Lamest Commercials of the Season

Advertisers are constantly trying to come up with the next buzzworthy commercial to promote their product. Few actually hit it, most are just white noise, but now and then there’s a real stinker. Here are few of the most groan-worthy commercials I’ve seen recently. (Yes, despite my love of my DVR, I do still see commercials.)

Boost Mobile – Cannibal: A pig eating ham. Ingesting the flesh of “a fallen comrade”. This is what Boost uses to sell their mobile phones? GROSS. Then again, “gross” seems to be the name of the game for them. Maybe they have a bunch of frat boys running their ad campaign.

Dannon Light & Fit – Sucking: If Dannon wanted to sell yogurt by creating the sound equivalent of nails on a chalkboard, they succeeded. If they wanted to promote stealing their product by showcasing a woman chowing down in the middle of the supermarket, they succeeded.

Taco Bell – Black Jack Taco: It’s like they tried to appeal to every possible demographic by cramming jokes about black sheep, some hot chicks in black leather, a few fluffy black animals, and references to the little black dress in one commercial. Instead it’s a giant mess about a weird-looking taco. Pass.

Ask.com – Who Wants A Deal?: I don’t, I don’t! Not if it means I have to dance around like a cheeseball and pretend to like it. Check out the faces of the actors; you can almost see them thinking, “suck it up, it’s a national commercial and the electric bill is due.”

Healthy Choice – Julia Louis-Dreyfus: This is an example of a premise that probably looked good on paper, but upon execution is just lame. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is funny, yes, and her self-deprecating style of humor could be showcased brilliantly with the right ad campaign, but this isn’t it. Instead, she’s getting paid to constantly dis the idea of being a spokesperson for the product. How is that a positive image? On the other hand, we did get this amusing bit with Jane Lynch. I suppose sitting through several “this job is stupid/you’re a stupid agent” ads were worth the set up for Jane Lynch. Maybe.

Which commercials are making you roll your eyes and scoff, “I could do better than that!” this season?

DVR: TV Network’s New Best Friend?

A recent Nielsen report on DVR viewing habits, discussed in this New York Times article, shows that 46 percent of the coveted 18-49 demographic still sits through ads when watching shows on DVR. Wait, what? Wasn’t DVR supposed to kill network television because viewers could skip the ads? That was the cry from the networks when DVR usage really took off a couple of years ago, but the numbers coming out now are painting a much better picture.

Nielsen now reports the Live +3 (live viewings plus DVR playback over the following 3 days when commercials are watched) in their final ratings reports, and it’s boosting the numbers of most shows. Grey’s Anatomy and House see the biggest increase in viewership, but shows that have middling (How I Met Your Mother) or struggling (Heroes) ratings are seeing significant increases that add value and keep them on the air. Whether it will be enough for Heroes looks iffy right now, but at least NBC has some good news from the Nielsen report, because “the Leno effect” is dragging them down five nights a week. According to the report, The Jay Leno Show is one of the few shows who’s +3 rating is actually lower than the Live rating. In other words, no one’s watching live and no one’s DVRing. Ouch.

And just why are shows getting such an increase from the +3 data? Why are 46% of viewers not taking advantage of the technology to skip the ads? Analysts say it’s force of habit/laziness. We’re used to sitting through commercials, and televison is a passive activity, so it takes an active choice to fast forward. Makes sense. I also posit that for some, just being able to watch a show on their schedule, rather than the network’s, is enough of a convenience that skipping the commercials is an afterthought.

On the other hand, I want both. I like being able to watch a show when I want to watch it, and I’m squarely in the 54% who do fast forward.  Most of the time. I have been known to go back and watch an ad that looks intriguing, like the new Apple commercial with PC touting Windows 7 and Mac taking us back in time to all the other Windows OS claims. I had to go back and find out why PC had a mullet and flip up sunglasses. It made me chuckle.

What about you? Are you a DVR addict? Do you fast forward through the ads, or is getting to watch a show when you want enough for you? Have you ever gone back to watch an ad that looked interesting?

Semi-Watching the Super Bowl

I DVR’d the Super Bowl so I could fast forward the game and just watch the commercials since my team wasn’t playing. (I know, as if the Chiefs even had a shot this year.) Except that when I did turn on the game about 15 minutes in, there was enough excitement that I had to rewind to the beginning and watch the whole thing. Darn those boys, they went and made the game itself interesting! Sure, I was also cleaning the house, folding laundry, cooking, periodically switching over to TNT to see which episode of The Closer was next in the marathon, and playing around online, but I really hadn’t planned to watch the Super Bowl in real time.

I wasn’t terribly impressed with many of the commercials, but did get a kick out of the multiple promos for Chuck and the one for USA that aired at the very end, during the post-game show. Here’s the USA promo if you missed it:

Hee! Shawn & Gus! Mike & Fiona! Even Molly from The Starter Wife, which I found encouraging since we’re still waiting to hear if that show is getting another season.

What were your favorites?