The title pretty much says it all. I've seen far too many bad advertisements lately to keep my mouth shut, so I'm starting this thread to share my views on all bad advertisements. I'm not talking about ads that I don't like, I'm talking about the completely illogical and thoughtless ones. Some rants will be about the product, but most will be about the ad itself. The vast majority of you will most likely accuse me of over analysing all the ads, and you're probably right. However, to me, ads have got to make sense. Movies and other TV shows do, and ads should do the same. At the moment most of them are aimed at brain-dead slobs who are lying on the couch, staring blankly at the screen. Believe it or not, most people do not watch TV like that. Most people are watching because they enjoy watching the movie or show that is currently on. These movies and shows make sense so there is no reason to direct the ads at such a deadbeat level. The first ad is the one for Lynx 3, a 'special' deodorant created by spraying on both Lynx 1 and Lynx 2. Not only does this new product require twice as many cans as any regular deodorant and take almost twice as long to apply, but their advertising strategy is completely illogical and thoughtless. For those who haven't seen it, it's here. Notice how the main focus of the ad is that every nearby woman explodes into another to create one, doubly attractive woman. What kind of an advertising agency advertises that the product, in this case deodorant, a scented, anti-sweat bodyspray practically designed to increase chances of getting a date, halves the female population? What's the incentive to buy it? It's just halving your chances. If there are twenty guys and twenty girls in one place and the jerk who's wearing this explosively illogical deodorant walks by, suddenly there are still twenty guys but only ten girls! Half those guys there have suddenly lost their date. Also, all of these new women are twice as attractive as they were before, so not only are the odds vastly stacked against us guys, but every single last one of them can be as picky as they want. As if the ratio wasn't hard enough already, now they're all extremely good looking and most probably extremely egocentric because of it, making them even more picky. All of them were attractive beforehand, so why halve all them in order to create egocentric models? Thirdly, what would women think of this?! I'm not one, so please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's fairly safe to say that these women would not want to suddenly be exploded into a completely different person! And it's not only them, but what about their friends and families? Suddenly two plus sets of families share the same sister, daughter, mother, aunt or niece? Imagine combining your sister or other with a completely random stranger. What would come of all the family get-togethers? And that's just if you only had one sister! Imagine having two or three, maybe more, and having each one combine with a random other stranger! It would get so complicated so quickly it's hardly even worth talking about, but alas, I must. Lastly, what if another guy's wearing it? Would that quarter the nearby population? And what then? How are we supposed to compete with four-to-one odds? Not to mention how much more egocentric and intimidating they'd be. Anyway, that's this add down, and it was a good one to start on. I'm not ranting about weird ads, like these or anything, just illogical and thoughtless ones.
too much logic applied there m8 imo . I think people realise that the advert isnt meant to be applied to realism to that degree, so the company only focuses on the general idea it wants to give across to its target audience. Of which is teenage men. The idea and feel that i think its trying to get across is that whole 'Dream Woman' thing which would ofc become avalible to you the instant you spray it on ;D. Hence the women joining together to ultimately create a 'dream woman' then go after the guy . I dont think they care about the results on human kind if their advert was taken to that degree of realism .
