one of the many little joys the boyfriend gets out of having a home-office is that he gets to watch tv while he works. as one can imagine, this means he sees more than the average amount of commercials. needless to say he truly dislikes certain spokespeople like tom tynan, billy mays, and vince “shamwow” offer makes his hair stand on end.
this has caused me to adapt my television watching routine just a tad. no, he doesn’t immediately begin channel surfing to see what else is on for the next 2 minutes or so; instead, he mutes the tv. but he doesn’t just mute the tv. he mutes the tv and utters “shut-up!” sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly, sometimes with a vengance. a favorite little passtime of mine is teasing him when, on rare occasions, he mutes the tv and doesn’t say a word.
i say this has caused adaptation, because i happen to be an avid reader of the ad report card over on slate.com, and more often than not, i tend to actually watch the commercials. not really to see if they can convince me to buy anything, but generally to see if they’re doing a decent job duping everyone else in to buying something.
well, after all this time i can tell you this: they have not convince me or the boyfriend to buy anything, join anything, move anywhere or call anyone. but there is just one company’s ad’s that faithfully and routinely do not get muted. ladies and gentlemen, the e*trade baby:
commercials and ad words