Last Updated on: 11th February 2020, 10:59 am
It’s been a while since we’ve written one of these. But we thought we’d compiled enough commercials or slogans to do another one.
We saw a commercial for something called “Juicy Juice immunity.” Juicy juice? It’s juice. Shouldn’t it be juicy? If not, it wouldn’t be…juice, would it? I know it’s a product for kids, but…Juicy Juice? And then when they throw in the Immunity part, I had to wonder if it was more like yogourty juice than juicy juice.
There’s a commercial for African Lion Safari that needs a little work. They say you can win a trip to Africa, and then immediately follow that up with directions to the safari place. So, it sounds like “Win a trip to Africa! On Highway 8 between Hamilton and Cambridge.” So you’re really winning a trip to somewhere on Highway 8? I had no idea I lived so close to Africa. Well, if Sarah Palin could see Russia from her house, anything’s possible.
When you see the ad for the Nicorette Inhaler, what does the music make you think of? To me, it sounds like spiritual music. It sounds like they’re telling you that they’re freeing you from the slavery of smoking. I can’t find the right chick. The one I keep finding sounds like she’s singing the blues instead of singing about freedom. But maybe if you see her, you’ll think of the one I’m thinking of.
In a car commercial, I actually heard someone refer to a 2010 model of a car as an “010” and it sounded like o 10, model. Why don’t we just say 2010? It doesn’t sound as lame.
There are two commercials for EHarmony that kill me. One says that going to the bar is passive. Uh, and having matches served up to you, um, isn’t? My next favourite was a woman who said that she didn’t have time to find Mr. Right, so she let EHarmony do it. If you don’t have time to find him, when are you going to have time to go on all the dates?
Whenever Steve was listening to the Jays on 570 News, we kept hearing this weird commercial for D.A. Kurt Insurance. It consists of a man telling us to put our faith in the lord, and the lord would guide us…and as abruptly as it begins, it says “D.A. Kurt Insurance,” and plugs the insurance company.
What the? What kind of weird advertising technique is that? Are they hoping that you’re so surprised to find out what the commercial is about that you’ll call them up? If that was the case, it didn’t work on us. The commercial was memorable, but we couldn’t remember the name of the insurance company to save our butts. I had to do a bit of googling and guessing to jog my memory, and even then, I had to ask Steve if it sounded right to him.
This brings up an important question. If you’re supposed to put all your faith in the lord, why do you need insurance? Hey, D.A. Kurt, I think you have to admit defeat when it comes to at least one of your messages. Looks like you have to pick which one.
While I’m picking on 570 News ads, let’s make fun of a couple more. There’s one for United Taxi that makes a big deal of its “famous door-to-door service.” Um, every taxi service has door-to-door service. That’s what makes it a, um, taxi service. I think the only taxi that might dump you out short of your destination would be the Cash Cab. And is $90 really a good rate for going from Kitchener to the Toronto airport? I mean, Red Car can go from Guelph to the airport for $64 or so, although I don’t know if that’s per person or what? Still, $90 doesn’t seem all that uber special.
There was an ad that came on a lot encouraging people to become foster parents. It said something like “Meet Cody. Cody is a chocolate lab who ran away. He spent some time in parks and out in the rain, and he spent some time with strangers. Sometimes dogs run away. Now what if Cody wasn’t a dog, but a little boy?” What? What was the point of that? I don’t even know. I just shook my head a lot. It didn’t really have the shock factor I think they were going for.
Throughout the summer, I kept seeing ads for Casino Rama where they’d ask you to vote either yes or no for excitement. I kept wondering what they were going to do if people voted no. Well, it looks like the people voted no, and what they did was disappear into the background. I have to laugh. The voting page has been blocked off. Hmmm. Didn’t like the results so wanted to hide ’em? I guess they were trying to be as much like real politics as possible.
Seriously, what did they think would happen? Did they really think we were zombified enough to run out and vote yes to excitement like good little minions? The first thing Steve said to me was “If I cared enough to go and vote, I’d vote no just to screw with them.”
And besides that, why did they think anyone would want to think about another election, even if it was fake? This is Canada, where we’ve had way too many elections in the past 2 years, and every second week, the liberals are threatening to force another one. Yeah, let’s…capitalize on elections? What? I’m amazed they got any votes at all, considering the amount of voter apathy there is.
I saw a commercial for Visine, and suddenly realized, hey! The iPhone stole their slogan! There’s a Visine for that? There’s an app for that? Hmmm. Wonder if they’ll get sued. Wouldn’t it be weird if they somehow created an anti-eye-strain app and called it the Visine App? Then there would be a Visine app for that.
I got thinking about the phenomenon where a commercial gets made, and then edited down into a shorter one. I’m so used to it that I’d never really stopped to think about it before. For some reason I did now. Why do they do that? If they liked the first version, why don’t they just go with it? It was only 30 seconds anyway. If they could have said it more concisely the first time, why didn’t they? Why make two commercials? The second one is so short, it seems to be gone before it starts. Why bother?
Itravel2000.com is eventually doomed to fail, don’t you think? When I remember first seeing it, I thought it sounded cool and cutting edge. It was 1999 or so, and this was Itravel2000. Cool! Now it sounds like they’ve stagnated and are staying behind the times. I wonder when they’ll change their name. It’ll have to be Itravel2020, and then Itravel2040…and on and on it’ll go.
The commercial for Always Infinity makes me want to gag. In this video, it doesn’t sound nearly as bad as it does on the TV, but on the TV, there’s this gurgling river noise immediately followed up by “Now your heavy days are under control.” Ug! I don’t want to think about a river flowing in my pants.
Hey Bell, what makes your internet so perfect for laptops? Seriously, that was the best you could do for a slogan? Any internet can be made perfect for laptops. All you need is a wireless card or a cable and…presto! It’s perfect for laptops! That’s like saying any old car is perfect for city streets. Well, duh, of course it is. Really, do better.
Before, I was mystified by the commercial for G2. Well, I’ve seen it a few more times, and realized it’s not quite as stupid as I thought. I guess it’s about an athlete and maybe somebody with a disability or something. They’re talking about how they’ve never done what the other one does, but they do the best they can. I just didn’t catch on that it was the same two people all the way through the commercial.
The commercial for Febreeze is misleading. It says it eliminates odours and leaves a light, fresh scent. Uh, that scent is an odour. So, really, it replaces them.
Whenever we watch Judge Judy, we always see an ad for Steak Um that makes us both go blech. We can’t really explain why. It says something like “Are you wondering where your stimulus package is? Well here it is. Tell your neighbours you’re having steak tonight. Steak Um: America’s favorite sliced steak.” The way that’s said, it’s like you have to wonder what’s really in it. Is it just a pile of chemicals with a touch of beef in it? What exactly is it? It doesn’t make me wanna chow down.
We couldn’t find that commercial, but we did manage to find one that was even worse. Almost makes you think about yum rockets all over again.
The final ad that caught our attention was one for Preparation H of all things. It seriously said, “Preparation H: itching, burning and maximum pain relief on contact.” Why the hell would anyone want more itching and burning? That’s kind of why they went out and got this stuff, now isn’t it? That’s even worse than the Dish Network commercial that advertised sixty great channels, plus HBO and Show time.
And that does it for another edition of holy crap we notice too many ads. Hopefully Steve or I will have something fun soon.
