Raw, but c*nsored blabbing and blogging of a young journalista
and local news producer in Southern New England.
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Sunday, September 11, 2005

God, that commercial is so awful!

The Seattle P-I's Bill Virgin: No one makes ads bad on purpose -- or do they?:

After all, the number of bad ads seems so much larger than the number of amusing, entertaining or intelligent ads. No one could make that many bad ads, and ads that bad, without intending to -- could they?

In some cases, badness does appear to be intentional. Consider a local example, the radio ads for Renton car dealership Good Chevrolet in which a bombastic nitwit bellows a stream of nonsense, summing it up with a heartfelt "yippie yi yo ki yay." Such ads could only be written with the philosophy that "any attention is good attention," and as far as it goes the thinking is valid -- we did remember the name of the sponsor, after all.

Whether an ad that unpleasant would motivate anyone to actually buy from that dealership is another matter.

Yeah, I say there's worth in BAD ads. Consider:

"Oh, my GOD, that commercial is so awful!!!!!!"
"What was it FOR anyway?"

"Did you see that commercial with the dancing dwarf?"
"What does that have to do with steel-belted radial tires?"

"Oh, jeez, here comes that stupid commercial again."
"Oh, I HATE that."

Could we make the case that certain news stories are the same way -- it may be STUPID, i.e. "oh, my god, why did we have that piece of sh*t on the air?" but it GETS PEOPLE TALKING.

......Oooh, I'm hungry. What's for dinner?

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 9/11/2005 07:59:00 PM ... Email this entry ...
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