Why are advertisements so stupid?

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DuckRacer

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I go on the internet, and I see retarded crap like "press the fart button hurr" and "YOU ARE THE 999,999TH VISITOR COLLECT YOUR PRIZE", among other things.

I turn on the TV, and I see slightly less inane crap, but still f'ing annoying with commercials usually louder than the show you're watching (and said commercials are usually stupid in concept anyway).

I open up Newsweek or GameInformer, and while print mags aren't as bad as previously mentioned forms of media in comparison, most of the ads are still stupid, crap, and horribly cliche.

It's not like advertisements can't be good, witty, and/or make you more interested in their product – the Super Bowl alone disproves that. But the thing is, on the other 364 days of the year, it's all crap. Crap crap crap. Advertisers complain about TiVo, webmasters complain about Adblock, etc. Why can't these advertising agency yayhoos step up their game so instead of installing Adblock to stop seeing "OMG LOL UR VISITOR #1,000,000" or TiVoing past retarded commercial #673, we'd actually want to see what they're coming up with, whether for entertainment reasons or otherwise?


/rant
 
Not everyone is an intellectual, so they just make their ads for the lowest common denominator. It's also cheaper to hire a really bad script writer/marketing person when you don't really need a good one, because ads are accepted to be dumb. As long as the commercial grabs your attention with sex/shouting/dumb jokes it has achieved its purpose.

You got me on the internet ads though, I have no clue how anyone could be so stupid to click on them.
 
Ads simply don't have enough time to create a long, drawn out, thoughtful, extremely boring, tl;dr....


Ads have about 5 seconds to get your attention and tell you exactly what the hell you want to buy, and why. Because after 5 seconds you realize what you're watching is indeed an advertisement and you should ignore everything they're telling you.


Honestly, if you have a quality product that people will truly want, advertising is rarely necessary.
 
TV advertising is mostly about getting exposure for your company name. TV advertising costs so much it tends to be done mainly by well established brands anyway. In this day and age of TiVo/Sky+ the advertisers know that people will just fast forward the ads, i know i do. So they'll ensure that even at 16x speed the company logo can still be seen for a second or so. Even in such a short period of time like a second your mind will still register that brand logo. You'd be surprised at how effective that is at steering the buying public towards their products on the store shelves.
 
The irony is that the more annoying an advert is, the more you notice is - that's why they do it... far from appealling to the lowest common denominator, advertisers know fair well that they are being annoying, and they're doing it on purpose...

Saw this on telly last night :D

 
Car insurance adverts are really bad alongside cleaning products. The only good adverts seem to come from alcohol related products (Stella adverts, Carling, Fosters, Strongbow)
 
EWillis
usually louder than the show you're watching
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This bugs the living hell out of me. Fox is by far the worst offender. I think they actually turn down the volume of their shows so that the commercials require earplugs. The thinking is that if you're drifting off to sleep during the show, you definitely want to be waken up for the ads. From the company's logic, this is good. However, if I'm ever waken up by an ad, I write that company's name down, and boycott them forever.
 
EWillis
Why can't these advertising agency yayhoos step up their game so instead of installing Adblock to stop seeing "OMG LOL UR VISITOR #1,000,000" or TiVoing past retarded commercial #673, we'd actually want to see what they're coming up with, whether for entertainment reasons or otherwise?


/rant
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Advertisers are only as good as the products they advertise. You can have a massively creative mind who will do insanely good ads and have many Cannes, Clio and FIAP Grand Prix below his belt, but if the client doesn't understand or doesn't like the ad, it will not publish.

In the same way, in some cases they have to publish what the client likes. And if the client is as square as they come, you get what you're talking about. Let's face it, most company owners are older people, and in some cases, completely off their target audience. For example, the target audience for a soft drink usually is 12 to 18 year olds, but the company owner is probably in the 40 to 55 year old range... when they do advertising, the ad has to go through the company owner (in most cases), and if he doesn't understand it or doesn't like it, it stands little chance of getting through.

I'm in the same position; I have one Cannes short-list, a couple of FIAP and other of Latin America, yet I'm in an ad agency where the ads, however creative have to be approved by the agency's manager, who is of a very suqare mind, and by the clients, who are much worse.

This happens because in order to be responsible for a marketing or advertising department within a company, you have to have studied either marketing, finance, accounting, or other "square" majors. In these majors they study that ads must be straight and directly to the point (I used to be a MKT major, and changed later to COM, focus on advertising). But in Advertising you're taught a completely different thing.

There's little solution to this. It's a pesudo scientific fact that you're more developed on one side of the brain over the other. If you're very analytical, you can rarely be very creative... or creative enough to make awesome ads.

The only solution is to have marketing people develop (someway) an open view, to have them think outside the box and be able to approve good advertising when presented to them. These "future marketers" are quite rare, and that's why usually only big companies (Pepsi, Nike, Merryl Lynch, Revlon, etc) employ them (they also have huge egos).

I can go deeper into this, but I'm at work, making a dull ad. :indiff:
 
I heard that they turn the volume up in ad breaks because people use these breaks to run off to refresh their drink / relieve themselves / retrieve a snack from the fridge. The higher volume means that you still hear the ad even if you can't see it.

Makes sense to me but that didn't come from someone in the industry so it could be utterly wrong.

Annoying ads bother me completely. People shouting when they don't have to is the worst, and while such behaviour makes me remember the brand, it discourages me from purchasing the product. The flipside is, when I do need this product or an equivalent, guess which one I think of first...

