Burke: TV ads add nothing to our lives but annoyance

By Tom Burke / Herald Columnist

I was an advertising, marketing and communications guy for over 40 years.

I worked at big international ad agencies and little local companies. I wrote marketing plans, explained the creative product to clients, and penned radio, television and print ad copy for products that ranged from French cognac to National Public Radio. And was nominally successful in my endeavors.

I also worked an 18-year stint in state and local government writing speeches for governors and cabinet secretaries and explaining as a “public information officer” how government was “here to help.” I wasn’t bad at that either.

Then I spent some years as a newspaper reporter. (Best job ever!)

So I know (pretty much) what good and bad advertising looks like.

And I am thoroughly, maximally, completely annoyed, vexed, perturbed and irritated at the oh-so-many crappy, trashy, stupid, inane ads — and not just the campaign ads — aired these days.

Now there’s some really good stuff around. The “Grainger, for the ones who get thing done” campaign comes to mind.

But there’s a lot of junk as well.

And most of the blame goes to the advertisers; the companies dictating product positioning and approving the offending messages.

So while ad agencies can say no, at perhaps considerable cost, to producing dreck, it’s apparent that some shops have surrendered their self-esteem and will, just for the money, create 30-second TV spots with big, jiggly-boobed girls breathlessly explaining how guys with ED concerns can satisfy their squeeze’s every desire and solve all their relationship problems with BlueChew. (Right!)

Now a few years ago I railed against two other ED remedies that ran ads during “family” TV time, necessitating explanations, embarrassed silences, and “Go ask you father or mother” as our grandkiddies queried, “Grandpa, what’s an erection?”

And I’ve penned protests against the makers of snake-oil “supplements” that defraud their poor, under-educated customers on products sold on a foundation of lies.

Best example: Prevagen, the memory improver that the AARP says is “deceiving millions of aging Americans” with claims the supplement can treat age-related memory loss.

And it isn’t just the AARP that’s taking aim at Prevagen: New York Attorney General Letitia James recently won a Manhattan federal trial when a jury convicted the manufacturer, Quincy Bioscience Holding Co., Inc. of essentially lying about their supplement, thereby violating New York’s consumer protection laws. (The jury found Quincy responsible for deceptive acts and practices, false advertising, and repeated and persistent fraud. James will be taking action to block Quincy from continuing its deceptive claims in New York and will seek monetary relief.)

And speaking of fraud and bad advertising, there’s Kars-4-Kids, insulting not only our finer musical taste with an ersatz kiddie band not actually playing their insipid jingle on phony instruments, but the “charity” they’re fronting isn’t some national help-a-child foundation, but greedily supports a very small northeastern U.S. religious group doing little to help actual children in need. (According to the Minnesota attorney general Kars-4-Kids raised $3 million in the state but less than $12,000 went to Minnesota kids; they paid $170,000 to settle lawsuits in Washington, Oregon and Pennsylvania for misleading donors; lost $10 million in real estate manipulations, and more than half of their fundraising is spent on advertising.)

But it ain’t just fraud that irks me.

Sometimes it’s just god-awful bad ads.

And the list of advertisers offending my professional sensibilities starts with Capital One’s “borrowed interest” rip-off of Tom Hanks iconic, “There’s no crying in baseball,” (from the movie “A League of Their Own,”) to get me replace my AMEX card. (Not likely, mate.)

Then there’s the fool in the Homes.com ad glueing a picture frame over his phone (?), as if his ineptness is will inspire me to use their service to buy a house; Haribo’s annoying, squeaky kiddie voices coming out of football behemoths won’t be sending me to the shelf to buy their Gold Bears instead of a Twix bar; the Wegovy parade of diabetics singing, dancing and leaving half-repaired cars and incomplete artwork behind to “march” in praise of their product; the way Lume makes makes “pits and privates” smell like a spring garden; and how a very, very creepy ad for AT&T and Apple iPhones, with two kids listening outside their parents’ bedroom door, eavesdropping on what they think is a bit of conjugal “afternoon delight,” isn’t going to convince me to spend over $1,000 on an iPhone 16.

Now lest you say, “Aha! Those ads worked ‘cause you remembered the product,” full disclosure compels me to fess up to keeping a list of offending spots so I’d have them for the column.

And if you ask why I haven’t cited any political ads, well, they are an entirely separate category of commercials and deserve not just my twice-a-month 900 words, but a book or three focusing on mendacity (mostly from MAGAs); drama (mostly Dems); and negativity (everybody).

Alas, gentle reader, I unfortunately have no power to canonize saints.

But if I did, I’d raise whoever invented my remote’s “mute” button to a special place in heaven’s pantheon; albeit “mute” is why we see so many ads with end-to-end subtitles or giant, splashy supers trying to conquer the quiet.

I sometimes wish the ad for “Calm,” with its 15 seconds of soothing rainfall, would run for a minute or three.

But then, the sound of rain in the Pacific Northwest might be a bit redundant. From November ‘till March, all I need to do is open a window.

Sometimes it’s just about timing.

Slava Ukraini.

Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.