Commercials. They’re everywhere.
From posters to billboards to television to pop-ups, so many ads are all around us that it has become an everyday part of life. They are made to create awareness for a product or a service, with the aim of increasing their sales and spreading the idea of their brand.
While the existence of ads is nothing new, it’s never always welcomed. Very rare do we get an amazing advert that has a great subliminal message and showcases the brand with such authenticity. But sadly, most ads are trash.
Many people are turned off by this excess of worthless information, that they’re willing to either pay for none of it, block them all entirely or simply click away from it. For something that is meant to draw attraction, why do these commercials fail to achieve what they’re meant to do?
Mild Irritation
A simple yet relatable experience we have with ads is that they’re often very loud and annoying. You'll find that many ads are usually paired with a noisy trendy pop song, colours flying everywhere and the occasional cheesy over-acting.
While these formulaic approaches may work on captivating younger audiences, it doesn’t really stick well on older demographics. These types of ads are more often surprising rather than engaging, as they would pop out of nowhere during commercial breaks. If anything, it would give the brand a negative outlook whenever we stumble upon it when we least expect it.
False Truths
If noisy ads are annoying, it’s even worse when the ad itself misleads you to believe in something false. Advertisers want nothing but to hook in new customers, tricking them with clickbait, a cheap yet effective strategy. Phrases like “Must-Have” or “Life-Changing” would only work on the gullible, but to them, anyone counts.
The fact that they’re using clickbait to garner attention is rather insulting to the masses. Dumbing down for your audience is never a sure-fire method of getting support from your customers. It's best to learn how your audience want to be perceived so you could finally create commercials that is suited for them.
Zero Engagement
You know what’s worse than a bad ad? A boring ad. If you can’t even engage your target audience, are you even an ad to begin with? Some brands are just lazy and only wanted to introduce their new product rather than giving us reasons as to why we should want it at all.
While they don’t bear the shame of being manipulative or misleading, they also don’t have any merit or points to make their product more enticing or tempting to potential customers. We are not exactly against any and all advertisements, we just don’t like the bad ones. But a boring ad is simply a waste of our time.
Cringe Alert
Every brand has a commercial of their own, but they’re not always made with the same level of quality. Bigger companies would spend millions of dollars just to make a 10-second ad while smaller businesses hardly had any budget for one, but with a good ad, it would be worthwhile for their sale numbers in the long run.
But with little to zero funds, the final result would come out as awkward and incompetent. Without an expert eye or any basic knowledge in making a simple ad, you could risk making a cheesy low-produced video with terrible cringy acting if you ever decide to hire “actors” for it. It could bring in a laugh, but not for the right reasons.
Over Sensitive
They say that “bad publicity is good publicity”, only until it goes too far. Marketing felonies are a dime a dozen and they can simply be corrected by removing them from the public’s eye or altering them to fit the current climate, but some advertising campaigns are made with the right intentions but were poorly executed.
Nowadays, many brands are aiming to be more inclusive and politically correct with how they display their products, so they could gain the support of their consumers and retain customer loyalty. But not everyone understands that being relevant does not mean including elements that people like, it’s how you use them that matters. So much time was wasted to make something that pleases everyone, only to please no one.
Not Creative
We value fresh and new ideas, be it in art, storytelling, problem solving or technological innovations, and commercials are no exception. It’s exciting to see how a well-known brand can still be offering new ways to make us want their products even more. But it’s even more tiring to see the same ad for the same thing all over again.
Over-exposing your brand would definitely raise its awareness, but it could also deter others to wishing that they would never see it again, which can affect how the public perceives your brand and detrimentally affect your sales. A formulaic approach could only last for so long until it becomes so stale.
Celebrity Branding
Celebrity endorsements are one of the most common marketing strategies used in many brands today. The power of their fame and their recognizable image are not one to be trifled with. And while many brands would choose the biggest, brightest stars of today, it doesn’t mean that they are loved equally.
Some people associate a brand with a specific celeb, but with every millions of fans, there’s going to be a thousand more haters who would simply not support the brand after being tied to a certain person. It's also risky to use celebrity power as there may be instances where the person could be involved in a controversy or scandal, thus negatively affecting future brand deals.
Ad Algorithm
Some ads are often avoidable and they don’t take too much time in our lives, but with the comfort of technology that revolves our daily living, also comes the discomfort of multiple ads being pushed into our way. These types of ads that pop up in every webpage we visit or every app we click are incredibly intrusive and often disturb our much needed peace.
Targeted ads are even more invasive with how they use data from our web searches and social media preferences to push specific ads that may cater to our needs. This approach of marketing ads to our devices and social accounts may seem as a way to provide us what we need, but it only serves to disrupt our privacy and create concerns for our security.
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