Adverts: Love, Hate, or Indifferent 20090216

There seem to be more adverts on the TeeVee than content.  I guess that is why it only costs from $20 to $50 a month for “free” TeeVee.

Some adverts are amusing, some are less than amusing, and some are just insulting.  Please keep with me as I look at a few that I find in each category.

One advert that I think is very clever and funny is the Sears Optical one that has the young women calling in her cat to “come cuddle with Mommy!”  Then she opens the door and allows a wild (well, a wrangled one for the advert) raccoon into the house, thinking that it was her cat.  This is not only funny, but puts the point across well about poor vision.  Since I am nearsighted, I find it hilarious and well to the point.  It is only 15 seconds, and gets the point across.

A whole series of them that I find offensive are the little kids ones advertising a stock trading company that will be unnamed.  The latest, most offensive one has to do with the babies using adult conversation that has do with the chief baby trying to justify his neglect to his “girlfriend”  (actually babyfriend) because he was trading stocks.  She gets defensive and accuses him of keeping company with the “milkaholic” other toddler.  This is just wrong, and I thing that this advert should go away, far, far from us.

Some of the adverts that use the actress “Flo” are OK, but none are outstanding.  If she were not attractive, they would not be very good, but not offensive.

Whilst almost everyone in my family disagrees with me, I love the Renaissance Fair advert for Free Credit Report.  I think that the tune is very catchy, and I am a big fan of keeping with canon, and they include the older lady that appeared on the first installment in the seafood restaurant, a very subtle reference to the “I Married my Dream Girl” one, and even the pirate hat commercial.  Very good, I say.

The ones that I really dislike are any that have to do with drugs.  The Advil one annoys me very much, because two people are doing simple arithmetic that takes them longer than it should take to swallow the “80 pills” that the advert says.  First, I suspect that no one not less than 70 years has ever had a pill.  This is a technical term, and what we call pills are actually tablets.  Please allow me to elaborate.

A pill is a small, usually spherical, thing that may or not have medicaments in it that is hand rolled by a compounding pharmacist (a chemist in the UK) using techniques that are almost gone now.  The active ingredient is separated into several piles, depending on how many pills are to be made, then these are rolled by hand with binders, and finally with an outer shell.  Typically, pills are dried for a time to remove water or other solvents that are used to make them.

What we have are tablets, made by mixing all of the ingredients at once into a mix, then running them through a press that compresses the ingredients into a homogeneous cake.  Sometimes these are coated with a superficial layer to delay dissolution, but they are still tablets.

The thing that bothers me about this advert even more is that there are two stupid folks thrashing about, and one comes in and makes everything clear.  Right.

My other worst liked set of adverts are for the “ED” drugs. I really do not need to know about made up couples’ difficulty with the man having an erection.  I am no prude, but this really does not belong on the TeeVee. You’d find better information about ED drugs by reading reviews about the various drugs on the market, Extenze Reviews could be a good place to start.

For that matter, no prescription drug should have an advert in the popular media.  Not too many years ago, this was not allowed, and I think that the First Amendment is being sort of skewed to allow those adverts.

I would like to know your thoughts about this topic, and to hear your best and worst candidates for adverts.

Warmest regards,

Doc

Crossposted at Daily Kos