I Hate Commercials

seriously. i f-in' hate commercials. i hate them.

now and again, something genuinely fun or interesting will amuse me, but generally, commercials fail at both entertaining me as a viewer and enticing me as a potential customer. some make me downright angry. examples?? no problem...

- the yogurt commercial where the family has a grand old time spraying each other with water out in the backyard. oh i'm sure that sounds fairly benign, maybe even a little fun, but why do they do it in slow motion? the creators of this ad have now turned family fun in the sun into something borderline seductive. slow motion water should be relegated to sex line commercials, r&b music videos or parodies of either. but to have a mom and kids in wet t-shirts, tossing their hair slowly in the sunshine is just gross and creepy. and has NOTHING to do with yogurt.

- the car commercial in which they ask: 'did you see the solar eclipse? did you see the woman with the leopard?' the concept may have looked good on paper but could it be any more condescending? it sounds like it was written by some know-it-all smartass. let's consider the visual: a slick vehicle swerving around some high rises. from the first fade in, it is obviously a car commercial. nothing unique there. so no shit i didn't notice the eclipse or the leopard, but neither do i notice the grassy hills or boutiqe background on any other car commercial! that doesn't make this company special. and the funny part is, i'm not leaving out the name of the car so as not to identify the company... i really actually don't know which one it is. withhold the commission for that writer.

- every eHarmony commercial. let me preface this by saying i have nothing against dating sites or the people who use them. i think love can be found in any way as long as there's mutual trust and respect. but my God...the background music, the slow motion - YES again!! must it be so cheesy and lame? if i was single and wanted to use a dating site, i wouldn't use eHarmony for fear of becoming one of those sickly sweet couples. one in particular grinds my gears: when the gentleman says that bars and clubs are the passive way of meeting someone, and that eHarmony is the active way. hold on a second now. passive means someone other than yourself is doing the work while active says you're doing it. going out involves you gussying up, heading to the hoedown and charming your way into someone's BlackBerry. is that not an active approach? and eHarmony involves you filling out the online survey and having the service match you with potential people. hmmm... sounds passive to me! this is not to compare the merits of each method; i'm sure they both have their pros and cons. but that whole commercial is rendered pointless when their spokesperson doesn't have his terms correct!

i do enjoy the Dos Equis commercials, and for some reason i love the little food characters on the Excel commercial. so it's not all bad out there. some writers are capable of entertaining the audience while remaining memorable. these ads shine all the more brighter when lined up against the rubbish i listed above. we are a materialistic society, wrapped up in consumerism. do these companies not have enough money to pay some good writers?! if they posted a YouTube contest and implored the masses, i'm sure they'd come up with advertising gold...instead of cornball couples and dairy product incest.