Ads

Do you pay attention to ads? There’s one I see for a drug for depression. In it, the “characters” are figures that are put together with rivets or something in their joints and have a wind up key in their backs. As you can probably guess, their movements tend to be a bit jerky. I always think it should be an ad for an arthritis drug, not depression. To my knowledge, depression doesn’t make you move in a jerky fashion.

Then there’s the ad for a bank which is promoting their fancy banking system which allows you to deposit a check by taking a picture of it with your phone and then emailing the picture. I suppose that’s okay if you want to do your banking over the internet (I don’t) but the thing which really puzzles me about this ad are the scenes leading up to the taking a picture of the check. The announcer talks about how technology is supposed to make things easier, better, etc. So why do they show scenes in which the ice maker doesn’t make ice, the hand dryer won’t come on, etc. If those technology items don’t work, why would I want to think the checking by taking a photo with a phone would work?

I used to work at an ad agency. I know that ads have to be approved by the client. Why these clients aren’t questioning these ads is beyond me.  I wonder if they do surveys to see how effective their advertising is in generating business.