Last Updated on: 11th February 2020, 11:09 am
Here we go with a few commercials that have caught our attention.
While I was at home, I happened to walk by the TV, which is near the table where we eat. As I did, I heard something to the effect of “You’re in a tropical paradise…when it hits you. The gut-wrenching panic of traveller’s diarrhea.” As the words gut-wrenching panic of Traveller’s Diarrhea were spoken, there was a sound that I can only describe as “splurch.” It was this horrible squishy squashy gurgling sound. I cannot find the damn commercial, it appears to be a Canadian commercial for this Dukoral vaccine to prevent Traveller’s Diarrhea, and Canadian commercials don’t get YouTubed as often as the American ones do. But my thought was “ug! We don’t need explicit sound effects, thank ya very much.” We all know what diarrhea is like. Blech!
I went to the website mentioned in the commercial, hoping to find a video of it, but couldn’t. But what I found was this:
Whether you call it Aztec two-step, Delhi belly, Hong Kong dog, Montezuma’s revenge, Rangoon runs, Tourist trot, Travelers diarrhoea, Travelers’ diarrhea, Turista, www.travellersdiarrhea.com can help.
Rangoon runs? There’s a new one for me. They really went all out on that list.
Then I noticed a commercial for Otrivin, this nasal spray, and they chose the slogan “the pleasure of breathing.” Um, pleasure? If I don’t breathe, I kinda die. Breathing is not a pleasure activity. Perhaps “the pleasure of breathing easily” might have been a better choice of slogan.
I had to chuckle at one of those “Windows 7 was my idea” commercials. Basically the message was ooo it doesn’t crash. Um…is that a good ad strategy? You’re essentially admitting “Ok ok ok, Windows Vista epically failed, we made one that works now. Pleas buy it? Please?”
As an aside, have you noticed that every second major release of the Windows operating system Microsoft puts out sucks? At least since windows 3.1? Windows 3.1: good I think. Windows 95: Can it stop crashing, and freezing, and crashing? Windows 98: Ah! Much better. Windows ME: Good lord how many bugs can we cram in one system? And it’s like it almost works and then was set adrift. Windows XP: Hmm…it’s like the finished Windows ME! Windows Vista: Blow blow blow blowy! Windows 7: From what I’ve heard, ah, sweet relief. What’s up with that? I admit I’ve never tried to make an OS, but that seems kinda weird.
Our thoughts about this next ad campaign are more about bad word-placement than crappy wording itself. There are all these ads on CTV saying that they have the Olympic coverage. But at the end, they say “The olympics are coming to CTV. Do you believe?” Um, You said so. Should I not believe you? On February 12, is an executive from CTV going to appear on my TV dancing around going “Ha ha, gotcha. You believed us, but you’re wrong wrong wrong, ha ha ha ha! We don’t have the Olympics, now go find ’em!” It’s a nice idea, it just doesn’t need to follow where the Olympics will be shown. That’s just weird.
And here’s another slogan that makes us chuckle. There have been a lot of spots where I’ve seen that something is brought to you by McDonald’s, “the official restaurant of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic games.” I know what they mean, McDonald’s has sponsored some Olympic stuff…but I can’t help but think that you won’t be seeing a lot of Olympic athletes chowing down at McDonald’s all the time. I mean, who do you see hanging around a McDonald’s? Not really a whole ton of Olympic athletes.
We can’t even remember what the hell this commercial is for, because we get distracted by one sentence. “Grinding your teeth is like the pressure of a 200-pound weight.” What? I’m pretty sure that if a 200-pound weight was dropped on my face, it would do far more damage than some jaw pain and tooth loss over time. I’m sure there wouldn’t be much left of my face. How can we be expected to swallow that? I know grinding your teeth is bad, but 200-pound weight bad?
There’s this ad that shows up urging people to call a law-firm whose name escapes me if they have contracted Mesothelioma because of working with asbestos. The ad spends a whole bunch of time slamming companies that had people working in asbestos, saying they knew the risks, yada yada. Then at the end, the voice says “I am a non-attorney spokesperson.” Why did they say that? Did they think that if he said he wasn’t an attorney, people would trust the guy more, so call the firm? But as soon as they say the word “spokesperson”, they might as well call him a puppet, so I would think that would eliminate the possibility of people trusting him more. Or was it because they don’t want the dude to get tracked down and sued because he’s making such strong statements about the supposed negligence of companies? Why did they do that?
And last but not least, I happened to catch an ad for Mini Wheats telling you to pour hot milk on them! That sounds positively Ug! The commercial I saw wasn’t nearly as nasty as the one I found on YouTube, but I still thought the concept of eating cereal in warm milk was gross. Now, if you made the cereal bowl look like a hottub and there was an implication that the miniwheats were a bunch of naked men lounging in it, that would just up the gick factor by about a thousand. Someone has already thought way too much about this bit, and he actually started off thinking Mini Wheats in hot milk would be a good idea. Ok then. Someone else tried it, and they disagree.
And that’s all the commercials for this episode of weird and wacky ads. Hope you had fun.