A Thread in Which Banter Most Random is Expulsed Into Existence, By Ravens_cry #142

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

On advertising, I do find the majority of adverts get much worse once you find out what they're advertising.

Watching them on mute and guessing what they're advertising is a fun way to pass the break, unless you're me, because I never sit through adverts.

[Trobby]

Most products will try to sell you on the quality of the product above others...even when the quality is not actually that good at all. It's not so much a matter of convincing you that they have a better quality, but a matter of convincing you that you need what they have in a way that you cannot describe.

As for perfume and other products where you can tell before buying it if it is any good...well, there are those who don't even bother to test the product. <.<; Yes, they are playing to human error, and no, I don't condone it, but that's what happens sometimes.

[Pheehelm]

It's not so much a matter of convincing you that they have a better quality, but a matter of convincing you that you need what they have in a way that you cannot describe.

"Listerine was invented in the 19th century as powerful surgical antiseptic. It was later sold, in a very distilled form, as both a floor cleaner and a cure for gonorrhea. But it wasn't a runaway success until the 1920s, when it was pitched as a solution to "chronic halitosis", the faux medical term that the Listerine advertising group created in 1921 to describe bad breath. By creating a "medical condition" for which consumers now felt they needed a cure, Listerine created the market for their mouthwash. Until that time, bad breath was not conventionally considered catastrophe, but Listerine's ad campaign changed that. As the advertising scholar James B. Twitchell writes, "Listerine did not make mouthwash as much as it made halitosis." Listerine's new ads featured forlorn young women and men, eager for marriage but turned off by their mate's rotten breath. "Can I be happy with him in spite of that?" one maiden asked herself. In just seven years, the company's revenues rose from $115,000 to more than $8 million." -- Freakonomics

[Dragonrider]

My family doesn't own a TV (we do 100% of our watching on the internet) but my grandparents live about six blocks away and we sometimes watch stuff with them. They always, always mute the ads, so much so that when I go to someone else's house where they don't, I find it shocking.

I thought it was new and snazzy. But I shall steal it anyway! Besides, it sounds better than Angleterre. I also like Escocia, but I prefer Cymru.

ME TOO. Also apparently in the Middle Ages it was spelled Cymry (which, Welsh people correct me if I'm wrong because it's been a while, is still how the name of the people is spelt), which I think is even prettier.

Ugh, boys. What's up with this football thing anyway? Something big going on?
Whenever this World Spoon goes on we should just beam all football supporters into space. It'd clear a lot of the air as well.

I'm actually enjoying it. There are so few people who really understand the game or care at all about it in the US, that it's not in the least bit mainstream, and I like knowing what's going on in a sport that's apparently too 'squishy' for us Americans? BLEH. You put most major league baseball pitchers next to any soccer player, and the pitchers look like marshmallows.

Im not into the world cup thing soccer bleh.
American Football is real football.

I've spent enough time watching soccer/football/futbol that American Football seems really, really slow to me. What, you mean they're stopping the clock again? They've only been running for thirty seconds!

I don't know. They seem to be talking about one of those sports not to the American taste, which is to say that it has goals and only goals as a measure of progress. We prefer sports with sub-divisions of accomplishments.

Americans, I think, like to see people WIN. I know a lot of people complaining about all the draws going on in this year's world cup, because they feel like it doesn't 'count' properly. Until a couple years ago, as a matter of fact, the MLS didn't allow draws - they had essentially a shootout at the end, which is ridiculous and babying. I love that they're allowed to tie. I love that the season's play is absolutely just as valued as the Big Tournament at the end, as opposed to sports like baseball, where the whole years is basically one big qualifying round for the "World Series".

So I'm on the pro-soccer side. My dad has never been more thrilled with me.

[Teddy]

On advertising, I do find the majority of adverts get much worse once you find out what they're advertising.

I've found that shampoo adverts are the worst. They all follow this simple pattern:

-A woman (who might or might not be naked) "swings" her hair in some impossible way by slowly moving her head in a circle.
-An animated picture of hair getting repared by glowing spheres/ribbons/water
-A sensual female voice telling you that it contains aloe vera/nutrients/superawesome DNA technology that makes your hair stronger and more beautiful.

Some of them might divert just a little bit from this pattern, but it's still brain-damagingly common.

Then there are the "expert is talking" ads, which are brain-damagingly boring.

