Frankly, I don’t watch very much television. If you end up following this blog, you’ll find that rather hard to believe.
The fact is, although I only spend 5 or 6 hours a week watching programmed TV, I’ve found that I am inundated with dozens of truly awful advertisements. There’s no escaping them, and there seems to be no end to them, either. I’ll walk past a TV somebody else is watching and overhear some inane Capri Sun advert that makes no sense. I’ll innocently try to listen to a song via Youtube, and BAM!, I’m stricken by one of the endless number of commercials for electronic devices that feature a slightly upbeat song in the background (see also: all Apple products). Radio, the bussing system–even cereal boxes fall victim to advertising movie sequels nobody wants to see.
As much as I detest them, I find myself less annoyed and more amazed when I witness the byproducts of the advertisement industry. I’m continually astounded that, despite hundreds of thousands of dollars and hundreds of man-hours, whatever commercial I’m stuck watching sucks. It’s a rare thing to see an advertisement that makes me want to buy the product it represents–heck, it’s fairly common that I can’t even remember what was being advertised. I can only assume the people who dreamt up these commercials went to school for marketing, and yet they seem not to know better. Time and time again, commercials fall prey to amateur mistakes, plain bad judgement, or poor taste.
I can no longer suffer in silence. The results–and to a large degree, the effort–of the advertisement industry can no longer go unpunished. I have an obligation to the rest of humankind to call these people out on their lack of both creativity and common sense. People must be told, and for my own sanity, I must be the one to tell them.
Thankfully, the advertisement industry will continue to crank out horrible commercials faster than I can write about them, so I will never be short of material.
-Austin
These Commercial Messages 