Overused ideas
Submitted by caffeinegoddess on Sat, 03/24/2007 - 07:37.
>>how about references to evolution and how (and why) man has "clawed his way to the top of the food chain."
>>
>>and miller high-life voice-over rip-offs.
>>
>>overused? How about no less than 10 packages on a recent shopping trip, "New Look Same Great _________"
>>
>>
Evolution ! New Design. Same product.
Recent Kent campign in Bulgaria.
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There*s a bunch of ideas or vehicles for the idea that have been way used again and again.
Thought it would be fun to see how many we can come up with.
I*ll start with a few.
1. Wo/Man on the street interviews
2. Product is so amazing it makes bizzare things happen
3. Product is so amazing that people are awestruck by it and don*t notice bizzare things happening around them.
4. Hip old folks
5. Drivers meeting each other at the stop light and talking
6. Clueless person and a friend who knows all about the product/service
7. Childish adults and their overly mature kids
8. People acting weird and their pets looking surprised
9. Person secretly uses product/service to make life easier and impresses the masses
(1) monks / the vow of silence as the gag
(2) ice cream trucks (usually carrying some odd, non-ice cream product like burritos or office supplies)
12. Men who can do anything, but are totally helpless when in charge of the kids alone. (can*t cook, can*t keep up, etc). So lame.
13 Sexy babe passes - men drive off the road/smack into lamp posts etc etc.
14. Men talking about size that matters (or women for that matter) - later revealed to be the p-thing they*re talking about. yep, the product.
evil
15. "Sincere" person talking about a problem that the product or service fixed that no other had done before. Usually the whole ad is shot in an extreme close-up of the person.
16. Announcer type actor walking or standing around an empty set with some oversized prop...usually a logo.
17 IRONY!
grin
18 dream sequences.
mad
19. Packaging icons that come to life (brawny, mr clean, etc)
the *what were you raised by wolves?* gag with the obvious punchline.
yawn eek
21 (tongue) Piercing!
do a little search on it here to see how many piercing gag ads there are. grin
24. Gruff, hulk-sized biker as sensitive guy.
23. Sweet, frail grandmother as tough chick.
22. Sumo wrestler gags. (I don*t get the fascination.)
Just have to resurrect this because these have been eating at me lately ...
A bill so high or an expense so great that one is forced to take extreme measures to cover it. And that*s usually renting out the kid*s room.
Gags involving the elderly and false teeth.
31. "The washing powder made the clothes so white that it looks like..."
30. Campaigns that use the "The product is good that", "The products looks so good that", "The product smells so good that" etc.
29. Beat up people as a visual. Band aids and bruises etc.
28. Product, item looks like something else... Towel looks like green fields and so on. frown
how about references to evolution and how (and why) man has "clawed his way to the top of the food chain."
and miller high-life voice-over rip-offs.
overused? How about no less than 10 packages on a recent shopping trip, "New Look Same Great _________"
Shrug.
Here*s the mother of overused ideas "What if the product didn*t exist."
Slabadang there it is.
Guys,
the thing is if you ask the people out there, you get the answer of non advertising people, which will be rather bad than good in general.
Thats why i (after one year in the business) don*t think of visuals coming back anymore.
Being creative is indispensable. Having a concept, having a real thing you want to tell people is then the best thing that can happen, isnt it?
Therefore, i think, it is okay that similar visuals come back from time to time, as long as the reason why is a different one...
Don*t we do the same things again and again?
Cheers,
Paulito
My personal favorite is making things into a vagina.
Using pink to mean it*s for women- either in the design of the product itself or in the design of the ad.
Any tampon/pad advertisment featuring a woman wearing white pants.
148. Anything with tattoos?
Deja?
Shoot, you got me. I*ve done the tattoo thing. It*s not in my book any longer but still. Damn.
149 Talking babies.
And aren*t we forgetting (and please can we not forget)
150 the simulated orgasm a la *When Harry met Sally" with the equally predictable rejoinder, "I*ll have what she*s having"
Carmina Burana!
btw bodoni
I saw that one as recently as yesterday for Church crisp something or other fast food joint...? (on MI telly as I was watching the streaming news). All the "orgasmic" eaters were male and a guy at the counter just pointed to the others with the now familiar line "I*ll have what he*s having". (maybe they thought the gender-change was a *refreshing* twist?)
I*m sorry to even mention it here, as it gives it one more outing but...
"Pimp my [whatever]"
as a headline has been used (at least in this market) ad nauseam over the last few months.
There now. Let that be an end to it.
monkeys are not funny anymore
Street pavement with chalk writings
Ha!
154(?) A race between two competing products, complete with victor, loser and glory. This includes the winning=success metaphor found in investment commercials depicting non-competing joggers [You guys know who you are!].
155 A black woman playing the role of a stern cop making the star of the commercial uncomfortable.
156 Fearmongering Commercials for news shows that voice over "Your ____ may be ____ing you, we*ll tell you why, after this", or why you should be paranoid about the latest something or other.
157 Any movie for any action of horror film. They start the same, run and close the same, even using the same fade-to-black, fade in white text cliche at the end.
158 Any advertisement offering a "sneak preview". Please!
159 Cosmetics commercials depicting dainty women doing muscular things.
160 Ads promoting any product with the letter "x" in it. It was banished for a good reason.
Television ads with a large crowd of people, a small group of people, or a single person running through the city.
Most anything in an ad for Lynx, Axe, or Tag body spray.
