A new radio ad is making me mad

[El'the Ellie]

My car radio has recently glitched out and many parts of it aren't working. While I'm waiting for the company to get a replacement in, I'm essentially limited to listening to a single radio station. (Other audio means, like bluetooth are disabled.) All this to say that for the the past few weeks I've been listening to a decent amount of car radio, ads and all.

Radio ads are (IMO) annoying/silly/out of touch. That's a given. But there's a car dealership that has been playing ads that have been making me irrationally angry. I don't know why this is, so I turn to playground to see if anyone has similar experience (or has heard the same ad), or knows why I might be having this reaction.

The ad begins with a two people supposedly meeting up at a gym (let's call the town Townsville), and continues more or less as follows. For what it's worth, Townsville Gym is an actual business in town.

A: "Oh hey B! I didn't expect to see you here. Are you a Townsville Gym member too?"
B: "Yeah, I just joined! The membership is really reasonable, and the facility has a great pool. Plus, it's right next to where I work."
A: "That's why I'm a member too, and their hours are really convenient. By the way, is that a new [Car Model] you just got out of?"
B: "Yeah! I got it at [Dealership]! They have really low interest rates--"

Yadda Yadda. From there on, it turns into a regular blatant dealership commercial. The radio is full of dealership commercials that I normally just tune out. But for some reason, this one has infuriated me to the point where I'm writing about it online. Normally I just tune out commercials I don't care about, but this one I will angrily hit the mute button on my radio the moment I hear it come on and drive in silence for the next minute or so. (Before you say 'Then the ad is working!' I disagree. I refuse to give them any business because of how much I hate this ad, and I will not be sharing the name of this company or how to find them.)

What makes commercial so darn annoying? Is it because it seems like it's going to be a Townsville Gym commercial first? Has anyone else had a similar experience?

[Mr_Fixler]

Big Daddy's Pizza. I will never ever forget Big Daddy's Pizza. It was over ten years ago and it still lingers on. It went from odd, to annoying, to hilarious, to painful.

"Sung" off key and in an accent of indecipherable origin by one man without any backing music in what could only be the bathroom:

Big Daddy's Pizza
Big Daddy's Pizza
Extra sauce and real cheese
Extra sauce and real cheese
Toppings for you and me
Toppings for you and me
If you try it, you will like it
If you try it, you will like it
You'll be delight(sic) if you try it
You'll be delight if you try it
Because big daddy is always there for you
Big daddy is always there for you

Spoken: Big Daddy's Pizza located at blah blah blah in the blah blah plaza in blah blah.

Big Daddy's Pizza
You'll be delight if you try it

[Rogar Demonblud]

Car dealership commercials pretty much suck by definition, since a good chunk of the selling point with a new car is how they look and how they feel when you drive.

Right now, those Subway ads are on heavy repeat, and I am sick of hearing them. Especially that cheer one.

[Peelee]

I only listen to NPR, so I don't really have that problem. Except during the fundraising drives.

[JoshL]

I kinda like that. I mean, it's certainly not the case, but I like to think the folks at Dealership thought, well, we're paying for an ad, let's give a shoutout to our friends at Townsville Gym! Get their name out there, support other local businesses and do it for no more than we were already paying for the ad! The local music-scene guy in me thinks that is what happened. The corporate day-job guy in me knows they probably hit up Townsville Gym for a few bucks for the shoutout.

[Imbalance]

There are places that I've been boycotting for years based on the annoyance factor of their ads. McDonald's earned it with "badadadada I'm lovin' it!", which made me hate it, and even though they finally moved on from the slogan I can no longer stomach what they call food. In the case of a local notary, I not only paid more but also went out of my way to find someone else than the one with the commercial. When the place I went with asked how I found them, I answered truthfully that I wouldn't have looked much except for how much so-and-so's ads irritated me. "We get that a lot." Far more often am I swayed away from a product or service than toward due to marketing.

