Everyone has a commercial that they hate. Not even just hate, but absolutely despise with every fiber of their existence. Within one second of it beginning you recognize it, maybe because of a memorable first image or an obnoxious opening note to yet another annoyingly catchy jingle. Sometimes you might even sense it’s coming on before it actually hits your TV screen because of a sudden urge you get to kick a kitten.
You try to avoid watching/listening to the commercial at all costs but sometimes it’s just not possible. Maybe the remote’s missing, or maybe you can see the remote but it’s just out of reach and you’ve got a heaping plate of nachos on your lap with your feet up and you don’t want to risk spilling them by over extending your arm. Or worse yet, what if you can see the remote, it’s just out of reach, you’ve got a heaping plate of nachos on your lap, your feet are up, you don’t want to risk spilling by over extending your arm, but you hate the commercial so much that you go for it anyway and then you do spill your nachos and you have to watch the commercial. Just another reason to hate it, I suppose.
Now, I could start listing commercial after commercial that may make someone feel this particular degree of rage (Don’t you judge my food choices Wendy’s!) but chances are you’re already grinding your teeth thinking about a particular ad now.
But what is it that makes these commercials so intolerable? Some are just flat out bad, such as any spot for a local car dealership, and others seem to be trying too hard (almost anything following Old Spice’s ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’), but what I find the problem to be in most cases is too much repetition.
Look, I get it: brands need to show their ads a lot to make sure as many people see it as possible and then so their name is at the top of the consumers mind when they got to make a decision. There’s probably even some guy in a white lab coat somewhere who’s crunched the numbers all his life and has found that X number of airings equates to Y number of recalls and Z number of sales, but sometimes the intangible measurements are just as important as the tangible ones. Sure, you might be remembered with all these reps, but what are you being remembered for? The benefit you’re trying to promote in the ad, or the pushy, desperate, annoying persona your brand takes on by airing your spot so many times?
I understand that some ads are just seriously bad straight out the gate, too. But recently I noticed myself starting to dislike an ad that I had actually really enjoyed when it first came out and that’s Volkswagen’s ‘The Force.’ I know it’s won almost every award imaginable and it’s still completely adorable in its own charming way, but I’ve just seen the damn thing too many times. I’m not a cynic, I promise.
I venture over to Ad Week from time to time and enjoy checking out their ‘Ad of the Day’ articles they post regularly, which is where I saw ‘The Force’ for the first time. I absolutely loved it. I thought it was funny, cute, smart, but once it got to TV I didn’t like it as much. I knew what was going to happen before it happened and each subsequent viewing it felt like the ‘plot’ took longer and longer to develop. Then I saw it more and more and soon it seemed as if every network was playing the thing at the same time during each commercial break. An ad I had found completely brilliant had become, to me, just as mind numbing as anything Geico has ever done.
*I should clarify that I’ll never truly despise this commercial like I do some (I’m looking at you Sprint).
On the flip side, one of my favorite ads of all time is Miller High Life’s 2009 Super Bowl commercial which literally ran for one second. I’ve only seen this ad one time in my entire life prior to writing this piece and yet it stuck with me for five years. Sure, being only one second long it can’t really promote any specific benefits or anything and I still don’t drink High Life, but it accomplished what I think Miller wanted to do. It showed that they’re a brand willing to take chances, is bold, and maybe even a little whacky, all in a single second. And they did so without being completely in-your-face annoying about it, which might be part of the reason why I found it to be so effective.
I know it’s a fine line. Brands don’t want to come off as pushy and annoying but on the other hand they do want the ad they spent so much money producing to be seen. So what’s the right balance? I admit that I don’t know the answer to that and that I only have my own personal experience to base any of this off of, but it seems to me that less absolutely can be more. It just has to be done the right way.
Key Take Aways
- When advertising, less can be more
- Too many repetitions of the same ad can come off as pushy and desperate
- I have nothing but my own personal experiences to base anything I’ve said off of.
-Brian
Struggling Copywriter 