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

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?

[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 :)

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.