Commercial Pet Peeves

Watching TV is one of my favorite time wasters and heckling commercials is my second favorite. There are many, many irritating things in almost all of the commercials that we are inundated with on a daily basis. Things that defy logic, are ridiculous, or are just plain stoopid that I have no choice but to say something about it. Good thing these blog things were made or else I would explode keeping all this in. (Actually, my wife is happy that I have an outlet for this. She's getting pretty tired hearing me talk back to the TV day in and day out.)

Here are some of my recent commercial pet peeves (I'm willing to make this a reoccurring thing if this goes well):


For the longest time the slogan for Dippin' Dots was "The Ice Cream of the Future." They used that slogan for years, ever since they were created 20 years ago. Umm...it's 2007. I think the future is here and it's now a thing of the past. Their new slogan should be: "The Ice Cream Fad of the 80's."

I DESPISE the Transitions commercials. Allow me to tell you why:

1. In the past, NOT the future, (the 60's to be exact) Corning first developed photochromic lenses. They were made of glass at first, but I just had to say this because I remember people having these special glasses back in the 70's. So when I saw these commercials with their "In the future..." opening line, I cried foul.



2. All the actors sport the ever-present "smug look". For some reason, ad agencies think that we want to see yuppie-ish hipsters walking around with consumer items that we can't afford with smack-worthy, "aren't I the coolest thing since sliced bread for having something that no one else has" look on their faces. Please stop, people.

Here is the most recent Transitions spot. Here is another one. Hatred is such a soft word when describing these things.

I've come to loathe with a passion KFC's use of "Sweet Home Alabama" in their commercials. It's just a small snippet, but just enough for you to hate the song even more than before. I know that it shouldn't bother me here, but it just doesn't add up. Most songs that you hear on commercials these days have a certain reason, whether it's the song title, or theme. This particular use of a pop song does not have any rhyme or reason. Also, you have to ask yourself, why? Why use a song celebrating Alabama for a restaurant chain that hails from Kentucky (remember that the original name was "Kentucky Fried Chicken")? Just because it's Southern doesn't mean you can lump it into the same category.

Have you seen the latest GLAD ForceFlex commercial where two guys rob a bank and have the cashier stuff as much as she can in the bags? The joke is that the bags stretch and she ends up taking so long that they get caught. Ha ha ha. Next time you see it, notice these things:

They do not have ski masks or anything covering their faces.
They do not use any sort of firearms.
They do not use a note, they just ask the cashier to fill the bag.

This is all very deliberate on the client's part for fear of getting sued by banks, in case some idiot(s) might get some big ideas because they saw it on a commercial. One pet peeve of mine about this spot: there's no way that that cashier would run out of money to put in their bag with the bank being as big as that one. I know it's part of the joke, but I'm not buying it.


Ad campaigns that need to stop:

Energizer and that confounded Bunny. Okay, we get it. It keeps going.

The Gatorade "Is it in you?" campaign -- It doesn't look like they're sweating Gatorade, guys. It looks like someone just dumped the drink on them. It's an okay concept that probably sounded great on paper, but just doesn't come off that well on TV. Bottom line: you're paying way too much for all that post work.

Chick-Fil-A's Eat Mor Chiken -- the cows are tired. Put them to rest. Please. (Oh, before you do that, Mr. Fil-A -- could you please open up a restaurant in Portland? Please? There's none up here in the Northwest! That's a crime right there. Just one, please? Thank you.)


On a lighter note:

Peep this All-Bran commercial and watch the wonderful tongue-in-butt-cheek visual jokes going on in the background. This spot was pointed out to me by my wife. (Me thinks she's trying to tell me something.)

Click here for the director's "cut."