I give props to Fairfield in regards to the televisions services. But with about 100 channels comes about 100 more commercials each time you turn the tube on. I used to find myself scrambling for the remote control when the commercials started, but then some good ones started coming around.
However, the majority are just intolerable. If they aren’t trying to give me an embolism with flashing pictures and sequenced photography, they are blasting me with loud music at irritating frequencies.
Do they assume that I have the vacuum cleaner going at all times and that I don’t have my contacts in? If the TV is on, I know it’s on. Calm down. But there is one string of commercials which is above all that.
Of course, I’m talking about the Old Navy commercials. I could stop writing and you all would basically know what I could say about them. With an array of washed-up actors and actresses who couldn’t make the New Hollywood Squares, they try to pitch clothes that are a cheap spin-off from Abercrombie, who doesn’t even use television ads. These actors, by the way, would also fail with their own psychic hotline and have not been offered the chance to pitch “10-10” long distance services.
I can describe the ads like this: Buffoonery. You don’t necessarily hate the ad when you see it, since you can’t understand what actually is going on, and are too bored by it to struggle to determine what product they are hocking.
The classic Mentos commercials fall under the same category, but at least you are waiting to find out how the cheesy situation ends.
I once read that the purpose of commercials was nothing more than to put the company’s name in your head. In this regard, the Old Navy commercials have succeeded. Unfortunately, these commercials do absolutely nothing for me in regards to the product except make me want to jump through the screen and just ask the actors “what the hell are you doing?”.
If that was the point, then God help the ad geniuses who decided to try the “confuse and anger the consumer” approach. Oh no, am I putting in an ad for Old Navy in The Mirror by writing this?
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