Are there people who like to watch commercials?

[tashirosgt]

Are there people who like to watch commercials? There are a variety of psychological disorders where people enjoy peculiar activities. Have any cases of a commerical watching fetish been observed? (And what is the right word, "fetish" or "compulsion"?)

[NEOWatcher]

I would say "compulsion". Anecdotally, I've heard of plenty of people hooked on buyng stuff from infomercials.

For me, I hate watching commercials with the following exception:
It's something I've never heard of before, or it has some information that I want to hear (like when something is being aired).
Some have entertainment value for me, but that usually wears of after two or three times I see it.

[emmylou]

I am not really fond of commercials :/ especially the go compare guy LOL.

[Gillianren]

Enjoying watching commercials is not the same as a compulsion or a fetish. I wouldn't even say it would qualify as a psychological disorder. Just odd.

[grapes]

Well, I enjoy watching television commercials. Like I enjoy watching reality TV, or insect documentaries.

[ABR.]

Well, I enjoy watching television commercials. Like I enjoy watching reality TV, or insect documentaries.

Hey now!

[grapes]

Fascinating, really.

[Tog]

It depends on the commercial. While I wouldn't change insurance companies based on it, I'll stop the fast forward to watch a Mayhem ad.

There are a few others that I also really like for the entertainment value.

[novaderrik]

i have a strange fascination with the minute long commercials for prescription wonder drugs that spend 40 of those seconds listing negative side effects while people do active stuff in the background..

[Jim]

Some commercials are entertaining, either on purpose or by accident. And with some of those, I even remember the product being advertised.

Jack in the Box commercials are purposely entertaining and it's hard not to remember the company. There's one with a woman, a cockatoo, and a dog doing 80s hits; purposely and very funny, but I can't recall the product.

[Cycle]

Commercials used to be great.
Shake and Vac, Hovis, Tango and R Whites Lemonade. They all made brilliant, well thought out advertisements.
Todays commercials are poor in comparison.

[Fazor]

Yeah; there's a few commercials I enjoy. Very few that make me laugh or at least smile every time I see them, then a slightly larger number that I find at least mildly amusing. Those two categories combined are still dwarfed by the annoying, bad, or just boring commercials though.

Still, unlike a lot of people, I don't hate them so much that I fast-forward through them when watching stuff I've recorded on our DVR. Not that I pay attention to the commercials -- but we've had a DVR for about five years, and I've been watching TV for about 28 years. Those 23 years of technologically hindered viewing have given me ample opportunity to learn to just tune them out.

[ineluki]

Are there people who like to watch commercials?

Why not, some commercials are actually funny.

[Gillianren]

Pre-Sesame Street, Jim Henson used to make commercials.

[Luckmeister]

If I record a show, I almost always FF through the ads. In a 1-hour show, you get over 20 minutes of your life back by doing that.

I had a VCR once that automatically skipped commercials on playback. It was over 90% accurate.

[Noclevername]

I used to watch the ads that came on during the Superbowl, as their entertainment value was generally high. That has slipped over the last few years, though. (I did miss the whole Janet Jackson deal because I thought "nothing interesting ever happens during Halftime show" and tuned out.)

[Trebuchet]

The greatest commercial I ever saw was a Superbowl one, about 10 years ago, which featured a bunch of tough old cowboys herding cats. It was great, I laughed all the way through. Unfortunately, I never had any idea what they were selling or, 10 seconds later, what the company was.

(EDS, see the commercial here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8).)

[HenrikOlsen]

I used to watch the ads that came on during the Superbowl, as their entertainment value was generally high. That has slipped over the last few years, though. (I did miss the whole Janet Jackson deal because I thought "nothing interesting ever happens during Halftime show" and tuned out.)
You didn't miss anything anyway, it was thoroughly meh!

[swampyankee]

I used to watch the ads that came on during the Superbowl, as their entertainment value was generally high. That has slipped over the last few years, though. (I did miss the whole Janet Jackson deal because I thought "nothing interesting ever happens during Halftime show" and tuned out.)

People's reactions to the "Janet Jackson thing" were much more amusing, especially the woman who sued CBS because she was severely traumatized at seeing a woman's breast. (My daughter wondered about that women: how could she ever bathe without seeing them? Did she have a panic attack while changing into a bathing suit?). Incidentally, I may be one of the only straight males in the US who doesn't watch the Superbowl; the boring [American] football gets in the way of the relatively-entertaining commercials.

[Romanus]

I've had a love-hate relationship with commercials all my life. Most of them are boring, garbage, or annoying (and advertisers like making annoying commercials almost as much as humorous ones, because you'll remember those), but a few exhibit a remarkable degree of brilliance in under a minute, almost like visual flash fiction. My favorite ones combine humor and surrealism to kind of throw your expectations out the window.

Here's one of the best, supposedly directed by Spike Jonze:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVY04NQUpxk

An Aquafina parody of Mario Lanza's "Drink, Drink, Drink":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEc5foJ9plE

[Noclevername]

I kind of like those Dos Equis ads: "He once climbed a mountain... because it wasn't there. He is allowed to tug on Superman's cape. When he farts in an elevator, people apologize to him. He is... The Most Interesting Man In The World."

[Gillianren]

See, the only person I know who drinks Dos Equis is my mother, which puts a very different spin on those commercials. She doesn't often drink beer, but when she does, she drinks Dos Equis. She's a sixty-seven-year-old grandmother.

[Noclevername]

See, the only person I know who drinks Dos Equis is my mother, which puts a very different spin on those commercials. She doesn't often drink beer, but when she does, she drinks Dos Equis. She's a sixty-seven-year-old grandmother.