And then there are a few really good ones. SVT's (the state-owned brodcasting company here in Sweden) campaign to get people to pay their TV-licence, while not really being advertising, comes to my mind. They've filmed a small to large choir who seeks up some seemingly random person, asks if he/she really is [insert name here], and sings a "thank you"-song for him/her because he/she paid his/her TV-licence. It's 100% real - they didn't see it coming - and the campaign has actually been highly successful. I don't remember the numbers, but the idea that it was 400'000 newly registrated television owners pop up in my head. I'm not sure if this is true, though...

[Coidzor]

I wasn't playing. I was officiating.
And it was American Football. In Scotland.

Deary: Yours is such a strange perspective to me.

[Jokasti]

Wow. I just changed my avatar. For like, the second time. Wow.

[Dogmantra]

I heard the worst advert this morning on the radio. It went on about how a "typical" world cup watching-session turns out (not very well apparently). I thought 'Oh, maybe it's for a football game based on the world cup and it's all "you can be different though!" actually this is a kind of okay advert as far as they go.' Nope. It then said something about food, out of the blue. Apparently not talking about your product 'til the last word is the best way to advertise Heinz Ketchup.

[KuReshtin]

Deary: Yours is such a strange perspective to me.

American Football. Played in Scotland. Involving a Swedish official (alongside the English one and the Scottish one, of course).


Teddy: The swedish TV Licencing ads have generally been pretty decent. One of the more quoted ones from when I grew up was the "Vill du ha en snigel på ögat" ads. For the English speakers, there were ads with a young kid walking around asking people if they'd paid their TV Licence, and if they said they hadn't, the kid put a snail on their eye, and you saw a shot of them with a disgusted grimace on their face and a snail on their eye.. Not really their eyeball or anything, but on their closed eye.
And the tag-line was "Do you want a snail on your eye".

[absolmorph]

Interesting. Over the last 36.5 hours, I've been tired, hyper and insane. At the same time. I also haven't slept since I woke up at 1:16 Saturday afternoon.
Sleep deprivation is fun. However, I'm gonna cut my time short to make sure I'm not tired during the 6-ish hours I get with my girlfriend tomorrow.

[Eldpollard]

Interesting. Over the last 36.5 hours, I've been tired, hyper and insane. At the same time. I also haven't slept since I woke up at 1:16 Saturday afternoon.
Sleep deprivation is fun. However, I'm gonna cut my time short to make sure I'm not tired during the 6-ish hours I get with my girlfriend tomorrow.

What you need sir, is some hot coffee. I find that no problem (insomnia included) cannot be solved with the addition of a pint or so of coffee.

[absolmorph]

What you need sir, is some hot coffee. I find that no problem (insomnia included) cannot be solved with the addition of a pint or so of coffee.

How 'bout a lack of coffee compounded by a dislike for it?

[Archonic Energy]

What you need sir, is some hot coffee. I find that no problem (insomnia included) cannot be solved with the addition of a pint or so of coffee.

Global thermonuclear war?
caffine addiction?
heart palpitations?


couldn't resist!

[absolmorph]

Global thermonuclear war?
caffine addiction?
heart palpitations?


couldn't resist!

Immunize yourself.

[Eldpollard]

Global thermonuclear war?
caffine addiction?
heart palpitations?


couldn't resist!

Okay fine. Not Global Thermonuclear war. That's solved by making a computer play all possible games of tic-tac-toe.
Does anyone get the reference?

[Dogmantra]

Does anyone get the reference?

A better question to ask is "does anyone not get the reference?"

[Phaedra]

I've found that shampoo adverts are the worst. They all follow this simple pattern:

-A woman (who might or might not be naked) "swings" her hair in some impossible way by slowly moving her head in a circle.
-An animated picture of hair getting repared by glowing spheres/ribbons/water
-A sensual female voice telling you that it contains aloe vera/nutrients/superawesome DNA technology that makes your hair stronger and more beautiful.

Some of them might divert just a little bit from this pattern, but it's still brain-damagingly common.

It's not just shampoo, nearly every cosmetic advert follows this format. Bonus points if the superawesome technology is quite obviously made up (I refuse to believe something called "nutrilium" exists. You cannot simply add "ium" to the end of something and make it a real scientific protein").

More bonus points if the product hasn't actually been used in the advert. Mascara adverts where "styled with fake lashes" appears at the bottom of the screen are my favourite.

