Commercials used to have the loudness problem more prevalently; now it's a lot less common. But yes, Magnavox made TVs that adjusted.
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Lummox JR wrote:
Which swiffer ads are you referring to? That doesn't sound familiar. Huh. The whole "And I know it hurts, but I've found something better" routine. That can't be a Canadian-only phenomenon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w4e-C90EBw Imagine the same commercial played once per commercial break, with twenty other variations on that same commercial all talking about people getting fed up with their partners on varying occasions. | |
Oh, those Swiffer commercials.
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I'm truly shocked that nobody has mentioned Apple's "Get a Mac" ads. It seems to me that they've got all of the following categories locked up:
* Most Irritating * Most Embarrassing * Lamest Concept * Most Pretentious: General * Least In-Touch | |
But Mike, isn't that the perfect description of Macs and their users?
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Elation wrote:
But Mike, isn't that the perfect description of Macs? No, just Mac users. | |
Embarrassing, not really, but definitely pretentious.
They do target Microsoft-haters-who-use-Windows fairly well... I know I smirked at a couple of them ("You are coming to a sad realisation. Deny or Allow?" "...Allow."). They are somewhat irritating, though it'd get only honourable mention at best, and even then I think there are others. Which car commercial is it where the police stop in the middle of a police pursuit in order to look at the car? That one is pretty pretentious too. I think it's a KIA commercial, which is strange in its own right because the KIA advertisers usually have more than enough funny at their disposal (that old exploding shopping cart one was hilarious). | |
My TV is only for video games and DVD's.
<mama_boucher>Television is the devil!</mama_boucher> | |
God, I hate the volume jump... I used to watch syndicated Highlander at like 1:00 o'clock in the morning as a kid... and I'd have the TV volume adjusted to a reasonable level... but of course, late night commercials are the worst offenders of the bunch (probably because they figure people are dozing off in front of the set and they want to get their attention)... so every time it went to commercial, my mother would yell at me to turn the TV down.
Which I would, but of course, I had to turn it down almost to nothing to get Crazy Shouty Car Guy and Crazy Shouty Government Money Guy and all their Crazy Shouty friends not to be audible upstairs where people were sleeping. when the show came back on I'd have to turn it back up to the reasonable level to hear the dialogue... and then the next commercial break it would just blare again. I had to be really quick on the draw. :P | |
Oh, Mac has had some brushes with the Ad-Schlocks in the past. Of course, I can't hold it against them this time because they're putting the screws to Windows Vista. The new ads are mostly more cute than pompous.
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For "Least In-Touch" - the Subway ad with the 8-bit style video game graphics and Atari 2600 style controllers strikes me as very anachronistic.
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There are ways of removing commercials automagically - MythTV (an open source software package for receiving TV from various sources and streaming it across a network or time-shifting it, amongst other things) has a feature that automatically cuts out commercials. Don't know how it works, but my friends and I theorize that it has something to do with the rapid change of images that you get pretty much consistently in commercial breaks.
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Danial.Beta wrote:
The Austrialian travel commercials have a horrible slogan, "So where the bloody hell are you?" That's not horrible, that's culture =P "Where the bloody-hell have you been" or "where the bloody-hell are you going?" are actually quite common phrases around here. I hear (and say) them quite often myself. If you want to rag on Australian commercials. The one AND only one, is the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for 2007 advertisement. I'm not sure if it's advertised there, and I can't find a place it's been put on the Internet, but it's -the- most annoying advert in the world. By far. | |
Tiberath wrote:
If you want to rag on Australian commercials. The one AND only one, is the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for 2007 advertisement. I'm not sure if it's advertised there, and I can't find a place it's been put on the Internet, but it's -the- most annoying advert in the world. By far. Do you realize how high a bar that is? | |
Lummox JR wrote:
Tiberath wrote: Consider this: an advertisement of roughly 10 people forcing laughter, and then, said laughter has been cut up to make a tune. Now, being forced laughter, it is annoying enough. But to have 10 odd peoples laughter put into the form of a tune, is just maddening. | |
I found it! Surprisingly enough, it was on their website...
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/season/2007/popup.tvad.php | |
Annoying and stupid, yes. Worst ad ever? I dunno.
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Crispy wrote:
Annoying and stupid, yes. Worst ad ever? I dunno. If it's not the worst, it's high up there. | |
Head On, apply directly to the forehead. Head On, apply directly to the forehead. Head On, apply directly to the forehead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOvFIxUz2XY | |
As for the loudness, I noticed commercials doing that a few years ago, and it was only certain commercials, but I think consumer outcry stopped those. Damn was it annoying. Radio tends to have that problem because you go from live DJs to pre-recorded commercials.