Most interesting! ;)

[thesolo]

well i used to watch bud light commercials in youtube,but other than that commercial ruin tv completly.

[Trebuchet]

"When in Rome, they do as HE does." I'm not near as interesting, but I do drink Dos Equis when I'm having a Mexican lunch.

[LaurelHS]

I used to like some of the songs on the Free Credit Report.com commercials. :)

[closetgeek]

Some commercials are funny. I just liked Mayhem, the other night on FB because it has tons of really funny ones that I've never seen before.

[novaderrik]

Where's the beef?

[Jim]

T-Mobile and the girl in the magenta dress.

And now, Verizon (I think) and the "girl in the magenta dress."

(She became so identifiable so quickly that now she is being parodied by the competition.)

[Noclevername]

And she's cashing in on it too. IIRC, she has a role in the upcoming "Powers" TV series. (The original girl, not the parody)

[ToSeek]

See, the only person I know who drinks Dos Equis is my mother, which puts a very different spin on those commercials. She doesn't often drink beer, but when she does, she drinks Dos Equis. She's a sixty-seven-year-old grandmother.

Well, supposedly, before the Marlboro Man came along, Marlboro cigarettes were primarily smoked by women.

As for the general issue, some commercials are entertaining the first few times you see them. It's seeing them over and over again that becomes tiresome. When I had a DVR, we'd use it to skip past the ads unless something looked particularly entertaining.

On another note, an actress I'm acquainted with once said she learned more about her craft in one day of making a TV ad than in years of doing more conventional stuff. When you're doing an ad, you have as much time as you need to do thirty or sixty seconds of final product, so you do it over and over again until it's exactly right. If you're doing a TV program, you stop as soon as you have a decent take because there isn't time to work on it.

[Fazor]

See, the only person I know who drinks Dos Equis is my mother, which puts a very different spin on those commercials. She doesn't often drink beer, but when she does, she drinks Dos Equis. She's a sixty-seven-year-old grandmother.

I drink Dos Equis . . . sometimes. But I don't think people would like commercials about me.

"He sits at a desk . . . all day long. He posts frequently . . . to Twitter, Facebook, and the BAUT Forum." "I often drink. And when I do, it's rarely a Dos Equis. But I do enjoy it!" "He's the most . . . whatever . . . guy in the world!"

[Gillianren]

Well, supposedly, before the Marlboro Man came along, Marlboro cigarettes were primarily smoked by women.

I had heard that, yes. I think the Dos Equis campaign is trying to overcome their own image, which is "a beer you drink if you happen to be drinking beer in a Mexican restaurant."


As for the general issue, some commercials are entertaining the first few times you see them. It's seeing them over and over again that becomes tiresome. When I had a DVR, we'd use it to skip past the ads unless something looked particularly entertaining.

My best friend and I still quote a Jack-in-the-Box commercial that aired ten years ago. It's the one thing I'm going to miss when we stop having cable at the end of this month--catching the new ads. It's the longest-running ad campaign in history, is my understanding. They're just that successful. This is because they're clever. They assume the audience has some basic intelligence and will catch a slightly higher level of humour.


On another note, an actress I'm acquainted with once said she learned more about her craft in one day of making a TV ad than in years of doing more conventional stuff. When you're doing an ad, you have as much time as you need to do thirty or sixty seconds of final product, so you do it over and over again until it's exactly right. If you're doing a TV program, you stop as soon as you have a decent take because there isn't time to work on it.

I believe that. I wonder what my cousin (who has done series TV and movies as well as shilling for the coal industry a few years ago) would say about it.

[Trebuchet]

I had heard that, yes. I think the Dos Equis campaign is trying to overcome their own image, which is "a beer you drink if you happen to be drinking beer in a Mexican restaurant."

You just described me!

[DonM435]

I remember when I was very young, I'd say "This commercial is stupid!" Then I'd go on and on about just how stupid it was and why it was stupid.

My mother would say "But you're talking about it! That's just what the advertisers want!" Right on the mark.


(She also told me that the commercials pay for the shows I'm watching. It was some time before I could figure out just how that worked.)

[closetgeek]

For really funny commercials, I never actually remember the name of the product. I just know they crack me up and I repeat them, often. "I shoulda got a falcon!"

[Luckmeister]

For really funny commercials, I never actually remember the name of the product. I just know they crack me up and I repeat them, often. "I shoulda got a falcon!"

They're counting on your subconscious remembering the product name. You'll grab that brand off the store shelf in preference to others and have no idea why.

[swampyankee]

They're counting on your subconscious remembering the product name. You'll grab that brand off the store shelf in preference to others and have no idea why.

It's actually for a car insurance company.

[closetgeek]

It's actually for a car insurance company.

At this point, I think car insurance has the funniest commercials out there. I happen to be insured with one of the unfunniest of the major names. Either way, I think it's weird that the cast of an old prison show are now trying to sell me insurance.

[Romanus]

While we're on the topic of car insurance: My all-time favorite Geico commercial, "Tiny House".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lomy7xAVDKE

And here's an Ally Bank commercial that I never get sick of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AUS54x4KJc&feature=related

[Trebuchet]

I'd forgotten the Tiny House one. Thanks for that!

[Van Rijn]

I drink Dos Equis . . . sometimes. But I don't think people would like commercials about me.

"He sits at a desk . . . all day long. He posts frequently . . . to Twitter, Facebook, and the BAUT Forum." "I often drink. And when I do, it's rarely a Dos Equis. But I do enjoy it!" "He's the most . . . whatever . . . guy in the world!"

Heh, I'd like that commercial. I still wouldn't buy the beer though.