Husband has a terrible cough and has been hacking loudly through dinner. He uses his own cough drops, but continues to bark like a dying seal. Only then does the wife reveal her own cough drops, which have been cleverly hidden in her purse the whole time. What the hell was she waiting for?
This scenario is also played as two girlfriends going out to lunch (which is an ad cliché in its own right).
The money shot is the beautifully manicured hand pulling the product out of a purse.
It's supposed to say "See ladies? It fits in your purse, so you should immediately buy it."
Usually shown as two 15-second clips back to back. The first 15-second commercial is number 34, in a series of helpful ways the product can improve your life. The next commercial is number 18. There are no other handy household tips at all, only number 34 and number 18. They are usually accompanied by a smarmy seen-it-all mom voiceover, exasperatedly recounting these two solitary items as if she has been reading you the whole list.
This is shown most often in commercials for cereal, where the milk pours into the cereal from a stupefying height, cresting and splashing up and out of the bowl. This is done often in ads for refreshing beverages, chocolate, and most mystifyingly, liquid bleach. I have never been sure what exactly this is supposed to represent. No one I know has ever poured bleach from the top of a stepladder.
The commercial is for a car, and they invariably show the car fish-tailing to a screeching halt. I suppose this stunt is to appeal to my alpha-male side. Yes please, give me a car that spins. Preferably spraying a fine mist from a wet road, or spewing dust in a giant cloud as I rip through the desert, destroying my clear-coat. Funny how on TV a car spinning around is supposed to demonstrate the car���������s agility, but in real life it means someone is about to die.
Please. If you want a big famous athlete in your ad, there���������s a right way and a wrong way to make it happen. The way to do it properly is to show the athlete in black and white, in slow motion, bouncing the basketball, cracking the baseball bat, or launching the football. Have them look all serious into the camera, and keep their mouths shut. The way to screw it all up is to give the athlete lines.
Just look at Michael Jordan. One of the greatest athletes in history and the man cannot pronounce words. It blew my mind that MCI, a communications company, used a spokesperson who could barely communicate. He sounded like a drunk stockbroker chewing taffy. I thought, damn, if someone wanted to pay me a million dollars to say something asinine like, "Now I can talk with all my Space Jam buddies", I would make damn sure that what I said clearly sounded like "Now I can talk with all my Space Jam buddies".
Hanes, the underwear brand, finally got it right. Please notice next time you see a Hanes commercial with Michael Jordan - he doesn't speak. He'll just smile real big or raise an eyebrow. Finally! Other companies should take a lesson from Hanes. Do not ask athletes to talk. They are not good at it.
This would be in, oh, every commercial ever made for breakfast cereal. They keep showing cereal in situations where cereal is never appropriate. Ever. Like in the elevator.
I have seen ads with an entire girls soccer team eating Cheerios on the bench. That���������s right, Moms. Cheerios, with milk, a bowl and a spoon is a portable snack suitable for the athletic field. I have also seen a commercial (for Post Blueberry Morning) with a woman sitting in the branches of a tree eating cereal. In a fucking tree!
They simply don���������t want to show you images of people leaning over the kitchen sink, slurping the last sandy gulp of milk from the bottom of the bowl while they hurriedly hike their messenger bags over their shoulders.
Here we show people from all walks of life, each speaking a fragment of a sentence, so that we at home can marvel at the bewildering juxtaposition of ethnic diversity and unity of purpose. At the end of the commercial, each person in turn says only the last part of a sentence, again and again. This makes the commercial poignant. Repeating the entire last sentence one more time makes it extra poignant.
On the message board we have come to refer to this phenomenon as DumbDaddy. Daddy can���������t cook. Daddy can���������t clean. Daddy can���������t discipline the child. Daddy can���������t control himself in the electronics store. Daddy runs in circles holding a baby at arm���������s length. He has absolutely no idea what it is or why it makes that noise. Daddy takes the kids to McDonald���������s because Mom is nowhere to be found. These commercials are meant to empower the female viewer by displaying men as weak overgrown children who Need Your Help.
The foul treatment of men in commercials has been expanded to include Young Stupid Guy. This is the guy you see in commercials for beer, pizza and those energy drinks.
In Commercial Land, being a moron is the best way to appear manly. Young Stupid Guy will chase a truck on foot because it has a picture of food on it. Young Stupid Guy will wrestle a live bear for a Bud Light or drive off a cliff for a Mountain Dew.
The worst part about the Young Stupid Guy commercials is that they are aimed at Young Stupid Guy. You���������re supposed to want to be Young Stupid Guy.
This is when the actor goes ���������uh..��������� and hesitates and talks all slow, in order to sound more natural. All this does is piss me off. I���������m like ���������SPIT IT OUT!��������� It doesn���������t sound more natural, it just sounds like the person can���������t remember what they were just talking about.
The commercial uses the Tina Turner song "Simply the Best." Using the innovative rhyme, "You're the best / better than the rest", Tina Turner's dopey "Simply the Best" has been used by cruise lines and roofers alike, all claiming to be the best. Please, let's give it a rest.
Fantastic example would be these new medication commercials where they have to list all of the warnings and side effects for the drug, so they show two girlfriends casually talking over lunch about dizziness, dry mouth and heat rash.
The ad is for pads or tampons or diapers or any product that absorbs pee, and they prove the product���������s spongeworthiness by pouring blue liquid on it. Sometimes they show a woman���������s manicured hand delicately pouring the liquid from a test tube, the way it happens in real life.
This is when they take a popular song and change the lyrics so the song is about the product.
Remember "Toyota's Hot Hot Hot" and Budget Gourmet's "Things That Make You Go Mmmm" ?
This is not the same as when they use a song you used to love, and play it until you hate it - like what Cadillac did to Led Zeppelin a few years back (as if any Cadillac driver listens to Zeppelin). Led Zep's "Rock and Roll" will forever remain unchecked in my iTunes playlist.
These commercials feature some thick-headed guy who just doesn���������t get it. Even though someone is talking right to his face, the guy can���������t hear or can���������t understand, leaving their exasperated friend to repeatedly shout, ���������It���������s not delivery, it���������s DiGiorno��������� or ���������AFLAC��������� I should point out that repeatedly shouting ANYTHING within a 30-second period is a great way to annoy people really quick. It���������s bad manners.