@ Bamber. I may have elaborated on each point to a much larger degree than necessary, and have admitted that I have and will in the opening paragraph, but the basic points still stand. It's halving the female population. What if another guy's wearing it? And what would the women think of it? Ads do not have any designated target audience. Their audience is whoever is watching the show of which this ad break is a part of. Obviously the product is for teenage men and the ad's designed to appeal to them, but the audience is whoever is watching the show. The vast majority of movies and TV shows are taken to that degree of realism, so ads should as well. @ Darktemplar_L. Try to limit comments like that. This is the Lounge, not Space Junk. It's meant for intelligent conversations, not pointless one-liners. Second advertisement. Not sure if you've heard of the product or the brand, and I can't seem to find a video of it so if anyone can it would be appreciated, but it's called 'Oust 3-in-1', and it's a air sanitiser/cleaning agent, designed to get rid of and supposedly eliminate bad smells. Now apart from Oust ads being the kings of voice-over, where every single one of their ads has the most obvious and horribly synced voice-over that you'd think it's some kind of foreign film, the main, key point of advertising is completely flawed by the rest of the ad. For those who haven't seen it, it basically goes along the lines of someone saying how they had to clean their TV, bathroom, kitchen, etc, and needing a whole lot of different products but now use 'Oust 3-in-1', meaning they can have one product, where before they needed lots and lots. All seems alright so far and makes sense. One product for everything meaning that's all you need, works on everything, saves storage space, yada, yada, yada. However the last line of the ad completely throws this out the window. After they've finished going on about only requiring one product, the narrator says 'and now get rid of lingering odours with... I forget the name of the other product but that's hardly the point. The point is that despite the whole ad showing off how awesome it is that you'll only need one product for all your cleaning/smelling needs, it goes ahead and advertises another product immediately showing that 'Oust 3-in-1' is not all you will need! What is the point of that? Who thinks up these ads and puts them together? 'Hooray I only need the one product' then 'You'll also need this different product for other stuff'. There is no reason why they advertise a second product in an ad that says you'll only need this one, singular, product. Obviously the 3-in-1 won't cover all you cleaning and sanitising needs, and obviously they still need to advertise and sell their other products but why just quickly slip in onto the end of the commercial whose main selling point is to not have hundreds of different products lying around the place? Not as elaborate as the Lynx 1 and Lynx 2 ad rant and focuses on different aspects of the ad, but it is completely illogical and thoughtless, regardless of target audience or anything. It actually hinders their selling point making the ad even more useless. Next rant tomorrow. Should be a good one on advertising high-definition televisions.
Heres what your missing Itza the comercials are only illogical if you think about them, and generally you need to think hard about them. Most of the time people will just ignore the fine print or the comercial all together. Assuming you only ignore the fine print then the advertisement has done its job. And even if someone does go about over thinking, how is more people thinking hard about their product or ranting about it (in effect providing free advertisement) a bad thing for them? Because unless you go around actively trying to keep people from buying the product then your at worst just another person not buying there product, why would they care if you dislike there comercial? The sad truth is they don't care and by giving the them honor of being discussed you are only helping them in the long run. Remember, if the advertisement forces you to remember their product then the advertisement has done its job, it's that simple and it sucks.
The 'Designers' do not care about the effects of what the product would have if it was indeed real. So questions like: "What if another guy's wearing it? And what would the women think of it" would not bother them at all, their goal as LordKerwyn said is to make you remember it, talk about it infront of others, or end up buying it. As i said, as long as they make money and sell their product, they dont care if their advert is illogical or completely unrealistic. Considering that adverts should be taken completely to that deal of realism like movies etc, just doesnt work in this society, i think its imprinted in peoples minds by now that adverts wont make sense.. but sure as hell are gonna make you remember the product, so the designers dont even try for realism.
