simmo wrote:99% of all adverts I find to be unwatchable.

My grandad always used to mute the osund when the advert breaks came on. I started doing the same a few years back.

It's heavenly. THat old man had a plan, and it was a good one.

Ha, my grandad used to do the exact same thing. Might have to try that as I just find myself shouting at the telly (another family tradition) in ad breaks.

Muting the sound = NOT CRAP. Particularly as the sound on ads is subjectively louder. It's incredibly easy, really removes the intrusiveness, and makes you feel less like a passive observer taking the rough with the smooth. I recommend it to everyone.

What could be more irredeemably vulgar than a person/people begging for your patronage?

I'd have more respect for the advertising industry if adverts uniformly featured the head of the company (possibly backed by it's shareholders) imploring you, or better tearfully pleading with you to buy their stuff.

It appears to be the role of the contemporary advert to attempt to mask/subvert A the act of begging for your custom, and B the power-balance of the 'interaction'.

As it is, all adverts are obviously CRAP. Particularly TV adverts.

Fuck adverts.

There was a cartoon I saw in Private Eye years ago that said that advertising was the art of robbing people of their self respect and selling it back to them. This summed it up perfectly for me.

The adverts for the armed forces in the UK basically make me despair.

houseboat wrote:The adverts for the armed forces in the UK basically make me despair.

But don't you want to know WHAT HAPPENS NEXT..?

Jesus, I hate to think what happens to anyone fool enough to put their details in to the website just to get the second half of a fucking advert...

They have a lot of ads for the military here in the US where the teenage son is convincing his parents that it's a good idea and the right thing for him to do. For his future.

Yep.

Tommy Alpha wrote:

houseboat wrote:The adverts for the armed forces in the UK basically make me despair.

But don't you want to know WHAT HAPPENS NEXT..?

Jesus, I hate to think what happens to anyone fool enough to put their details in to the website just to get the second half of a fucking advert...

My girlfriend has a mate who actually does that. And if you haven't already guessed she is a total idiot (not my girlfriend btw, she's merely slightly foolish).

Any adverts that try to make razor's or toothbrushes look hi-tech and exciting.

I don't need a computer generated image to explain how a blade cut hairs off my face. I already fucking know.

Yeah, especially as its made out to be a momentous event- when a blue thing meets an orange thing and makes... a razor?