There was, for a few years, a company in perhaps Schenectady that wrote and produced songs for commercials for local TV commercials. They'd come up with a one line slogan for the business, as original as "We'll take care of yoooooooo!", then a guy who sounded like a greasy lounge lizard (think of Bill Murray's lounge singer on the old SNL) would sing that same line over and over, with perhaps a few more words interspersed. All the tunes they wrote sounded the same. After a while, all the local commercials sounded the same. They made me cringe.
The lounge lizard is finally gone. We now have a woman with a very strange voice reading voice-over scripts. Stretch your mouth into the widest smile possible, then talk in a voice that would seem to fit, and you'll come close. She sounds like there's a giggle struggling to get out. Which might fit if she were doing a commercial for a clown service, or an amusement park - but it sounds weird when she's talking about a dentist or a hardware store. She's now doing public service spots, too. There's something very wrong when this smiley giggly voice is telling women how to avoid rape in a dark parking lot.
There's a near-usurious loan company that trolls for bottom feeders by asking questions like "Do you need a new car or truck to upgrade your standard of living?" Now, I can understand where a small business owner might need a new truck, which might contribute to an upgrade in his standard of living, but that's not the "need" they're appealing to. I want to shout at them, "No, you need tuition money to upgrade your standard of living! Or a job!"
So many commercials seem to assume an idiot audience. Like the automobile insurance company that says something like, "If they treat you this well before you're a customer, imagine how well they'll treat you after." Huh? Is there any logic there?
Or the commercial for a supplement that's supposed to help you focus better. They'll give you a free month's trial of the stuff, on the theory that if you try it you'll like it. My conclusion is that it's so overpriced, they can afford giveaways. Their conclusion, "They let you try it free? It must be good!" Huh? Maybe they need to focus better.
But the prize goes to the one that's so subtly bad it makes me laugh. There's an auto dealership that does their own commercials. It features one smooth guy who makes a little actual sense, and one buffoon, Billy, who describes sales by roaring, "It's Huuuuuge!!!!" The way he says it has become a local catchphrase.
They occasionally run special sales, and they promise that "If you buy 200 cars" during the sale, "Billy promises not to say 'huge' for the entire month of July!" (or whenever).
So, we buy 200 cars. And for the entire next month Billy finds inventive ways to say "huge" without actually saying it - wordplay, coughs, signs, skywriters, t-shirts, banners, so on. Or he actually says it, and the other guy scolds him.
I don't think they realize what they're actually saying. Let's see - you are a used car dealer. You made me a promise before I bought the cars. I bought the cars. Now it's time for you to keep your promise, and you're working hard to find ways to wriggle out of the promise! Hmmmmm.
I get the message. You cheat.
~~ Silk
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