Commercial Idiocy

I was just curious what you guys do when there are commercials on tv, on the radio, etc. I'll share my list first, and then blog about it:

TV: 80% of the time I zone out and daydream. 10% of the time I get up and leave the room to use the restroom, prepare a snack/meal, etc. 10% of the time I stay seated and talk about what we were just watching with whoever else is in the room with me. 0% of the time do I ever really watch the commercials.

Radio: 99% of the time I change the station, <1% of the time I just leave it alone because I don't want to lose my signal, the commercial isn't unbearable, etc -- and then I proceed to ignore it until my music or news comes back on air.

Google search results: never even GLANCE at them consciously or subconsciously. I honestly think that my visual field when Googling has a white-out zone on the far right of the screen, because when I picture Google search results in my memory, they never have text or color on the far right of the screen unless (for whatever reason) I remember that they ought to; and even then, I can't possibly remember what was there, having not looked at it at all.

Banner ads: 99.99% of the time do not give a second thought to and scroll right past. But for the last few years, most banner ads have been blocked by my Firefox.

Pop-up ads: ditto to banner ads, except "close".

Billboards (when driving): almost never look at.

Billboards (when passenger): only look at because it's something for the eyes to appreciate that isn't the green, blue, white, or black (summer colors) or white, gray, and black (winter colors).

Likelihood of a commercial advertisement to get me to buy the product: honestly, none. I can unfortunately think of very few commercials which have even plugged something I would be interested in buying. Most commercials, it seems, are for depression, smoking, erectile dysfunction (pharmaceuticals); osteoporosis, menopause, menstrual periods, (women); disgusting snack foods or microwave dinners which my family would never buy anyway; cars; computers; and that's about all I'm willing to waste my time trying to think of. ;p Let's put it this way:
- few anime, J-drama, or sci-fi commercials
- few video game commercials
- few book commercials
- few movie trailer commercials (and of these there's few few FEW few few that are for movies I care to see!)

And my point was not even that I'm not being advertised to, but that even were I being advertised to, I still would ignore commercials! They're still a big fucking nuisance for interrupting my tv / radio / what-have-you time. They're eyesores. Bothers. Annoyances.

So ... if most of you agree with me, and if we think that most Americans would agree with me, then here's a question: why do companies still shell out tens of thousands of dollars per airing to get their commercials some air time!? I just don't get it. "Get the message out," you say. Sure. Okay. I could maybe understand that, except ...

who advertises to us? Coca-Cola? We know you fucking exist already! Cut it out! Tylenol? Duracell? Kellogg's? These are all companies whose products a child of 4 would have great familiarity even in a world where no commercial advertising existed. With all due respect, nobody gives a shit about a car dealership commercial -- if they're anything like me or my dad, they open up the yellow pages (and similar things) and then look for the list of all the dealerships which sell the desired car brand. Bob Rohrman and Andy Mohr could save themselves a lot of money -- and save us a lot of air time -- if they stuck to the Yellow Pages and quit making commercials for TV and radio. Besides, you'd have to have been born yesterday -- or just moved to northern & central Indiana yesterday -- to not know who Bob Rohrman is. So the point is, even if we could justify his having had commercials at one point in time (i.e. back when he first started selling cars), it's pointless for him now.

Papa John's? Great example. I don't understand how stupid your company's executives would have to be to waste millions of dollars for national television advertising when you already spend millions of dollars for mailbox stuffers!! Someone with no television reception (i.e. ME!!!) would still know that Papa John's exists and would still know what their newest deals are to within 7 days of the plan's inception courtesy of those mailbox ads. So I mean, what's the deal? Why do we have Papa John's execs -- and Joe Schmoe citizens, maybe even one of you? -- insisting that if Papa John's quit airing commercials on tv that maybe they'd lose to the competition? Does not fucking compute. People will quit eating at Papa John's when a better option comes along -- and that has nothing to do with whether or not Papa John's does or does not keep having ads on television. At most, it has to do with the competition ponying up the cash for some tv ads.

So you could maybe say that this is what it's all about: Coca-Cola, Papa John's, Tylenol, Duracell, and all the others are paying for commercial airtime for products we already know exist, for commercials that we're not even going to pay attention to in the first place, simply as a monopolistic means of keeping the competition off the air. In other words, if Papa John's is willing to pay $5 million for airtime, then Papa Murphy's is going to have to be willing to pay $5.1 million -- or else no airtime for Papa Murphy's, and no airtime means no way to get the word out that they exist. But if this is what it really boils down to -- Americans have tv ads because companies don't want to give the competition a chance to advertise -- ... isn't that even more fucking retarded? I mean, isn't there at least one intelligent, corrupt, and powerful big wig on Wall Street who would have had the muscle and the insight to get his brothers and sisters to wake up and realize:

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you please! Why are we spending billions of our own dollars each year to silence the competition when we could make a one-time payment of several hundred billion dollars to get commercial advertisements taken off the air entirely?

Sounds like a retarded conspiracy theory answer? That's because it is: to a retarded conspiracy theory supposition. I reject on the grounds that it's too absurd that our society's biggest companies are paying for commercial air time to just to keep the competition from getting any. This means that there must be a sincere desire on the companies' behalf to get the word out about their newest products, and to them, I repeat:
1) nobody's watching / listening / reading anyway, and
2) some of you maroons have already found better, cheaper ways of getting the word out for your product (from Tylenol's "we're so fucking famous everybody already knows who we are" to Papa John's mailbox stuffers).