[El'the Ellie]

There are places that I've been boycotting for years based on the annoyance factor of their ads. McDonald's earned it with "badadadada I'm lovin' it!", which made me hate it, and even though they finally moved on from the slogan I can no longer stomach what they call food. In the case of a local notary, I not only paid more but also went out of my way to find someone else than the one with the commercial. When the place I went with asked how I found them, I answered truthfully that I wouldn't have looked much except for how much so-and-so's ads irritated me. "We get that a lot." Far more often am I swayed away from a product or service than toward due to marketing.

That feels like my experience with 'annoy' based ads as well. And yet, it must work on the average, right? Otherwise they would stop paying for the ad, wouldn't they?

It all reminds me of the Kars4Kids ads, which seems specifically designed to cause you to never donate to Kars4Kids. I'm no business person, but that seems... contrary to your goal as an ad developer.

[Talakeal]

I constantly get spammed with a commercial from the utility company where a girl tells me I can a trick for saving money on my cooling bill by keeping the house "just a tick" cooler, then degrees. I hate it so much because:

1: By what definition, literal or figurative, is ten degrees "a tick"?
2: This isn't "a trick", its just using less of something. Using less of something is the default way for saving money on it.
3: Its October in Colorado, its snowing, it was 20 degrees this morning, why are you still playing this add?
4: I moved out of my parents house so I didn't have to listen to my dad constantly nagging me for keeping the AC on too cold, and now some disembodied radio girl is going to take over for him? RARRR!

[Imbalance]

That feels like my experience with 'annoy' based ads as well. And yet, it must work on the average, right? Otherwise they would stop paying for the ad, wouldn't they?

It all reminds me of the Kars4Kids ads, which seems specifically designed to cause you to never donate to Kars4Kids. I'm no business person, but that seems... contrary to your goal as an ad developer.

If there's anything I'm certain of, it's that I'm wired differently than most, but I won't be the one to assess whether that means above or below average. All I know is that advertising is a very studious industry, that it trips my ego to not fall for most marketing schemes while I shamefully suffer no compulsions about final notices and credit scores, and that commercials have driven me to abandon most media.

I do have a soft spot for certain charities, though, regardless of their ads.

[darkrose50]

The Good Place had a scene where the demons were singing there favorite song. 1-800-KARS-4-KIDS

I live in Chicago, and I hate it when they say CHI-town. I change the station as soon as they do.

There used to be some Jared Jewelry commercials with high pitched saxophone notes that made my ears bleed. I was tempted to send Jared Jewelry a fruit basket when they stopped playing those commercials.

Mostly I get annoyed when they start playing music on NPR. I listen to NPR because I do not want to be listening to music.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I dunno. It's kind of nice when NPR airs the State Symphony's Christmas and 4th of July concerts.

[Palanan]

I listen to books on tape, so these issues just don't come up.

[Magic_Hat]

Look so long as these commercials are put into films as product placement they don't annoy me.

[Rodin]

I constantly get spammed with a commercial from the utility company where a girl tells me I can a trick for saving money on my cooling bill by keeping the house "just a tick" cooler, then degrees. I hate it so much because:

1: By what definition, literal or figurative, is ten degrees "a tick"?
2: This isn't "a trick", its just using less of something. Using less of something is the default way for saving money on it.
3: Its October in Colorado, its snowing, it was 20 degrees this morning, why are you still playing this add?
4: I moved out of my parents house so I didn't have to listen to my dad constantly nagging me for keeping the AC on too cold, and now some disembodied radio girl is going to take over for him? RARRR!

I'm pretty sure this refers to how most people use their A/C wrong. They think that turning down one degree (or one tick) won't be something noticeable. In fact, when you turn it down one degree you're turning the A/C on full for long enough to get the temperature in the entire house (or at least, the room where the thermometer for the A/C is) down one degree, and it will come on more often if the temperature goes back up. In most cases, if you're feeling hot when you turn the A/C on, by the time the cooling has finished you will have acclimatized and no longer feel hot. So instead of turning it 5 or 10 degrees down (and then turning it off when you feel cold), you instead turn it 1 degree down and get the same effect.

