Though this will hardly come as a revelation to anyone who’s spent any time in the US, every time I’m over here I find myself amused and bemused by the style of product advertising on the telly. See, if you spend a certain amount of time in hotels, inevitably you’ll spend a while watching the box, though to be fair this tends to be during the pre-dawn hours induced by jetlag.
The ads seem to fall into several distinct categories:
1. Drugs. These, by law, need to be accompanied by all sorts of legal disclaimers and information about possible side effects. Where advertisers might once have pushed all this info onto the screen in teeny print, or employed someone who talks really fast to rush it all out at the end, these days they can’t be that sneaky. So increasingly, you can see advertisers trying to wrap the disclaimers and gruesome side-effects warnings into the story (such as it exists) of the ad itself.
The scene: a busy cafe
The protagonists: a bunch of young, good looking women
The dialogue: One woman: “I mean, like, WOW, my periods have been SO MUCH BETTER since I started using blahblah contraceptive pills. I just went to my doctor and asked him for blahblah, and he assessed my suitability and then gave them to me and WOW, what a DIFFERENCE! Of course, I know that possible side effects might include bloating, wind, sore throat, rash, diaorrhea, boils, coma, death and mood-swings. But I can hardly believe how GREAT I feel every month now - you should try them! Go ask your doctor today!” Other woman: “Gee, it’s a good thing you’re a med student!” All the women: [laugh]
Codswallop.
2. Cars. Americans, unsurprisingly, love their cars. And all cars over here are big and shiny. Metallic is the favourite colour of the ‘merkin people, and I’ve seen so many wide wheel-base pickups the last few days that I’m starting to believe I may well be in the south after all. In any case, car ads are sort of like European ones - slick imagery of driving heaven - and yet sort of not. There are shouty voiceovers about finance options, and preppy actors smugging to camera about their vehicle of choice.
3. Finance/legal/mortgage/etc services. Same as both of the above, but with loans and debt consolidation and no-win-no-fee ambulance chasers. Much like the equivalents at home.
4. Food. And boy, a LOT of it. Meat glistens with fat. Wraps ooze cheese sauce. Pizzas bubble and melt over their edges. Children beam at cereal bowls filled with impossible sugar lumps. Mothers take ready-meals from ovens and carry them using oven-gloves to a hungry family seated around a table. Spritely old men raid the chill cabinet and exort the values of toast pockets (now with real deli style sliced ham!). The screen drips with oil.
5. Local. As ropey as you can imaging. Production values of about $4.50, shouty VO urging viewers to HURRY down to Matt’s Tile World or Fairfax Home Appliances etc. Shudder.
But by far the best ad I’ve seen in the last few days is one urging local men to get a free prostate cancer checkup at a local hospital. I know the subject is important - men of a certain age should get checked out - and that there’s a certain stigma about the procedure (fingers in interesting places, and so on) but nevertheless, the ad is unintentionally hilarious, combining as it does some of the ultimate characteristics of American advertising: real people, stilted dialogue, trying to get a message across dramatically (by people who can’t act) and tag lines.
The scene looks like a living room. Three men are sitting watching some sport thing on TV. A woman walks in and points at her husband, reminding him that’s it’s time for his annual prostate check.
He agrees with enthusiasm, stands up, high-fives his buddies - he cannot WAIT to get his prostate checked - and leaves the room. They get up and leave after him. Woohoo! Let’s ALL go get our prostate checks! Bring it ON!
Most odd.
Watch it here. And go get checked out, obviously.
Oh gods, that’s funny! I can’t believe it’s got worse over the years. Do they still have the really, really, *really* lame used car salesmen on TV? Or “Crazy” Al or whomever trying to sell carpets/furniture/mud by screaming about it and jumping up and down? =)
t’was Crazy Eddie - his prices are innnnnsane. i’m pretty sure the real crazy eddie (not the guy in the commerical) ended up in jail for something or other.
very interesting to get an outsider’s viewpoint on advertising here. spot on. those drug commercials drive me crazy!
Very funny, Meg! You’re absolutely spot on with your observation of the drug ads on US television; perhaps it’s just jetlag, but my brain is almost completely unable to process the disclaimer at the end due to the speed of delivery. Perhaps that’s the point.
My only memory of US TV was the continual coverage of the NBA. Which was great as I love basketball and the ad breaks were perfect, just enough time to microwave an enchilada WITH AT LEAST 10% REAL MEAT (REAL meat???!!), and crack open a nice cold Miller whilst fighting off all the scantily clad ladies that were hanging about near the fridge.
Not a pretty sight that, scantily clad ladies who weigh more than 200lbs is not something you want to see everyday.
Ugh. More Brittish smugness.
I’m a Brit whose been living in Los Angeles for 5 years now. Believe me; if you spend half a decade here then go back to the style of British TV - you could well make similar observations about British TV, media etc.
I assume you see yourself as a kind of cultural commentator; but to write 10 paragraphs or so on advertising without mentioning the fact that they are geared to a *specific American audience* that is NOT BRITISH (hello?) seems rather childish and crass to me.
It is not meant for you. It is not designed for you. Maybe if you spent more time here, you’d understand that. As for those small-hours, low budget “loud” and amateur commercials you refer to; I rather admire them. I consider them a reflection of a culture that has absorbed the entrepreneurial spirit, a culture where individuals and not just the same old corporations can have their say too.
;o)
Hi Rocco, thanks for leaving a comment. I wasn’t trying to be smug about the relative quality of advertising in the US/UK - you’ll notice above that I make no claims about anything being better over here. I was merely noting the very particular style of some of the adverts - regulated by law, I understand - which is in marked contrast to equivalent ads anywhere else in the world. For a start, prescription drug advertising isn’t allowed in a lot of places, but where it is in the US, it needs to be heavily caveated and small-print-laden, understandably. So what I was commenting on was not the quality of the ads, but the substance of them.
I don’t see myself as a cultural commentator, as you suggest in your comment - but as someone who spends regular periods in the US, and inevitably a lot of time jetlagged and flipping through the hotel tv channels before dawn. The points I was making above were more about observation than criticism, and I hope you can see them in that light.
Furthermore, I didn’t point out that advertising on American TV was geared to a specific American audience, as you suggest, because I thought it was bleedingly obvious to anyone reading the post - the majority of people reading this blog and commenting on its content are intelligent, erudite and sensible enough to make that simple connection.
Obviously, the ads are not designed for me, specifically. I’d be very surprised if any advertising was aimed at me, specifically - or you, for that matter, or any other individual. That would be a pretty targetted market for any campaign, I should think. Having said that, TV advertising is aimed at people watching TV in the USA - which doesn’t require a passport check, or any other qualification other than having a telly. While I won’t be able to rush to my doctor/bank/car finance to act on the advice in the ad, I’m still consuming it, through watching the box. They’re not meant for me, not designed for me, but there I was watching them all the same.
In much the same way, this blog entry wasn’t aimed at you, designed for you, or indeed anyone like you - because you live over there, and obviously know and are used to american advertising. Instead, this blog entry was aimed at a predominently British audience who aren’t necessarily so familiar with differences in advertising on each side of the pond. And yet, here you are, reading my blog anyway. Sometimes people consume things they aren’t the intended audience for. Perhaps if you spent more time reading blogs, you’d understand this.
So, while you accuse me of being childish and crass for not stating the wincingly obvious about the intended audience for the media being consumed, I’d counter that it would be puerile, meaningless and patronising to do so. So I didn’t.
:o)