Commercials that just irritate you.... (1 Viewer)

[Paul McElligott]

The Aarons commercials with Darrel and Mikey Waltrip spring to mind, too.

 

[Tony Whalen]

Interesting thread.
Well, I'm a voice-over performer. I make my living with commercials a lot of the time. (Don't hang me!) So, I tend to listen to radio ads a lot closer than a lot of folks.
First off, I *hate* companies that insist on using their own staff/managers/owners for the commercial. Other than obviously taking away work from folks like me, I HATE listening to them! (Hated it BEFORE I got into this line of work.)
You know the ones. "Hi! I'm Bob from North Ford. We have a great deal today..." blah blah blah. Meantime, it sounds like he's reading to a two-year-old, or is so damned monotone, it puts me to sleep. For the love of GOD... if you're gonna pay for a radio ad, get a pro to do the voice work. (There was one in particular, an ad for a local investment firm, that drove me batshit. The "annoucer" read every single line with the same pattern. He'd read each SENTence. In the exaxt same PATTern. Every time he did an AD. It was really ANNOYing. GAH!!)
My other pet peeve... radio ads that use REALLY YOUNG kids. There is one in my area right now, I think for "selloffvacations.com" or something. The ad opens with a 3-4 year old singing something nearly unintelligible. It sends me through the roof every time. Kids are cute, sure. But when they are so young they can't be UNDERSTOOD?! I want to call them and say "Hi. Just wanted you to know that I'm NEVER using you for travel service as your ad is so bloody annoying that I'd rather floss my cat with my tongue than listen to that damned annoying kid again."
(Along the same lines, ... yeah... loose the talking babies in TV ads. Especially you Quiznos. As someone else posted, I'd rather watch the freaky space-hamster things again...*shudder*)

 

[Lynda-Marie]

"Bacardi guy, Cola..."

AUGH!! Make it stop!

These two guys look like rejected porn stars. Is this REALLY the image you want for your product?

 

[MarkHastings]

I *hate* companies that insist on using their own staff/managers/owners for the commercial.

Tell me about it! I hate those ads. You usually get those kinds of ads from local businesses.
My company produces a lot of corporate videos and I've seen my share of CEO's "acting". it's pretty nauseating!

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I too hate commercials that use small children in them, to me that's only two steps away from locking them in a sweathouse to sew cheap sneakers for a dollar a day. :rolleyes

 

[StephenA]

I hate the local lawyer commercials for James Sokolove and Barry Feinstein.

I hate the commercials with that crazy nerdy guy promoting all these books he wrote that will help you get money from the government.

I hate the Credit Angel commercials where a bunch of women are dressed up as angels.

I hate the Target commercials, especially since everything is the same color and has to match in them.

I hate the Petsmart and Petco commercials. The most aggrevating ones to me are the ones that show the people using the pet toys.

I hate the Circuit City commercials and the tagline "I guess you're just what I needed."

 

[MarkHastings]

that crazy nerdy guy

LOL
http://www.matthew-lesko.com/

 

[Nick]

There's one local commercial in Connecticut that I absolutely hate. Everytime it's on I have to either tune in to a different channel or shut it off.

It's Bob furniture store. Sometime he would have some girl in there with him not sure if it was his wife, mistress or co-worker. They both got the most annoying voices that I ever heard. Some of my friends can't stand them either so, I guess I'm not the only one.

 

[MarkHastings]

Nick, everytime I hear "Bob-o-pedic" or "Bobby-bear", I want top strangle him.
Or whenever he does that "I CAN'T be beat! I WON'T be beat!"
COME ON DOWN!!!

 

[StephenA]

I hate those Bob's Furniture commercials as well. When my dad was a live he used to tell me that the furniture Bob sells is shit. He said that because he said worked on some of them at the upholstry shop he worked at.

MarkHastings: That's the only way I could think of to describe the guy. I think it fits though.

 

[MarkHastings]

the furniture Bob sells is shit.

As much as I hate the commercials, I've had a Bob's bed since '98 and it's still kicking. It actually very good. Although, the thing with his stuff is, as long as you stay on the expensive end, you'll do ok. He definitely has a lot of 'bargain' stuff that looks like crap (and probably sucks).

With the bedding (at the time) he had like 3 levels of quality and I went with the best, which is probably why I had such a good experience.

 

[Nick]

How about when he said "I doubt it"

 

[StephenA]

MarkHastings: It could be that my dad just happened to work on a few bad couches and chairs, I don't know. I'm just mentioning what he said, I'm not expert with furniture and such.

