You can’t spell “bad” without “ad”
At worst, advertisements are intrusive, crass and banal. At best, they are intrusive, crass and mildly amusing.
Mariner fans were spoiled. We had commercials for the team that were quirky and cleverly written. The product of this creative well sprung forth for many years. Sadly, says the Times’ Kay McFadden, ain’t no water in the well, the creek’s run dry.
Without judging works I haven’t seen … a QVC theme? Trying to sell the team through a parody of commercialism? What’s next, a guy who makes a living by satirizing the spy serial genre getting a gig playing James Bond?
A promise: I’ll reserve judgment until the ads start airing on Saturday, but few of the spots McFadden describes sound promising.
Update: Here’s a link to the ads.
Comments
57 Responses to “You can’t spell “bad” without “ad””
IMO, the main downfall of this year’s commercials is that they’re all of the same theme. Realistically I think it’s safe to say we’ll all have different takes on whether we like particular commercials or not. This holds true for all the commercials in years past as well, with a lot of us remember some of the better regarded ones and perhaps forget about the lesser. In the past the commercials had enough variety among them, so that there’d bound to be a few memorable ones. After watching this year’s batch, however, it made me feel like all of them was one product as a whole. They all looked basically the same, and that added to the bland feel overall.
At times I even felt like the commercials were equalling the viewers with the supposed studio audience…. “We said a funny line. Hear the audience laugh? You’re supposed to too!” Perhaps that’s why I found the only spots that went outside of the studio setting amusing: the Olivo tag, the Hargrove video, the bullpen phone ringing, and Buhner’s cameo even. There might’ve also been a few countable lines that were quite funny (Ichiro: I hit singles in mine — all the time!), but they were offset by the lifeless atmosphere the rest of the way. Overall, the QVC theme was truly a bad idea, and that alone was enough to make the commercials terrible.
One can say we’ve been spoiled by the higher quality commercials the M’s offered in the past, but even without making comparisons, this year’s commercials were bad in their own right.
Wow. I can’t believe anyone finds anything complimentary to say about those ads. OK – one compliment, to the actors. The acting is now finally better than the scripting. Those things looked like something a bunch of 12 year olds in a garage with their parents’ video camera would come up with. How disappointing.
jeez, i’d hate to imagine this lot in a room talking about the good ol’ high school days — “things just aren’t as great as they were back then”, “i sure miss emilio and his adorable accent”, “if only things didn’t change so much every year”.
was this forum here last year? and the year before? i’m betting the commercial reviews were just as negative and that everyone bemoaned the travesty of how much better the spots were the year before.
etc etc etc, blah blah blah.
was this forum here last year? and the year before? i’m betting the commercial reviews were just as negative and that everyone bemoaned the travesty of how much better the spots were the year before.
You’re totally unaware of the history of the site and unwilling to look for answers, and yet willing to dismiss everyone’s opinion as some kind of looped chorus of complaints.
Nice.
I took a look at yesteryears’ spots after seeing the 2005 batch and, yeah, the ad concepts (highlighting players’ personalities in and out of comedic baseball situations), for the most part, played much funnier and more personable than this year’s.
But these one’s aren’t THAT bad. Maybe it’s the idea that the concept is so different this time around? Or that the players are put in the completely unreal situation of trying to ‘sell’ baseball? Or that we don’t want to see players in an environment outside of what they’re paid millions to do? Or maybe we, the fans, are having a tough time seeing all the M’s stalwarts move on to other pastures?
The Mariners are unusual in the league, and probably in the sporting world in general, in that they put so much thought and effort behind their TV advertisement. It seems that sports franchises have no interest in promoting their teams other than huge billboards with logos & players’ faces (which they usually pay for by putting a NIKE logo on it), or just advertising when the next game will be televised. To me, it’s refreshing to see the M’s marketing folks & executives continuing to push the envelope year after year with their TV campaigns.
That said, I’m curious about next year’s commercials — will they try another new concept or will they return to the concept that worked so well for so many years… now THAT is a good idea for a blog thread (IMHO of course).
for dmz (post #54):
i have only google to thank for my knowledge of this website. i have not the desire, time or patience to search, scroll or click through this site in the quest for a history of what else has been discussed, accomplished or covered here.
my comments were made upon reading over 50 posts by, i assume, “regulars” to this forum. my questions were rhetorical. and you know what? your description of the forum as a ‘looped chorus of complaints’, with a few exceptions, hits the nail squarely on the head.
oops! your 15 minutes is up. visited history erased.
So wait.
You came here through Google.
You read a thread where 50 people posted about not liking, in general, this year’s ads, but where many people posted about how much they liked past years.
You assumed that in previous years, people had complained about the ads, though you can clearly see that people liked them.
Your question wasn’t rhetorical. You asked specifically how long we’d been around while getting around to your crack about how everyone’s constantly complaining, though you’ve got no evidence of that or —
I don’t understand how you got from the thread’s “this year’s ads are pretty bad, boy, the old ads were good” to having such a low opinion.