The same goes the other way, with people cranking the heat up WAY too high in an attempt to get warm quickly. It doesn't work that way, the heat's on full and turning it up higher just means you wind up roasting once the temperature is finally reached.

My issue with those commercials was always that the temperature ranges struck me as crazy. They're telling me "be environmentally conscious by turning your A/C from 70 to the high, high temperature of 74" when I'm already keeping the place at 78 degrees. I do the same going the other way, with my winter temperatures ranging between 68 and 72 depending on how cold the weather is and if I'm under a blanket or not.

[Bohandas]

Does the car have a CD player of an aux/audio jack? You could listen to a CD or an mp3 player.

[Alabenson]

That feels like my experience with 'annoy' based ads as well. And yet, it must work on the average, right? Otherwise they would stop paying for the ad, wouldn't they?

It all reminds me of the Kars4Kids ads, which seems specifically designed to cause you to never donate to Kars4Kids. I'm no business person, but that seems... contrary to your goal as an ad developer.

Oh god I remember those, they were right up there with Golden Blossom Honey as being the most cloying awful dreck on the radio.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Oh, no, that's still reserved for those Head On commercials.

[gomipile]

There was a series of local car dealership ads that infuriated me in a similar way. My radio wasn't broken, though, so I just changed the station every time one came on.

The ads were done in a conversational and sound design style so as to sound like a radio news interview. I'm naturally inclined to immediately start paying closer attention whenever something like that comes on, so the fact that it was just a car dealership ad really annoyed me. Also, one of the voices is the actual owner of several dealerships around here, and he has a slightly annoying voice, which didn't help.

Even though they stopped airing that style of ad a few years ago, I still hold it against them. In the future, if I wanted to buy a make of car they sell, I might just go out of the area to buy from someone else out of spite.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Reminds me of the ads for Billion down in Sioux Falls. They featured the owner, who was of the school of thought that you have to yell into the microphone so people all the way over there can hear you.

[tomandtish]

There are places that I've been boycotting for years based on the annoyance factor of their ads. McDonald's earned it with "badadadada I'm lovin' it!", which made me hate it, and even though they finally moved on from the slogan I can no longer stomach what they call food. In the case of a local notary, I not only paid more but also went out of my way to find someone else than the one with the commercial. When the place I went with asked how I found them, I answered truthfully that I wouldn't have looked much except for how much so-and-so's ads irritated me. "We get that a lot." Far more often am I swayed away from a product or service than toward due to marketing.

Burger King became that for me when they started doing their King ads many years ago. Showing someone waking up in bed with that king next to them (unexpectedly) does NOT make me want your product.

[snowblizz]

What makes commercial so darn annoying? Is it because it seems like it's going to be a Townsville Gym commercial first? Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Could very well be. I dislike ads that try hard to pretend they are not. And ones that basically are fraudulent. Like a lot of cleaning products where you spray on a 1 cm thick grime crust on your bathroom tile and then can wipe it all off with a sponge. Bull-****. It's quite obvious said "dirt" is effectively liquid and I could just have washed it off, and there's no way it is that easy IRL with even 1/100 as dirty stuff. As I very well know from experience with the same or similar products I've used. And the people they target with such ads must be more experienced as well.

My current hate object, despite commercial itself being tolerable, and kinda clever, is a dishwashing liquid that claims to be be able to entirely dissolve fat just with you shaking it. Buuuuull-****. The "comparison" with "competitor" is ridiculous. To get their insisted effect the washing liquid would have to be a powerful acid (you may dissolve the fat but that won't kill the food-colouring too). And they also do one about how little you need to use where a boy borrows some from neighbour and there's no way in hell they could pour out the dried up dregs at the bottom of the bottle. "You only this little". Yeah, but not going to get it out of the bottle that way.

