AdCritic To Return

jspectre writes "The Ad Age Group has acquired advertising archive AdCritic which was shut down last year and are bringing it back new and improved. They're also looking for comments on what people did and didn't like to help improve the site."

Comments

Re:Finally, not forced to watch sports anymore!

[Knightmare]

Thats pretty much my only reason for watching the Super Bowl myself... I was pretty depressed when Ad Critic shut down. I almost say I would pay a small _very_ small access fee, because I get a good bit of enjoyment out of the the site and sending me all those movies has to cost them some money...

Doesn't it say something about society?

[Corvaith]

We're so steeped in our own commercialism now that we watch advertisements for entertainment on their own.

This scares me. Of course, I'm in front of the television for about two hours a week--but I don't get what the attraction is. They're trying to sell you stuff. Most likely, stuff you don't need and frequently stuff you wouldn't want if you knew the whole story behind it.

I guess this is one of those cases where I just smile and nod and go back to reading.

Re:Doesn't it say something about society?

[qubit64]

Some of the advertisements are really quite clever. Yes, they are trying to sell stuff, but does watching a commercial in which a hammer is thrown at a big screen with some old guy talking on it make you want to buy a computer? Well, maybe that's a bad example because they are actually saying something interesting in that one, but the point is that if you weren't going to buy a computer before you saw that commercial you probably wouldn't buy one after you saw it... Watching a commercial won't force you into buying something right? However, it can sometimes give you a laugh. Just remember not to buy things because you saw it on TV. Buy things you need (or want) for their own merits. Come to think of it, you can buy things for whatever reason you see fit, however I will buy things because I need or want them on their own merits, not because some marketing makes it look attractive. Though sadly, sometimes the marketing influences other peoples buying decisions and for compatibility reasons I am forced to buy the same product, rather than a better made competitors product. (nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more)

Re:Doesn't it say something about society?

[alanak]

Yes, I think its absolutely ridiculous that advertisements have become a form of entertainment. Of course, /. appeals to the yuppie generation, where materialism means a lot, and hence, advertisment becomes an inherent part of their life.

People here at /. complain about web banners, popups, popunders, etc. but they go giddy when they get to watch TV commericials. Some are willing to pay money to watch advertisements. How does that make any sense? Of course that's not that surprising when you can see t-shirts everywhere advertising nike, armani, ck, etc, for 20-30 bucks a pop. Simply calling a form of advertisement by a different name - fashion - and people are willing to pay.

Check out adbusters for some good critical views on advertisments and over-commercialization.

Re:Doesn't it say something about society?

[vena]

We're so steeped in our own commercialism now that we watch advertisements for entertainment on their own.

actually, i think this says a lot of good things about our society. the ability of the populace to look at advertising as entertainment says two things:

1) advertising is no longer trying to force you to buy anything, instead they are looking for brand recognition - the only form of advertising beyond personal recommendation from a friend that actually works, and probably one of the least intrusive.

2) people know they're trying to sell them something, and can take the entertainment at face value. they're not the moronic fools people like AdBusters would like you to believe.

Re:Doesn't it say something about society?

[babbage]

You know it's funny. I think I see things more or less the way you do -- I've got a TV just because the VCR wouldn't work without one, but I never ever have the compulsion to watch any of the broadcast shows anymore. I'd much rather sit and read a copy of AdBusters :)And yet, my fiance does have some shows that she likes to watch, and I do catch bits and pieces of it.

AND IT ALL SUCKS.

All of it, that is, except for the commercials. It's so strange to me. All the sitcoms are boring, banal ripoffs of one another. All the dramas this year seem to be about people that work with cadavers and, well, there you go. The news is little better than supermarket tabloids (the "news magazines" are probably worse if only because they pretend to be better than what they are), and I'm really starting to find Jay Leno's stubbornly middlebrow idea of entertainment deeply offensive. How can anyone actually enjoy this crap? I used to like Jay Leno, now I just want to strangle the fucker. Another Clinton joke? Let it go man, just fuckin' let it go.

