooh, don't get me started.
They can't even write a news story right.
Thank goodness they lost the NFL contract.
Wake me up when they do something right for a change.
I hope there's a Villain: CRTC coming up.
Loblaws screwed up bigtime in their ad campaign this year, and in my mind it didn't even involve their foreign mispronunciations; it was all about Galen. This nerdy dude comes on the screen and says "Hi, I'm Galen Weston" as if he's a Canadian household name. Dude, you're not Wayne Gretzky, you're not even Bill Gates, you're just a guy with a lot of money that not a whole lot of people ever gave a shit about, and I certainly don't give a shit about what you think about PC's new Indian flatbreads.
My girlfriend has had to endure my endless rants regarding the unnecessary brashness of the Everett College ads all year! Why the hell would I want to enroll at a place that has seemingly already marked me as a lazy good-for-nothing who can't make decisions for myself? The dude doesn't even mention anything about what types of courses or programs that are offered because he's too busy yelling at you from his high horse.
Good call on the Special K ads too. I don't know if they're trying to break some kind of social barrier by having a recurring (obviously intended to be) gay character, but he is simply unbearable to watch.
they're only bad ads if they don't sell the product, not if you find the accent off or the concept dull or offensive or whatever. Ads are not meant to entertain everyone, but to appeal to their target market. So unless you have evidence as to whether the ads were successful or not, then this is just a rant about things that annoy you, not about quality.
There's a fallacy lurking in there, Goggles. If I find the ad annoying (read: it doesn't appeal to me) then I'm not in their target market.
Bad ads can move product, but they're still bad ads. There will always be a segment of the population that finds the crudest most annoying ads acceptable, even tastefully done.
thank you for calling out those horrid special k commercials. i found them difficult to watch from the very first time i saw them.
"and... we're back"..... ughhh
@goggles I can understand where you're coming from in that from the company's point of view, ads are only "bad" if they fail to sell. However, from a viewer's perspective, quality and popularity aren't causally related. These ads go beyond annoyance, some verge on insulting. Why submit to one-directional communication and not give feedback?
The Special K commercials are so horribly fake, even by fakeness in commercial standards they are just horrible. The people approving the ads must be people who are utterly out of touch with reality.
I thought the Joe ads were a rip off of the Old Navy ads from previous years more than the Gap ads, which didn't have such a cloying, saccharine edge to them. Maybe they're the same company.
If you are in their target market, rek, and you find it annoying, then it may be a bad ad. Depends on how many others in the target market are moved/unmoved by the ad. That would be the "sample of one" fallacy. I would provide a Wikipedia link, but I think its self-explanatory.
I'm not saying you can't complain or critique, but you can't say "I don't like it, therefore its not a high quality commercial" unless you have evidence it does not work as intended, or you have the kind of experience with the industry and sufficient knowledge of what was the goal of the ad, to actually make an assessment of its quality. Entertainment value or artistic value may help or be irrelevant. T
Sometimes the most interesting creative ads don't move product at all, while the ones that make you crazy can be pretty effective at driving sales. For example, every time I see that Lilydale guy I want to punch him in his smarmy Pepe LePew-accent, and I certainly wouldn't let my kids near him, and yet I always remember what he's selling.
The worst place for ads is the US network news during which virtually every spot is pitching some kind of drug to keep our arteries free of dangerous clots, our legs free of restlessness, and our penises eternally erect.
Goggles, you may be moving goal posts here. And we're saying "this is not a high quality commercial, it annoys me, therefore it's bad" rather that the reverse.
Whether the ad works is irrelevant; bad ads are still bad.
@greatcop: Oh godforbid Galen West say his name on air! I don't particularly like the guy myself but how can you fault him for saying "Hi, I'm Galen Weston"? How is that trying to bank on any kind of "celebrity" power? He's just introducing himself before he goes off and sells the product (yknow, what all commercials are supposed to do?). If he said his name and then walked off screen and a Loblaws logo came up, then I would understand your complaint but as of now you just sound like you have some deep-seated issues with Loblaws or the name Galen. Or rich nerds.