If you*re doing an ad that has something to do with Russia, you *must* use matryoshka or nesting dolls as part of the visual.
rolleyes
>>Using pink to mean it*s for women- either in the design of the product itself or in the design of the ad.
Exactly, this drives me nuts, it is the 21st century enough of that already. I am a feminist, grad of a liberal college and that drives me nuts.
>>"156 Fearmongering Commercials for news shows that voice over "Your ____ may be ____ing you, we*ll tell you why, after this", or why you should be paranoid about the latest something or other."
And just before a commercial on the evening news "We looked into _______ and YOU WON*T BELIEVE what we found!"
Yes, I*ll believe it, and no, I*m not sticking around for it. rolleyes
Yes, that tactic is way too overdone to even be effective anymore.
>>Using pink to mean it*s for women- either in the design of the product
Razors. Remember that idiotic vibrating gilette razor with a battery in it? Well, soon as the men had watched Beckham use it for an odd year or so they launched the girl-version. Which is of course pink. And the ads say "safe for use in bath" just to be clear that a wet AA battery can*t kill you (jesus, how many airheads live on this planet?)
Now compare prices. Pink is more expensive. This insults me more than the damned color.
heh, lucky westerners.
Practically everything you mention here, as already overused in the developed countries, has been tirelessly dubbed and rerun here in the past couple of years since we*ve started turning capitalist.
Not that we*re having much success in that.
Anyways, a perhaps expected addition from me
157) Absolutely EVERYTHING that has to do with how bloody clean the coin[yes, a coin]/floor/sink/grandma/glass/child gets after you apply the given petrochemical product.
158) Countless variations of a supermarket cashier that refuses to allow the amazed houisewife to buy the additional thing that goes into the washing machine, because the new and improved washing powder already has that gibberish.
On the other note, laaaaaaaaa
smile
no, really... I adore the site and have been reading the forums for hours now. I*ll try to keep quiet and learn from you guys. Thank you in advance.
Cheers.
[EDIT tsk, I thought it shows in the profile view. I*m from Serbia.]
159. You will be cool
160. You will be wise
161. You will be loved
"You do the ___, we*ll do the ___."
A newspaper columnist noted the rash of this slogan all over British TV at present.
Budweiser "You do the football, we*ll do the beer."
Pizza Hut "You do the maths, we*ll do the pizza."
And there*s at least one more that I can*t remember right now.
I think all *strange* mockumentaries about people (like this new one for a finnish painkiller) are sooooo 2004. There*s also one for the lottery in Holland and one for Pearle in Holland.
I liked it when it was for the Dexia bank in Belgium, with the guy who had divine texts in braiile on his forehead. But now it*s not funny anymore.
>>>>Using pink to mean it*s for women- either in the design of the product itself or in the design of the ad.
>>
>>Exactly, this drives me nuts, it is the 21st century enough of that already. I am a feminist, grad of a liberal college and that drives me nuts.
>>
And yet you still have a pink avatar your self? That*s funny. lol
Yes. Movie trailers are in general horrible. One great trailer however is this one for The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy. The movie stunk but the trailer is a blast.
Watch it here
http//www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/hitchhikersguidetothegalaxy/trailer_3/hh_trailer_large.html
>>157 Any movie for any action of horror film. They start the same, run and close the same, even using the same fade-to-black, fade in white text cliche at the end.
Children acting like full-fledged adults. As in the Vauxhall Zafira ads that have been running WAY too long now.
It*s just creepy and disturbing. Stop it.
A few weeks ago, I was in the store shopping, and I needed some razors. They were all out of the "men*s" razors, so I chose the "women*s" razors. The razors were not pink, but they were exactly the same as the men*s razors I had previously bought except for the colour.
At the cashier, I waited for, "Excuse me, sir. Did you know these are women*s razors?" It never came, maybe because the razors were not pink, but I was ready for it.
I have heard some women complain their man will use her razor. The men say they get a better shave with the pink razor. I got the same shave with the "women*s" razors I bought, but they did not have that superior girlie pink colour. wink
________________
Feed those demons and they*ll go away
Seize the day
But soon they*ll be coming back to stay
Damp and grey
Better shave with a womans razor? Really? And here I've been using Gillette mach-something-or-other all these years! (and that's only because I can't find Wilkinsons/sword brand which I'd much prefer to use since their ads AREN'T TRES SUCKY and in my face all day. I hate seeing Gillette ads with men in white lab coats comparing the razor to some super advanced rocket science / splitting atoms /nuclear fusion technology and some fawning woman comes and brushes the handsome models smooth face, knowing that somehow I kinda paid for that crap....)
Some men come up with strange excuses for using their woman's razor, I guess. It makes no sense to me.
Isn't there a commercial for a razor that pokes fun at the multi-blade razors? It features a guy holding a big multi-blade razor with something like 12 blades on it at the start.
Interview-style adverts with the obligatory wobbly hand-held camera filming at odd angles, with lots of extreme close-ups (eye, mouth).
Lottery winners who do stupid things with their winnings -- renting the QE2 to go water-skiing behind, or some such.
Wild-eyed, slightly scruffy oddball prophets who wander the streets bringing the product's "truth" to the masses.
The Phones4U ads are not a million miles away from this concept, either:
http://www.phones4u.co.uk/info/info_tvadverts.asp
Damn those ads are cheesy, especially that hand-signal-stuff.
The catfight theme in beer ads.
www.coorslight.ca
This thread gets a gold star and a blue ribbon. Both terribly over-used symbols.