CRINGE-WORTHY ADS

 I've held these beliefs for years:  the ads reflect the corporate culture or in the case of small businesses, the owners.  While my remarks refer to TV ads, they apply equally to print or billboard or whatever.  What has set me off recently are the ads for Radiant Plumbing and A/C.  In my opinion, these are some of the most stupid ads to grace the small screen.  You can put whatever spin you like, they tell me a lot about the owners and there is no way would I call them for service.  I hit the mute button as soon as I'm aware of the ad.  On a regular basis some company is apologizing and pulling an ad or article because they didn't see the problem when approving it.  Some of it is latent racism, some is blatant racism.  

But let's go back to the beginning.  Large corporations have their own PR departments who will either develop the ads or farm it out to a real ad agency.  I do not fault the ad agencies for some of the outlandish presentations.  Their job is to create eye-catching ads and letting their imaginations go wild is part of it.  It is up to the client to reject, reject, reject until they are given something they like.  And that is the problem.  Sometimes the people making the decisions are the weak link.  Ad men (and women) are good at sneaking innuendo into their ads.  Sex sells.  So if you have Cindy Crawford selling Pepsi, that's certainly eye-catching and worked well.  No problem with that one.  If a company ad shows women in a subordinate position, that is probably the company culture.  On the flip side, a very masculine ad says the same thing.  I know kids and pets are usually a good idea to garner attention, but I don't like the smart-alecky or smarmy ones.  Don't like to see kids jumping on furniture or other actions which should not be tolerated at home.  

Apparently people in search of a used car are all losing their hearing.  Otherwise, why do 95% of the car ads have someone yelling at you?  The only example of a normal tone was a Roger Beasley Mazda ad with their sales manager.   I'm a veteran and I won't be going to Capitol Chevrolet for a car.  BTW, that ranks just below Radiant Plumbing as worst.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a well-presented ad.  I look forward to seeing the Super Bowl ads and the talking-head opinions that follow.  I think the current State Farm ads are excellent, as are most of the Progressive and Geico ads.