[Dogmantra]

More bonus points if the product hasn't actually been used in the advert. Mascara adverts where "styled with fake lashes" appears at the bottom of the screen are my favourite.

I like the ones where they claim 97% of women agree with whatever they're trying to sell, then the small print at the bottom says "Out of a surveyed 400".

[Teddy]

It's not just shampoo, nearly every cosmetic advert follows this format.

Well, that format was the precice shampoo format, but most cosmetics come pretty close.

Bonus points if the superawesome technology is quite obviously made up (I refuse to believe something called "nutrilium" exists. You cannot simply add "ium" to the end of something and make it a real scientific protein").

I don't think I've seen especially much of that. Probably because of some law that protects us from it. I have seen "superawesome patented DNA technology" in one ad, though.

More bonus points if the product hasn't actually been used in the advert. Mascara adverts where "styled with fake lashes" appears at the bottom of the screen are my favourite.

Haven't seen that, probably because of aforementioned laws. I think the advertisers prefere computer animations here in Sweden.

I like the ones where they claim 97% of women agree with whatever they're trying to sell, then the small print at the bottom says "Out of a surveyed 400".

"Let 10'000 women test our product, and then ask the ones who seem most happy with it about what they think about it."

[Quincunx]

Gandalf Goes to the World Cup

"Great. He spends skill points on Perform (Vuvuzela), and now I need to make a Knowledge (Limits of My Own Sanity) skill check."

*****

Today's telescreen moment: Since when have I had a microphone pickup in this laptop?

[Dogmantra]

"Let 10'000 women test our product, and then ask the ones who seem most happy with it about what they think about it."

See, I don't even think they should go this far. They could easily say "We asked 400 women to test our product, and 97% of them agreed that it's bitchin'."

That'd still sell it.

[Teddy]

See, I don't even think they should go this far. They could easily say "We asked 400 women to test our product, and 97% of them agreed that it's bitchin'."

That'd still sell it.

This reminds me of a survey one of the political parties around here made (because it's election year this year, politics is everywhere over here). I won't go closer on the details, but they made a survey around a rather ambiguous question, so that (I think) three out of four answers would seem to support them. They then waved around their fresh results and bragged that a large majority of people supported them in one of their primary questions. Facepalm-moment ensued.

[Dogmantra]

They then waved around their fresh results and bragged that a large majority of people supported them in one of their primary questions. Facepalm-moment ensued.

Hey, I like this idea.

Quick poll everyone, choose one of the two options:
Is Dogmantra the best?
1. Yes
2. Yes

[KuReshtin]

Hey, I like this idea.

Quick poll everyone, choose one of the two options:
Is Dogmantra the best?
1. Yes
2. Yes

No, no, no, no.. You're doing it wrong.

Flip a coin. if it comes up Heads, I win. Tails, you lose.

[Dogmantra]

No, no, no, no.. You're doing it wrong.

Flip a coin. if it comes up Heads, I win. Tails, you lose.

I wanted to be heads
Okay that's a lie, I always choose tails anyway

[Archonic Energy]

Archonic's guide to marketing statistics:

1) ask 50 bias people if it is good.
2) display as percentage.
3) charge the company millions for the rights to the survey
4) ???
5) profit

[Teddy]

Hey, I like this idea.

Quick poll everyone, choose one of the two options:
Is Dogmantra the best?
1. Yes
2. Yes

More like:

Do you think that Teddy has the right to think that he's really awesome?
1. Absolutely
2. Yes
3. I wouldn't say no
4. No, and he should be torn into bloody pieces and burn in hell

If you answer 1, 2 or 3, that means I'm the best in the world.

[Dogmantra]

More like:

Do you think that Teddy has the right to think that he's really awesome?
1. Absolutely
2. Yes
3. I wouldn't say no
4. No, and he should be torn into bloody pieces and burn in hell

If you answer 1, 2 or 3, that means I'm the best in the world.

But that actually decreases your chances of a clear majority. Okay, so maybe 10% say absolutely, 12% say yes and 29% say that they wouldn't say no, but then you get 49% who say that you should be torn into bloody pieces. That looks like a pretty clear majority to me.

[Thufir]

This discussion makes me think of Yes, Prime Minister's take on surveys.

Also how the foreign office typically gets its way according to a different episode, but I can't find the clip on youtube.

[Archonic Energy]

damn it!
now i'm going to be watching "Yes Minister"/"Yes Prime Minister" all day!