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Ask HN: Have TV ads changed?

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Re: Ask HN: Have TV ads changed?

#21
teenagers don't watch tv but toddlers and younger children that want to emulate teenagers watch tv, because their parents have cable or re-subscribed to cable

a lot of children in a structured household get brief doses of unguided tiktok and social media due to parental controls, and the things they do see they want more of it

it kind of filters for those kinds of families, which typically have other forms of stability to accomplish structure, which means money.

Re: Ask HN: Have TV ads changed?

#22
post #19
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think Coca-Cola dominates culture vs. your local store brand?

is the point you're trying to make, that they need to run more ads than everybody else in order to dominate?

Every new generation needs to be reminded of it.

The coca cola Christmas ad is well known I would say.

Brands can disappear much quicker than people think. Remember Nokia or blackberry

Blackberry was the thing for business people.

Re: Ask HN: Have TV ads changed?

#23
post #19
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think Coca-Cola dominates culture vs. your local store brand?

is the point you're trying to make, that they need to run more ads than everybody else in order to dominate?

Yes. You're basically saying the equivalent of "why keep painting the bridge, I've never seen it rust!"

That's WHY you've never seen it rust.

Re: Ask HN: Have TV ads changed?

#24
post #12
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why are you watching them?Research?

sir, if i'm watching ads, than this is accidental either way why are you so concerned?

I can understand the op poster as I'm also not even able to come across tv ads anymore.

It's quite interesting whenever we are at my parents place, watching ads is quite interesting experience.

Very odd and annoying.

Re: Ask HN: Have TV ads changed?

#25
Many of the ones I see in airport bars in the US are for prescription drugs and go something like "do _you_ have metastatic breast cancer? ask your physician about cibrofambuloxivin" [graphics of a woman looking sad and then afterwards walking on a beach, also some extremely impossible to read small print] ...

Re: Ask HN: Have TV ads changed?

#26
To the general question “have ads changed?” Yes. The style of ads generally evolve to match the time. Some of this is because the industry learns what’s effective and some is because trends and aesthetics change. In the 80s there were a lot of jingles and characters in ads, which you see much less of now. In the late 90s/early 2000s Apple started to include pop songs and the rest of the industry followed suit.

As to whether this is an effective strategy, it’s hard to say without knowing the specifics of the ad and the business, but as a rule for an ad to be effective it needs to be noticed and you need to connect it with the brand, so if it’s not accomplishing that it probably isn’t delivering on its intention (though it’s also possible that you’re not the target and if you were it would deliver). FWIW, I pretty strongly suspect that there’s too much sameness in the aesthetics and that’s hurting effectiveness. https://whyisthisinteresting.substack.com/p/why-is-this-inte...

A few books if you want more on commercials and mass advertising: - https://www.amazon.com/How-Brands-Grow-What-Marketers/dp/151... - https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Humbug-Think-Differently-Adve... - https://www.amazon.com/Seducing-Subconscious-Psychology-Emot...

Re: Ask HN: Have TV ads changed?

#27
My guess is that the advertising industry has stratified and now the advertisers are rarely self-producing content. Now they just buy stock footage from content producers and add narration, text, music, done. All of these can be sourced from marketplaces and put together cheaply, a consistent process making for a steady stream of content with varying degrees of blandness.

Re: Ask HN: Have TV ads changed?

#28
On the Cooking Channel, I often see ads that say "Don't get up! Just point your phone at the screen to go to the link". The ad is by Adam and Eve, an adult toy store. I certainly haven't seen those types of QR-code focused commercials before.

I say "often" because it seems like the Cooking Channel has a very small ad business, as this ad plays constantly in between ads for Discovery+.

Re: Ask HN: Have TV ads changed?

#29
post #20

>every other ad is what i would describe as "dancing happy diverse young people in colourful clothes" [...] , but with TV ads it isn't even clear what the product they are advertising That type of advertising using "abstract visuals" has been going on for decades. It's basically what some call "aspirational lifestyle" type of advertising. I wrote some previous comments about that particular type of aspirational commu…

One of the more famous quotes on advertising is "people don't buy products, they buy better versions of themselves".

Budweiser hasn't changed in ages. You aren't going to buy one on the basis of just seeing a picture, but you might if you saw an image of friends around a campfire that happens to feature Budweiser.

That's because the next time you find yourself at the store needing to choose a drink, looking at aisle shelves may not help you make a decision. The campfire image however may appear in your mind when you see the Bud logo. And that image might determine whether you buy or not.

Re: Ask HN: Have TV ads changed?

#30

I haven't watched US TV since the last World Cup, but... Could it be that they are using the same style of stock footage? Dissolve - Authentically Yours https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GcjPKdsapTM Dissolve - Generic Millennial Add https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KG_i7oWzTyU

I find funny how "millennials" are a way of describing people in their early 20s when millennials have between 27 to 41 years old. It doesn't stop to surprise me how older generations misuse that word.
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