I also think that an ad often ends up being stupid because it was trying to be original. Creative ideas aren't always good ideas.. and I get bugged by ads that tell you to be wary of a particular type of ad or sales pitch, and then go on to be exactly the same type of ad as the ones they warn you about.

One good example of that is one company here who run ads consistently almost throughout the year, announcing their 50% off sale which ends soon. A month later the ad is still running. Next month it's a different ad, but the same deal. If you can offer 50% off for 11 months of the year, then it's not really a discount at all, is it? In fact, anyone paying full price for one of this company's products has surely been seriously ripped off. Wait two weeks and the product you wanted will be "half price" too.

Anyway, they obviously felt that the public was noticing this and giving less attention to the ads, as they felt compelled to release one the other week addressing that exact problem. They asked the question "how can we offer these savings all the time?" They didn't actually answer their own question, but did take the opportunity to point out that they currently have a 50% sale on, which ends soon... :rolleyes:

Please note that I have not identified the brand or its use in these two cases as I'm definitely not about to give them any free advertising...
 
Giancarlo
If they have the can my butt look any bigger meal, will you get me one?
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ha. subway. No matter how retarded their ads get, I still won't eat there. They're waaaay too expensive for what they offer.

oh, & btw: I used all three versions of the 'there' word, seperately & properly in my previous statement, FTW.
 
Alfaholic
I heard that they turn the volume up in ad breaks because people use these breaks to run off to refresh their drink / relieve themselves / retrieve a snack from the fridge. The higher volume means that you still hear the ad even if you can't see it.

Makes sense to me but that didn't come from someone in the industry so it could be utterly wrong.
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Well, that and if you don't get up, at least to get your attention... still, it's a very "backwards" mentality. The volume up strategy went out of use in the late 80s.

Alfaholic
I also think that an ad often ends up being stupid because it was trying to be original. Creative ideas aren't always good ideas.. and I get bugged by ads that tell you to be wary of a particular type of ad or sales pitch, and then go on to be exactly the same type of ad as the ones they warn you about.
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There's ads that are definitely better than others, and then there's creative who'll copy a good ad and try to make it work for their product.

There's also the commercial "intro", which is like a sound or voice that is at the start of every commercial of a set brand that makes the consumer already be attentive at the sound of it... notice how all Playstation2 ads started with the same "ding" sound. In fact, Playstation has been very groundbreaking in their advertising, by starting this ding sound and in print ads they were among the first to not even put the logo in the ad itself.

Keep in mind there's also "smart" advertising, targeted at a set audience, which makes them think a bit and possibly become more involved in the ad itself. Then there's dumb(er) advertising, which is just straight, to the point, no shortcuts and no interaction needed. I'll post some examples when I get the chance.
 
Also working in the Advertising industry, I believe the reason TV ads are many times stupid and annoying is because TV is already a sensory overload. Therefore, in order to capture the viewers attention, a lot of times the advertisers try and make their ad have a character of its own. This is also due to the fact that we as humans are so GOOD at avoiding ads now.

Just think about it. All of us here without GTPremium know there is a pop-up for Netflix upon entering the site. We also know there is always a banner at the top of each page. But because we now these are here, we tend to avoid them easier. Its just like changing the channel on the TV or TiVo'ing past them.

Where I work, we are a very small agency that does work for local car dealerships and new residential communities. This isn't like the loud yelling and jargon on Radio but nice, simple solutions that include TV, direct mail and print advertisements. We also do a little on the web but no banners or pop-ups. It really all depends on who is making the ads and like -Diego- said, a lot of times its the lead designer or art director that will make the executive decision to change something and if you are simply in art production like myself then you have no choice but to comply.

And just because you see a nationally aired commercial doesn't mean the company is worth a damn. Take those career sites. Sure, they make have commercials that make them seem like a good idea but I joined both careerbuilder and monster only to find that my inbox was then cluttered with junkmail from "companies" who scan specific words in your resume and then try and "follow up" with an email. Its quite annoying and shouldn't be allowed but it happens.

Basically, as bad as it sounds, dont always look at an ad and expect a mirror image when looking at the company.
 
95GTIVR6
a lot of times its the lead designer or art director that will make the executive decision to change something and if you are simply in art production like myself then you have no choice but to comply.
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I'm a copywriter-turned-graphic-designer-turned-art-director-turned-creative-director, so I'm usually making the decisions, but in 4th world Spain, it's the AE or AS who makes the final decision... damn him, he's even below me in the organization chart!
 
To answer the original question, they're stupid because stupid ads work.

Personally I find most TV commercials so intellectually offensive that I don't bother watching TV at all.
 
Touring Mars
The irony is that the more annoying an advert is, the more you notice is - that's why they do it... far from appealling to the lowest common denominator, advertisers know fair well that they are being annoying, and they're doing it on purpose...

Saw this on telly last night :D

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Aha Mitchell & Webb. Its true what they said though...Well slightly.


As to the topic, they do it because some idiots click the 'YOU HAVE WON THE PRIZE FOR COMING TO THIS SITE YOU ARE VERY SPECIAL AND WE LOVE YOU' in flashing lights. Thats what fules them on, if no one clicked them, they would go away, or find other ways of drawring you in.

I got an advert the other day saying you are the 10,634th visitor please click here to find out what you've won.


As for TM's post the video is right, soon as people see a weakness i the market they pounce on it, thats why most of them are the same on TV. Several Shampoo ads have people in white coats, fancy words and people with long hair shaking there head back and forth. Soon as they see that sells they all do it. Same with internet ads, one person put 'YOU ARE A WINNER', many people click, the rest follow, so many others did it and flooded the internet.

The best ad's are funny & unoriginal or tell it as it is 👍
 

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