Advertising Overload

Enough already! I’m referring to advertisements. They’re everywhere – in newspapers and magazines, flyers delivered in the mail, on t.v., radio and the Internet, on videos, billboards, garbage cans and phones, on cars, trucks, buses and vans, they’re in buses and other public transit vehicles and they’re even on the names of public buildings, not to mention the spam emails and phone calls. You can’t go anywhere without being bombarded by ads.

I realize ads are important. They help pay bills and can convey useful information on such things as health and environmental issues to safety to new programs offered by schools and the government. They can also be useful to letting me know about sales at the grocery store, hardware store or book store. However, there can be too much of a good thing and not all ads are good. Some seek to steal our money and our identity, to have us believe lies and sell things that are damaging to our health and the environment.

Whenever I log into my Yahoo Mail and they’re trying to sell me something. Lately ads for matchmaking services are being fostered onto me with photos of supposedly sexy looking women. Well besides not find the women the least bit sexy, I’m a happily married man with not the flightiest interest in either finding a new woman or having something on the side.

I go on YouTube and I’m forced to watch at least 5 seconds or more of some commercial. I avoid this by turning down the sound and doing something else while waiting for it to end. The latest is on the Sun Media newspaper sites where, in exchange for watching some commercial I can get full access to a particular article. With this I don’t even have to keep the window open I just go to another window and do something else until the commercial finishes. With TV ads I turn down the sound and read, unless I need to leave the room in which I leave the sound up so that I know when the commercials were over.

CTV Toronto News At 6 have commercials and then for sports and weather bring you yet another short commercial. I’m waiting for the time commercials will be interrupted by commercials or better still when a commercial will be interrupted by a five minute show. It would sure save on programming costs.

And it’s not just amount of ads, but what they’re selling. As I mentioned earlier I’m not the least bit interested in a matchmaking site. I’m also not the least bit interested in cars – I don’t have my license and have no desire to get one. Likewise with booze as I don’t drink. I’ve had newspaper sites with annoying popup ads for bridal wear. I’m not an engaged woman and have no children and so this has zero interest for me. The crazy thing is despite all of us needing to eat I’ve yet to come across a single grocery store ad. I can still remember the old Dominion Store jingles from when I was a child. “Why do more Canadians shop at Dominion? It’s mainly because of the meat. And it’s mainly because of the meat.”

What I’d like to see is fewer, more creative ads and ads that are focussed on everyday needs like food, hardware and clothing. Not the crap that generally passes for advertising now.