 

[George_W_K]

This is the first commercial I thought of when I caught this thread! God, I hate that girl. "What the F- kind of business is it of yours, B-!"
Most of the commercials that annoy me are the ones on the radio while I'm at work. I don't watch too much regular tv.
Definitely - "Ask Lesko!"
I also hate those commercials that say they'll help you make money, or help with your depression - call now and I'll send you my FREE tape. Yeah, so we can hear an even longer version of the commercial on the tape.
I hate anything with "testimonials". I don't believe any of them are real. Or maybe that any of the positive calls are from a pool of about a billion calls that mostly aren't. "I paid my house off in two years on a 30 year mortgage."
I also hate all of the Bose commercials. The ones where they either have the local radio hosts claiming how they have one in their homes and how they replaced their big stereo. Or Paul Harvey claiming how he's said for years how great they are. I pretty much hate any Paul Harvery commercial.
You guys hit the nail on the head with the Prescription Commercials. The side effects include blindness, loss of brain activity, and gangrene. Use only as directed.
How about the diet pills? Disclaimer "If used in conjunction with a proper diet and exercise program."
Another one I agree with are the sound effects used. There's a local commercial for a ski place where a teenage girl is looking up info on the park and showing her dad what activities they can do. The sound effects of the computer keys are probably from a keyboard used in 1982 and so is the accompanying "beep". Annoying.
Another sound effect that drives me nuts is in some commercial where they tell you to "Call Now", but right before they say that, they have a cell phone ring. If you want me to call, wouldn't the proper sound effect be "touch tone" sounds? They'd probably use a rotarty dial sound effect anyway.
Oh God, another one just came to me. The Purina Challenge commercials. The local DJ saying how their cat, "Pooky" has been on the Purina diet for 30 days now and has so much more energy, blah blah.
This past Valentine's Day had some annoying commercials for ordering flowers online. You can only get this deal if you use my name as the coupon code! Except I heard the same deal on every show I listened to throughout the day, with the respective hosts saying the same thing.
I also really hate the DeBeers commercials. Especially the one where the guy and his woman are on vacation in Rome (or soemthing like that) and her parents are by a fountain, much to the girl's surprise, and the guy pulls out a HUGE rock and asks her to marry him all over again. Yeah, most guys can pull that kind of scenario off!
And finally, since it was brought up.
1-800-KARS For Kids, K-A-R-S, Cars For Kids! :p) :p)

 

[MarkHastings]

There's a local commercial for a ski place where a teenage girl is looking up info on the park and showing her dad what activities they can do. The sound effects of the computer keys are probably from a keyboard used in 1982 and so is the accompanying "beep".

My local radio station annoys the crap out of me because when they go to the news segment, they play this HORRID track in the background of phones ringing, typewriters typing, and people murmuring, to make it sound like the news announcer is in a news room. Ugh! Annoys the crap out of me! It's just as bad as the traffic noise they play behind the traffic reports.

 

[Curtis*H]

I despise the new Verizon commercial w/ the dweebie looking putz singing along to "Urgent" by Foreigner.

 

[Nick]

As soon as DJ's started talking before the song is over on XM radio I cancelled them the following month. I'm not gonna pay over ten dollars a month to hear people talk between songs. I can get that on my FM stations.

Some disagree with me that it's boring without DJ talking.

Well, the whole reason that I subscribe to Paid radio is because I don't have to hear anybody talk between songs. I don't even care if it's not even the commercial. If I want to hear poeple talk I'll tune in the talk station.

 

[Lynda-Marie]

Burger King commercials - whether that creepy plastic king who doesn't say anything, or Dr. Angus, who won't shut the f--- up. I call him Dr. Anus.
Personal hygiene commercials - whether for "feminine products" or male bodily functions that I want to know NOTHING about! Yes, guys, you're NOT the only ones who don't want to know about "intimate bodily functions." Some of the ones you guys have are pretty freaky to gals.
I wish the Too Much Information Act was actually a real set of laws on the books, and those marketing cretins could be charged with crimes based on violations of said Act.
(OTOH, it is rather amusing to watch my grandma whenever a Cialis or other such commercial comes on. She gets this look on her face like she just scraped something nasty off the bottom of her shoe. "What won't people talk about these days!")

 

[George_W_K]

How about the Verizon commercial where the father comes into the kitchen and tells his family they all have new phones and goes on to tell them a scenario on how they'll be able to use them to stay in touch. The part that I hate is when he looks at his son with the blue hair and black lipstick and says, "And when you do whatever it is that you do."
Yeah, the traffic reports don't need the traffic. When they're talking about the accident on I-271 or the Broken Down in the left lane of I-90, I kind of have the notion I'm listening to a traffic report. Plus, I don't hear a lot of horns honking while I'm on the highway.
Off topic: The traffic thing reminds me of something. I listen to Rover's Morning Glory on the radio in the mornings. A couple of years ago, when he was still here in Cleveland, the new traffic lady did her report and signed off with "Helen Wheels" as her name. Right after the report they went back to Rover and none of them could talk because they were laughing so hard at the name. Her name didn't really bother me, but since they were all laughing so hard, I couldn't help but laugh too. Sure enough, her name isn't "Helen Wheels" anymore, it's now "Lynny J". I'm not sure she changed it because they laughed at the name or not, but she did change it pretty fast.

 

[StephenA]

Now the Quaker Oats man looks like the Burger King guy. I just saw a commercial where they had the Quaker Oats man standing in different places so kids could get the snack bars they came out with.