Ok, need to vent my spleen (?) or whatever...
I am a broad-minded person (I believe) when it comes to comedy. I enjoy everything from an Alan Partridge spoof to Buster Keaton/Charley Chaplin slapstick, alt comedy like Tim Heidecker, the scathing wit of a Norm MacDonald/Amy Wong/John Mulvaney/Anthony Jeselnik, and most all points in between. But...
The Emu and Doug thing - absurd, but mildly amusing
Emu's parents seeing Emu off as he's 'goin down th' road'. Mildly amusing.
The guy making a wax figure of his absurd self, getting it attacked by frisbees & the sun - mildly amusing
The guy on stilts - veering into mindless stupidity
The cocky moron debating w/ the obnoxious 'baby' over the issue of 'Biberty/Liberty'
I'm guessing there is the notion that the more inane & irritating their commercials, the more people will have them lodged into their brain pans.
Another one was that scary psycho guy hawking knives, back around Christmas time. Had to be calculated.
Another is the almost invariable trope that women must be, at all times & places, the sober, competent, wise, dominant dependable part of the equation, while the man is either absent or some manner of a simp. Or, at least, 95% of the time - maybe someone could cite an exception - has to be one or two. Luxury car ads, where they're selling the empowered affluent smugly wonderful nuclear family, a big exception - cause men are often involved in those big-ticket buying decisions.
There - so much better, now.
Top
Liberty Mutual Youtube Ads, etc., etc.
Moderator: STLtoday Forum Moderators
-
- Forum User
- Posts: 717
- Joined: 21 Sep 2024 19:03 pm
Re: Liberty Mutual Youtube Ads, etc., etc.
No matter how amusing their commercials are, it was a terrible decision to flood streaming services with them for the last few years such that you see them like half a dozen times in any given episode/movie you're watching. I doubt many people can withstand that onslaught without eventually reaching a state of reflexive irritation at simply hearing the name of the company.
-
- Forum User
- Posts: 116
- Joined: 04 Sep 2024 19:55 pm
Re: Liberty Mutual Youtube Ads, etc., etc.
And you know there is someone out there with a Jeep Liberty and thought, "Hey, I'll put "Biberty" on my license plate".
Re: Liberty Mutual Youtube Ads, etc., etc.
This is their best one:
Disclaimer: The video above is hosted on Youtube, and has not be reviewed by the staff of the Post-Dispatch.
-
- Forum User
- Posts: 1656
- Joined: 04 Jan 2019 22:28 pm
Re: Liberty Mutual Youtube Ads, etc., etc.
Having written, produced, and announced more than 1,400 radio commercials, I've always followed Madison Avenue closely, and I still wonder if the sponsors lose sight of the ultimate goal: SELL the product or service.
When I Iived in San Diego I picked up easy money several times on TV program/commercial focus groups for Flagship Research, where we'd be polled on what we just watched. We were often reminded of how the ad biz still worships at the shrine of women 18 to 49......thus all the Men Are Helpless blurbs.
One thing that always confused me was in pursuit of a laugh or cuteness, did the commercial spur a "call to action"? --- i.e., did it register in the viewer's front of the mind not necessarily to buy it NOW, but to think of that brand first when you want or need that product or service? In that vein, how does propping up an emu and a bad actor make a motorist want to insure their cars with LM?
One nasty little secret in the ad biz is that the more irritating a commercial, the more memorable, and thus...the more effective. The advertiser cares not one whit about people who hate the ad, since they're not likely customers anyway. Better to be despised than ignored or forgotten. For that reason, if you complain to a salesman's company about him/her being too pushy, instead of a scolding they'll likely get a nice gift card from the sales manager.
The default example I always use is the teeth-gritting radio ad that ran hundreds of times in St. Louis radio in the '90s, for Brophs Mobile Home Sales. It was a straight read by a prissy-sounding guy repeating, ad nauseum, "Bropfs has double-wides for 19-995. Bropfs has double-wides for 19-995. Bropfs has double-wides for 19-995. Bropfs has double-wides for 19-995....". For sixty long, long, long seconds.
It drove non-mobile home people berserk and sent them to change the radio dial. It also sold a boatload of them to those who had been thinking of buying a double-wide.
When I Iived in San Diego I picked up easy money several times on TV program/commercial focus groups for Flagship Research, where we'd be polled on what we just watched. We were often reminded of how the ad biz still worships at the shrine of women 18 to 49......thus all the Men Are Helpless blurbs.
One thing that always confused me was in pursuit of a laugh or cuteness, did the commercial spur a "call to action"? --- i.e., did it register in the viewer's front of the mind not necessarily to buy it NOW, but to think of that brand first when you want or need that product or service? In that vein, how does propping up an emu and a bad actor make a motorist want to insure their cars with LM?

One nasty little secret in the ad biz is that the more irritating a commercial, the more memorable, and thus...the more effective. The advertiser cares not one whit about people who hate the ad, since they're not likely customers anyway. Better to be despised than ignored or forgotten. For that reason, if you complain to a salesman's company about him/her being too pushy, instead of a scolding they'll likely get a nice gift card from the sales manager.
The default example I always use is the teeth-gritting radio ad that ran hundreds of times in St. Louis radio in the '90s, for Brophs Mobile Home Sales. It was a straight read by a prissy-sounding guy repeating, ad nauseum, "Bropfs has double-wides for 19-995. Bropfs has double-wides for 19-995. Bropfs has double-wides for 19-995. Bropfs has double-wides for 19-995....". For sixty long, long, long seconds.






It drove non-mobile home people berserk and sent them to change the radio dial. It also sold a boatload of them to those who had been thinking of buying a double-wide.