Basically there's a heavy dose of infomercial in them really. And it is stupid, because the user will immediately notice this won't work as promised, yet you are selling a product people will constantly need to buy, unlike tv-shop.

[AdmiralCheez]

Kars4Kids was my number 1 hated ad in the world for a while. I would actually mute the radio or change the station when one would come one. Their earlier ads especially just felt like they were monotonous, like the people singing the song had no soul. There was no enthusiasm to their voice, and each musical word sounded like it was a labor to utter. It made me feel dead inside to listen to it.

Now it's Hilton ads. For some reason, they've got generic, perky female voice #3 doing an obviously scripted, manufactured awkward-cute story about things, but for some reason they feel the need to add random car horns in the background. Why? There is nothing in the ad about cars or being stuck in traffic. It's just car horns randomly going off, as if they want to associate their hotel with the atmosphere of the most stressful, anger-inducing frustration known to motorists. I don't get it. It just gives me anxiety that there's something on the road I need to watch out for, and I don't appreciate it.

[Peelee]

Kars4Kids was my number 1 hated ad in the world for a while. I would actually mute the radio or change the station when one would come one. Their earlier ads especially just felt like they were monotonous, like the people singing the song had no soul. There was no enthusiasm to their voice, and each musical word sounded like it was a labor to utter. It made me feel dead inside to listen to it.

Now it's Hilton ads. For some reason, they've got generic, perky female voice #3 doing an obviously scripted, manufactured awkward-cute story about things, but for some reason they feel the need to add random car horns in the background. Why? There is nothing in the ad about cars or being stuck in traffic. It's just car horns randomly going off, as if they want to associate their hotel with the atmosphere of the most stressful, anger-inducing frustration known to motorists. I don't get it. It just gives me anxiety that there's something on the road I need to watch out for, and I don't appreciate it.

Are you sure those are in the commercial?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Since I also hear them in the sixth floor office, yes.

[Peelee]

Since I also hear them in the sixth floor office, yes.

I was about to make another joke about being really bad at driving, but it just seemed mean at that point.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

My most maddening ad of the last few years goes something like this:

"Children should eat more plants."
A child opens their lunchbox to find it's full of flowers, has a cutesy laugh about it.
"No, not every part of plants, only the best parts, the oils."

So you're saying that after the decision was made to make a health food type of ad, this thing made it all the way through senior management of both the advertizing company that said they could do the job and the company that wants to seem healthy, ones during planning and then again during final approval, and nobody knew what vegetables are? Or fruit? Or are they all just condescending enough that they think we don't know? I sincerely hope they were all fired. If any companies that want to sound healthy read this: I'm available for a six figure salary management position, and I believe in vegetables.

[Peelee]

"No, not every part of plants, only the best parts, the oils."

They're essential!

[snowblizz]

My most maddening ad of the last few years goes something like this:

"Children should eat more plants."
A child opens their lunchbox to find it's full of flowers, has a cutesy laugh about it.
"No, not every part of plants, only the best parts, the oils."

So you're saying that after the decision was made to make a health food type of ad, this thing made it all the way through senior management of both the advertizing company that said they could do the job and the company that wants to seem healthy, ones during planning and then again during final approval, and nobody knew what vegetables are? Or fruit? Or are they all just condescending enough that they think we don't know? I sincerely hope they were all fired. If any companies that want to sound healthy read this: I'm available for a six figure salary management position, and I believe in vegetables.

Well if you aren't in the vegetable business it doens't make sense to advertise them... I bet if you look hard the ultimate backers of that ad they either make the "essential oils" or it somehow feature in their products, unlike say vegetables.

[Rodin]

That advertisement is obviously a lie.

Everyone knows the best oil comes from snakes.

[DigoDragon]

The radio ads that annoy me are ones for companies that settle your tax debts. They have people who say something like "I owed $20,000 in taxes and [company] helped me settle for pennies on the dollar."

I'm like, 'what were you doing to get to that point?' Don't answer that, we know ;)