Posted on 03/16/2022 5:44:31 PM PDT by nikos1121
I took an advertising course in college. The prof gave us an assignment to make a radio or tv commercial on any product we chose.
He was an old school guy, who told us that the rules of advertising hadn't really changed since the Clark Gable movie, The Hucksters, came out especially when it comes to "funny" ads.
He said funny ads don't work. People may laugh at the commercial, but they won't be persuaded to buy the product by comedy.
And his next thought stuck with me. People may remember the humor, but they won't remember the product that goes with it.
I think of him every time a "try to be funny" ad comes on the air. You've seen them. It's usually a white pajama boy who is totally clueless, and his wife or girl friend sets him straight.
The ad might start out serious and actually may be pretty good, but they're compelled to finish it with about ten seconds of some goofy gag line.
Then you have those car insurance or cell phone ads. They all try to be funny, and a few are, but the next day, like my old prof said, you can't remember the product.
These companies are paying millions of dollars to these advertising agencies for commercials that are stupid and insult your intelligence, and probably do not sell their product as well as if they presented the product in a straight forward honest manner.
I'm not talking here about a catchy phrase, like "Where's the beef", or "I'd walk a mile for Camel." Those are clever and the product sticks in your mind.
Which brings me to the latest Infiniti Commercial. It's not funny or even clever. It just makes you scratch your head wondering, who thought this would sell their cars.
If you've seen any of their latest ads they seem to be marketing to mainly snooty, rich, white women.
This is the company, that some years back, had this great idea to introduce their latest car, BY NOT SHOWING IT!
Instead, the commercial was silent with words on the screen that said "The Car is Coming!" and "It Will Change Your Driving Experience Forever" etc. before a backdrop of a winding country road.
The current commercial is called "The Band Recital," and it depicts an orchestra made up of these cute well groomed middle school kids who are trying to play the 2001 Space Odyssey Theme. Unfortunately they're playing it badly, and way out of tune, but they don't know it.
They play their little hearts out reminding all of us of those times we sat at a concert of our own kids. We would never think of doing what this gal does in the commercial.
First of all, she has her QX60 parked in front of the band. They're not outside, they're inside! Who drives their car into a school auditorium to listen to their kids band?
That's weird enough, but it gets worse.
This gal has her windows and moon roof opened, but as soon as she hears the cacophony of this little orchestra, she closes the windows and roof, and with a smile of pleasure this rich b*tch turns on her car stereo playing the 2001 Theme by a professional orchestra.
The thought of this commercial, for sure, will remind me of the Infiniti product, but it doesn't make me want to buy one of their cars.
who even thought up an ad campaign around an EMU?
makes no sense to me- and Doug is just stupid and looks like a kiddie diddler.
You play the cello?
I think he is differentiating between funny and catchy.
The floor fiddle? Heck no!
The ads keep running so their marketing is telling them it’s working. I really doubt Liberty Insurance is selling more policies because of this ad.
For one thing, they’re long and expensive. Why not cut the ad time in half, and make it serious, but maybe they’re appealing to dimwit young college air heads on weed.
The ads are creepy, and he’s super creepy. He wears those Howard Stern glasses, so you can’t see his eyes. And you nailed it, he’s Biden weird.
This is the. guy who you had in high school who would take the money collected for a school fund raiser.
2001? Hmmmm. French horn?
The sube is the little old lady and Volvo replacement car of New England
The 80s SAABs were wonderful and great handling cars. Much better than the audis
Gee that looks pretty good. Anyone have a slap chop?
I think the opening rumble is the contrabass, timpani and bassoons followed by the familiar ascending trumpet riff of three minims.
so far i can’t think of one ad that I’ve ever seen that made me think “Oh, I’m gonna buy one of THOSE”
Ads are just annoying clips i have to put up with if i did not record the show.
It’s not snooty, it’s snotty.
YOu’re right...
Snotty, self absorbed, uppity, Karen, white B.
If the ad were really accurate, she’d be wearing her mask....
The commercials back in the 50s and 60s were almost all for cigarettes. Talk about a campaign to make you think it was healthy to smoke.
I was watching the Quiet Man last night. They were whiting out the cigarette and pipe smoking!!! Crazy, because you can still tell they’re smoking.
The most disturbing ads that I can recall from recent times for the Burger King ads. The ones where the king leaning over people’s beds and in other locations. Totally creeped me out. And I am sick of liberty mutual ads. Can’t get to the remote fast enough to change the channel. I have a pact with my wife that we will never buy a liberty mutual products.
I’d say more than half of the current commercials are mindless, and they’re probably written by young left wing liberal nut jobs who are too lazy to come up with something clever or witty.
Pretty sure I am far from the only one. I hope that some of the more woke companies see the drop in profits and draw the appropriate inference. However, that assumes that they value profits over wokeness. That is far from a certainty these daze either.
My LTD lasted nearly 400K.
My Lincoln is doing just fine at 207K, thank you.
My Nissan lasted 150K.
My Dodge lasted 110K
My Audi lasted 85K.
My Toyota lasted 75K.
The only GM products I really liked were the Pontiac and Oldsmobile divisions. I didn’t drive them to death, though.
I agree. Whenever I see “dancing” commercials I roll my eyes.
Datsun made fools of themselves with those goofy rocks and stuff ads a long time ago.
Some wag opined that Datsun was having trouble finding buyers of their gussied up car, but sales of rocks and twigs was way up.
Sounds like the maker of the crappiest cars from Japan has not learned.
Never owned any sort of Datsun product. Drove a few and they felt uniformly cheap.
Reminded me of the old “made from recycled beer cans” used to describe early Japanese cars.
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