@ LordKerwyn. I'm not really missing that point, I'm just getting annoyed by it, which isn't good for the company. With these I'm careful not to just advertise the products by pointing out the flaws in them as well, like how with Lynx 3 you need twice the number of cans and with Oust it's not actually the only product you'll need, etc. It's the fact that the company's not caring so they producing these illogical and thoughtless ads. It's just one of those things that ticks me off. Everybody has them. Lastly, you don't really hard to think that hard to see the flaws in these ads. In the Lynx one there are half the women and in the Oust one they say you only need this one product and then try to sell you another. @ Babmer. Again, it's the company not caring and producing illogical ads that annoys me. They don't have to analyse all the effects in real life, but halving the number of women on an ad for a product that is pretty much designed to get women is a major flaw. The fact that advertisements won't make sense is only imprinted in people's minds because that's the stereotype because of these types of companies. There are easily ways to get people to remember your product without resorting to having no sense of realism. In fact, it's not really realism that they should be aiming for, just logic. The next rant is a broader one, on advertisements for colour or high definition TV's. I haven't link any videos because I'm sure you've all seem them and know that they're pretty much all the same. The mainly involve either lots of bright, vibrant colours in whatever form possible. Whether it's paint, bouncy balls, balloons, claymation, etc, etc, they always have lots of bright colour. It's understandable as to why they have it, they're showing how bright and colourful their TV's are, but where do you suppose you're seeing all the colour? That's right, on your own TV! They're showing all this bright, vibrant, radiant, glowing colour trying to make you think 'wow, if I had that TV I could get all that colour' when it's on your TV to begin with! I've honestly had someone sitting beside my say something like 'jeez, it would be awesome to have a TV like that'. I don't know what he must have been thinking. Whether he thought that just because there's a better TV on the TV screen that it must be better and able to display brighter colours or whether he was absolutely dead tired and not thinking straight, I'll never know. Lastly on these high colour TV's, the only thing they'd really help improve are the ads for other high colour TV's because they're the ones with all the colour. Normal shows won't instantly be refilmed to be even more colourful just for you buying a new TV, so the things you're watching won't have all that much colour to enhance in the first place. The main things that your brand new TV will enhance are ads for other new TV's. The same goes for high definition TV's, only instead of focusing on having bright, vibrant colour, they focus on clean, clear and slowmotion'd camera shots. They show you how clear and focused their TV's are, while portraying it on your very own TV. It's the same situation as the enhanced colour TV's but focusing on a different aspect only this time, they can take it another step further. I remember a specific ad a while back where they showed basically a point of view shot, or something, of a rugby player charging through the opponent's defence, but it's all extremely blurry as it happens and you can't really see what's specifically going on. Then they show their TV and replay the footage only this time it's clear as crystal and you can see him parrying, sidestepping, and eventually diving to score the try as though your TV is only capable of portraying the first level of detail and the second is what you'd get with their TV, but it's not. If you watched that exact same ad on a high definition TV, it would be exactly the same as if you watched it on your old TV. I'm aware that it's hard for these companies to do otherwise, but surely, surely, they can do better than this.
One reason the world is ****ed. People put too much thought into things which do not matter what-so-ever. Your points are valid but is it really necessary lol
I didn't say you were missing the point Itza I said what your missing is the only reason you are ranting about these comercials is because you are thinking about them instad of ignoring them. Now on to your examples while im not sure about the Lynx one, I am pretty sure the other 2 adds are American based and I know the TV one with Football is (because that is the game, Ameican Football). It might explain some of the syncing errors you were talking about if they were translated in any way. Also, I think the Oust advertisement is valid because if I remember correctly (and I may not be DVR ftw) the second product they mentioned at the very end of the comercial has a use that wouldn't make sense if it was built into the first product (like if the first was for cleaning tile and ther other was an air freshener). With the new TV one the goal isn't to show what the new TV would look like but rather to show the potential difference between your TV and the new one you would buy. Again though these are just advertisements, ignore them or better yet get some version of a DVR and fast forward through them. They are not worth the energy your giving them.
I love and hate the Axe commercials for reasons I will not state here. Bad advertisements are qwuite possibly the backbone of our non-network television companies (Cable/Satellite/Internet TV). Were it not for those bad commercials, the way we view televison would be radically different. C/S/ITV would not be near as popular, Youtube content would be halved (Less TV shows, less bad commercials), and things like DVR's would be far less proliferated. And just because they're bad doesn't mean they're not enjoyable. Recall that commercial 1 year-1/2 year ago. That deoderant one in "Stunt City." Lame as can be, but you know you thought it was awesome/hilarious. And look at the Superbowl Commercials. Quite possibly one of the greatest examples of American consumerism. A core of our lives. Incredibly stupid. In the end, yeah, they're stupid, but that's just how America rolls, yo