And yet mixed in with the crappy entertainment and quote-unquote news are these little fifteen second masterpieces, with clever writing, brilliant cinematrography and effects, and better music than anything available on the radio. Nevermind the fact that it's all brilliantly crafted to make you CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME -- it also happens to be the only thing on broadcast television that is brilliant. Full stop.

Why isn't there a commercial station on the radio playing the techno & indie rock & jazz you hear in car commercials these days? Why are the only clever examples of wordplay & wittiness (and, again, more good music) in Apple commercials?

I mean, you're right that there's something seriously disturbing about this inversion: the networks always did try to make the shows just interesting enough to keep the audience watching commercials, but now they're making the commercials themselves far more interesting than the shows. I should be rebelling against that, as a card-carrying, Nader-voting, NPR-listening, anti-consumerist liberal. But I can't help it.

If it wasn't for the clever commercials, I'd want to leave the house every time my fiance turns the television on. As it is, I just sit and use the computer or read a book, and look up whenever the commericals come back on. Part of me dies every time this happens ...but part of me likes it, too.

:-/

More bandwidth!

[Steev]

The only thing I can think of to really improve the old AdCritic would be to have given it more bandwidth. It just got severly overburdened most of the time. Especially when the superbowl commercials came out.

I still laugh uncontrollably at the "Damn vikings!" Bud Light ad :)

Suggestion

[Hemos (editor)]

My major suggestion would be to support more media formats.

Some people cannot or do not choose to use Windows Media Player or Quicktime.

RealMedia isn't that horrible, and it has free players for Linux.

Although, Crossover plugins work nicely for viewing Sorensen-encoded Quicktime files in Linux.

But still, just make sure you guys allow EVERYONE the opportunity to check out some funny commercials :-)

A Site I Visit Several Times A Day

P2P for websites?

[Kizzle]

I think if some P2P program came out for websites, it would solve the bandwidth problem of alot of sites. For example, you go to a website, you start downloading a video file or whatever, but instead of downloading it from the main site, it would download from a bunch of differant people. Only certain sites would be allowed to put content on the network. Then once you get the file, people can download it from you. Anybody think somthing like this will actualy come out some day?

I like ads (no pop ups please)

[sdflkgfljdqshgjkqsfg]

I liked adCritic because living in France, just makes it that much harder to see some good US ads. Of course we also do have a specialised weekly "advertisement" show (that is excellent IMO) that shows the world's best adds or just concentrates on a theme (more of a marketing show)...well to make a long story short, yes, people like watching adds. Why? Because a lot of time and money are put in to produce 30 seconds that are going to keep you riveted to the ad, you have humour, eye-candy, series...
I don't know if I'd actually pay to see ads (who would have thought)... but I'd be real pleased if adcritic were open again to the bigger public.

Re:This CAN'T bode well for web advertising

[Gogo Dodo]

I don't think AdCritic charged the companies for ads. They video captured it and tossed it up onto their site.

I suspect that companies would not be willing to pay for their placement of their commercials using the old AdCritic format because there is no content control. You got to see every commercial made by a certain company. Companies often have a certain plan where one commercial is seen following another or a theme was dropped (like the talking frogs). AdCritic kept everything.

Additionally, since AdCritic ran every companies' ads, a company's message got lost. For example, I'm sure that McDonald's would not pay for an ad that is placed right next to Burger King's.

what we want?!?

[VoiceOfRaisin]

we want mpeg or mpeg4 files please.
none of this quicktime crap.

Re:what we want?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

i hate quicktime too, although there shouldnt be a reason. Before december of 2001, when my pc was a 200mhz 64mb box, quicktime ran horrible. But now that I have a 1.4ghz 512mb it runs fine. But I still hate it, why? Quality. Most videos are so tiny, and if you try to double the size, it becames horribly pixelated. MPEG for example seems to almost resample when you resize, whereas quicktime just resizes, its horrible.

fix it damnit :(