Some thoughts on advertising

It's funny to me to watch TV with older (50+ y/o) people, usually family members. Without fail, I will always hear someone say something along the lines of "when you get in advertising, you should make it so there are fewer commercials on TV! I just want to watch (insert program name here)." They're mostly joking, in that they know I have no control over that. But I bet that the first response most people would give if they were asked "how do you feel about television commercials?" would be more on the negative side.

Here's my rebuttal:



28 MILLION views?

Do they have to be funny for people to not get mad at ads? NOPE.







Ads don't just reflect popular culture, they can actually change popular culture. Think of the "Wassup!" Budweiser ads, or the "Get a Mac" campaign. (I just added this because we just talked about pop culture in a class of mine.)

Point being: people don't hate advertising. They hate bad advertising. And so do I.





And then of course almost anything Microsoft churns out, especially when they're trying to make something "viral." They should learn that viral videos can be viral because people make fun of them.






Yes... they were just so excited about working for Microsoft that they spontaneously broke out into song. Good one, Microsoft. Why do I own stock in these guys again? (UPDATE: I just sold all of my Microsoft stock!)

And of course, one of my "favorites":



And I'll just end with this. I didn't know it existed until just a few minutes ago. I agree with what one of the YouTube commenters wrote. "WTF was Microsoft thinking?" (WTF of course stands for "Why the face")



One technology blog writer mentioned how dumb it is for Microsoft to consistently portray its users as technology-illiterate morons. I guess now they're portraying them as nasty perverts who don't love their wives enough too.

I can't say any more about badvertising, because O.M.G.I.G.P.