TV commercial contest: The ground rules
Posted: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 6:00 AM by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
Filed Under:
TV commercials
Are you ready for some TV commercial bashing? And some praise, of course (although it's often much more fun to dis the horrible ads than applaud the good ones).
Here's the deal: We've run the Test Pattern TV commercial contest for three summers now. I bring up topics and mention certain ads, but now that Test Pattern is in the new comment-friendly format, you're just as much a part of the game as I am. Post about your favorite and least favorite ads in the blog comments, and suggest topics that we can riff on.
In the past, popular topics have included music in ads, humor that goes wrong, the tricky world of creating ads for intimate products, sexism in ads, stupid slogans, animals in ads, favorite vintage ads, local and regional commercials, car ads, fast-food ads, favorite and least favorite corporate mascots, and more. I'll read the comments regularly and elevate popular and hot topics to the main blog entries. In early August, I'll name the best and the worst ad of the year, as determined by your emails, your blog comments, online polls we host throughout the summer, and other feedback. If it's close, I get the final call.
Only a couple ground rules, which will surely be ignored by some anyway.
1) Ads can only win once! Sorry, toenail monster.
We're looking for commercials that are new in calendar year 2007, or very close to it. No classic ads, as much as I still enjoy Mean Joe Greene's Coke ad. If a commercial has been named either best or worst in the past, that same ad isn't eligible again. (But other ads for the same product are). That means ineligble receivers are:
From 2004:
WORST: Lamisil toenail monster
BEST: Citibank identity theft ads, with voice-switching
From 2005:
WORST: Tampax stops a leak in a rowboat
BEST: HP's cool "Frames" ad
From 2006:
WORST: HeadOn! Apply directly to the forehead!
BEST: Talking cows for real California cheese
2) Don't like the topic? Don't read it.
Yes, we are spending time talking about commercials. Yes, we know about TiVo, fast-forward buttons, books and playing outside. There are approximately eight billion other Weblogs and Web sites for those who feel this discussion is beneath them.
3) All publicity is not necessarily good publicity.
Dozens of folks will write in to defend even the worst commercials, claiming that the sheer fact that we are talking about said ad means it has done its job. I disagree: In my experience, at least half the time those who comment on bad ads do not remember the product, and if they do, they've often sworn never to buy it due to the ad's sheer offensiveness. Take that, Madison Avenue.
4) Please do comment, but NOT IN ALL CAPS.
Comments must be approved by me before they go live, but most of them do make it through. Simple guide to getting your comment published: Be bright, be somewhat brief, and do describe the ad somewhat for those of us who haven't seen it. If your comment is going on and on and on, save us the stress of trying to read one big block of type by breaking your comment into two posts (or edit yourself and just make the comment shorter to start). And please don't POST YOUR COMMENTS IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE IT FEELS LIKE YOU'RE YELLING AT US AND IN FACT MAYBE YOU ARE.
Commercials will not hog the spotlight in this Weblog all summer. Other entertainment and TV topics will still have their turn, though commercials will likely dominate at first. In July, I'll be reporting about the new fall TV shows from the TV Critics' Association summer press tour. Multi-link Monday fun will return next Monday.
But for now, please start noticing those commercials that especially entertain or annoy you, and start posting a few favorites in the comments. Think especially about the use of music in commercials -- I'll share a few thoughts on that in my next post.
