Friday, March 16, 2007

CBS = The tool of the advertising devil

As much as I enjoy the NCAA tournament, and with Duke and Notre Dame being knocked out, the Big 10 doing well (Save for Wisconsin at the moment), Gus Johnson (tWWLiS's Bill Simmons, an unabashed Johnson fan himself, called Gus "A smoldering volcano!" Damn straight!) getting to call a close game, and Michigan State winning easily, I'm enjoying March Madness immensely, these is an aspect of the CBS broadcasts drive me big time batshit crazy.

That aspect being the unrelenting commercials. What doesn't help is that many of us are sitting through both the afternoon and night sessions, exposing us to the same damn ads over and over and over. I'm seeing Turtle from "Entourage" in my dreams. For example...

The number of CBS promos thrown at we viewers is overwhelming. On CBS Action Thursday! "How does a live man end up on Duckies autopsy table?" "NCIS?" Who watches that show? The average viewer demographic of "NCIS" is older than "Matlock's " It's "CSI" for the Abe Simpson set.

Turtle pimping DirecTV. It's run at least five times a half. In EVERY game! I'll admit that the ads for DirecTV that morph from actual movie/TV footage to one of the characters breaking the 4th wall and speaking to the audience are well done. But don't you think that struggling actor Johnny Drama would have been the obvious choice? He'd do any commercial in a heartbeat. Turtle is too busy getting stoned and playing video games. As Drama would say, "VICTORY!"

The ads from esurance, which star the cartoon chick. I see her more than Turtle. Enough! Sorry, Andrew...

Some of the greatest rock bands in history are selling out their back catalogs to the highest commercial bidder. I'm looking at you, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltry. Isn't it bad enough that you allowed the "CSI" franchise to butcher the Who's music, but "Baba O'Reily"used in a cisco ad? That's outright criminal. I can't explain...

"Mr. Faaaanncy Paaaannnts!" "What's next, an amp? AAAAHHH!" and the rest of those strange ads asking you to go Pontiac.com. Their reverse psychology isn't working. Those ads sure as Hell don't make me want to buy a convertible. They just get me annoyed with Pontiac.

The Michelin tire dude is outright creepy looking. If I see a giant French bloated blob made out of white rubber coming at me, I'm headed in the opposite direction.

"Vonage saves me about 100 bucks a month." "I save 60 dollars." Jesus H. Christ, how much do these people use their land lines that would allow them to save so much coin using Vonage? Stop living on the damn phone, folks. There's also the fact that when you hear The 5,6,7,8's "Woo Hoo" nearly as much as you see Turtle, the damn song is stuck in your mind for the rest of the tournament.

I so want to stay in the "Final Four" suite. Get me the reservation desk, pronto! But what in the living Hell does it have to do with State Farm Insurance? On the other hand, I'd buy insurance from Pedro Cerrano and Allstate. Come on, it's David Palmer, just the best president ever! If you can't trust him, who can you trust?

What in the living Hell is TIAA CREF? Can anyone tell me what on earth they do? Anyone? Bueller?

Lowes comes off über cheap in their ads. They sponsor the NCAA's, which I'm sure cost big money, yet don't shell out the few extra bucks for the license that would allow them to use actual universities? It makes the commercial cheesy as Hell. I see the schools named "T," "State," "A," "W University," and "Tech." Personally, I root for "Whatsamatta U."

2 comments:

  1. I'm probably less disappointed in The Who selling out than I am in The Thamesmen's "Gimme Some Money" being licensed to a credit card commercial.

    I heard Amtrak wanted to buy "All The Way Home," but since David was with The Creatures and Nigel with The Lovely Lads at the time the song was written, no one's quite sure who would get the royalties.

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  2. Ahhh...but you missed the best one of all. Enterprise is still breaking out that "Class of '94...here I come!" spot. The one where the pathetic guy has to rent a decent sedan to impress chicks at his reunion. (?) But best of all is that the spot came out about 3 years ago.

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