1. "Ask your doctor about..." Ask my doctor about some medication? When did the doctor/patient relationship change like this? I'm supposed to go by some commercial, and then ask my doctor if this medication that is being advertised is right for me (if I have the ailment)? I trust my doctor enough to know what my ailment is and what medications I should be taking and shouldn't be taking. I've never understood ads for prescription medications. If they are prescription medications, the patient shouldn't have anything to do with them until his doctor prescribes them.2. "One day only!" Those damn commercials for department store sales that are "one day only." But if you listen carefully to the ad or read the print on the screen, these one day only sales actually run for two or three days, and even if they don't, you can usually get the sale price the day before. And you ever notice the stores have these sales almost every single week?
3. "Goes from 0 to 60 in 5.3 seconds." Why would anyone - unless you are a police officer or James Bond - need to go that fast? In fact, I've never understood why car companies always push how fast cars go. Who cares? I'm not having a race with anyone on the highway. I (just like everyone else) drives between 55 and 70 mph. I don't need to go to 60 in 5 seconds, and I don't need to go over 70 mph ever.
4. "Serving suggestion." I saw this in an ad for a frozen food product a couple of weeks ago, and it's something you always see on food products, that the way they are showing the food served is only a "suggestion" and that you can probably serve it the way that you like. THANKS. I remember buying Stouffer's Lasagna one time, and I spent 6 days trying to find the exact plate and fork they used in the ad because I thought that was the only way I was allowed to eat it.
5. "Use as directed." Is it just me, or does it seem to you that ads are geared toward the - how to put this delicately - viewers who probably wouldn't know how to use a telephone or how to eat food? It's a given to me that I have to use something, particularly medicine, "as directed." Which is why you'll never see me eating Preparation H.
6. "Part of a balanced breakfast." Whenever they have this line they always show the balanced breakfast as being a bowl of cereal, toast with butter, a glass of orange juice, and a plate with scrambled eggs and bacon on it. Is that really balanced? And doesn't it depend on your body and your diet?
7. "Only in theaters." Yeah, thanks for telling me that the new Superman movie can only be seen in theaters starting this Friday. I would have wandered into Blockbuster or looked on YouTube for it if you hadn't mentioned that.
8. "Does not protect against sexually transmitted diseases." If you actually think that a pill like Viagra would protect you from STDs, you shouldn't be having sex in the first place.
1. #3 is usually related to how well the car accelerates itself through any speed. If you're passing someone at 60MPH you don't want to take forever to do it.
Posted at 10:50PM on Jul 27th 2006 by James