Has anyone else noticed a recent trend in the world of television advertising? I know that viewers in different physical locations will see different advertisements, depending upon advertising time sold locally by one’s cable company, but it seems to me that no matter where you are, companies have recently been attempting to beat you into submission by playing, replaying and replaying a specific commercial interminably during a particular program. During CFL telecasts this past season, for example, the undisputed worst corporate offender was Wendy’s: their spots featuring a “training knave” who is dispatched to replenish the supply of burger patties, only to discover (evidently crack-addled) actors rehearsing some sort of play in the restaurant’s freezer drove Spouse and I to distraction. It was easy to tell when one of those spots came on at our house, no matter where you were in the building – shouted profanities and the unmistakable sounds of someone leaping for the remote control and the sweet relief offered by the “mute” button were a dead giveaway. Even when you were in the bathroom, you could totally tell when the damn thing was on in this way. Other advertisers have offended using this method as well: Future Shop and its current series featuring the lanky doofus croaking some horrendous song purportedly authored as a Christmas gift for his girl spring to mind, as do any Coors Light ad and those bowel-movement inducing “This is ouuuuuuuuuuuur” country truck advertisements.<\/p>\n
During Monday Night Football last night, I saw for the first time a Taco Bell ad in which Dork #1 harasses Dork #2 about the inadequacy of spicing in the fast food that Dork #2 has selected to purchase from Taco Bell (some sort of chipotle-flavoured cat food wrapped in a tortilla). The ad concludes when Dork #1 suffers the indignity of his own fast food purchase (from a fictional competitor) igniting in the paper bag he is holding in his hand. I should perhaps say more accurately that I saw this spot for the first thirty<\/em> times last night – and then it was halftime. <\/p>\n I can’t understand the thinking behind this ad-buying strategy. If Taco Bell wants to annoy me beyond the bounds of civility and then remind me every six minutes of their institutional policy concerning callous disregard for my continued sanity, well then mission accomplished. What I need to know is why they are doing this to me and what commercial rewards they expect to reap from propelling me into madness. I know that there are some who will say, “Ah, but you REMEMBER the ad; that’s why they do it!” To this, I simply say that I have adopted a firm policy, as of last evening, of purchasing absolutely nothing from Taco Bell unless and until that ad is discontinued. Also, if I flip my lid and lose my job, then I’ll just be wandering the street in a bathrobe muttering about how the radio waves are controlling my mind and – this is important, you “Run for the Border” types – not bringing home the bling, which seriously affects the amount of disposable income I have available to drop on overpriced and under-nutritious foodstuffs.<\/p>\n For me, the continuous re-emergence of this particular commercial last night definitely adversely affected my evening; what was a very entertaining and compelling Monday night tilt between the undefeated Patriots and an insanely motivated bunch of Ravens kept getting intruded upon by the idiotic repetition of this stupid ad, to the point that I was finding it difficult to simply enjoy the game. To be clear, it is not so much the content of the spot that I object to – although the ad is dumb, it would probably be otherwise unremarkable if I didn’t happen to see it something like forty times in a little more than three hours. Yo, Taco Bell, how come you harshin’ on my pigskin buzz? <\/p>\n I know, I know, this is hardly the most controversial topic ever broached, but I need to vent on this subject. Seriously. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Has anyone else noticed a recent trend in the world of television advertising? I know that viewers in different physical locations will see different advertisements, depending upon advertising time sold locally by one’s cable company, but it seems to me that no matter where you are, companies have recently been attempting to beat you into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}