Reasons I’m glad I didn’t go into advertising

I occasionally wonder if advertisers are secretly conspiring against their own clients. Maybe these ad firms are really a consortium of anti-consumer granola types whose real mission is to make potential consumers associate negative thoughts and feelings with the hapless producers.
For instance…
Bell Mobility has completely turned me off not only their cellular phone service, but also Stephen Hawking. The recent radio ad campaign features three different versions of the CG voice – one female and two male – engaged in various discussions, arguments, and even romantic banter.
Similarly, Ikea insists on continuing its radio ads featuring a really, really poor facsimile of what I assume someone thinks is a Swedish accent, delivered in a monotone. This particular campaign has been assaulting listeners long enough that Ikea has received complaints – their response to which was to air ads with the same voice, saying things like “some people think my voice is annoying” and then trying out different bad accents, such as Jamaican.
Oh, and thanks to the radio ads for Pharmacie Jean Coutu, Mozart’s Eine Klein Nachtmusik is forever ruined. “You, and you, should go to Jean Coutu.” Yeesh.
And last but not least, it may have been a long, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time since I rock and rolled, but I’m still too young for an Oldsmobile, thank you very much.

4 Replies to “Reasons I’m glad I didn’t go into advertising”

  1. Strange…. the comments script allowed me to italicise the work’s title as you did, but it stripped out the italicised title I inserted. Guess comments.cgi is a Mozart fan.
    What I tried to say was: “Eine Klein Nachtmusik” has been “I’m Inclined to Knock Music” ever since having to play it hundreds of times…
    Sigh.
    It was amusing the first time.

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