Ad Nauseam: Difference between revisions

This also happens on sites that have commercial breaks in their videos. Because the site can only contract so many companies that want to advertise on these breaks, it means that they play the same few commercials over and over and over.

 

 

 

* Sapporo Ichiban. ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=538E0JxQcdI Oh, Sapporo Ichiban.]'' Because the ad is 15 seconds long it used to be run twice in a row ''every single freaking time''. If there's a Canadian over 30 who doesn't have that commercial permanently etched in their mind, congratulations.

** Even worse, in some markets the double commercial ran four or five times an ''hour'' because the company had bought so much airtime.

* During the run of a movie on ITV, the same advert kept popping up with absurd frequency, changing subtly each time. After a couple of dozen variations it was barely recognisable as the same ad.

* This also happens when the station messes up airing a commercial, due to their need to air the whole commercial to satisfy their advertisers. If the station accidentally starts Commercial B too soon, cutting Commercial A short, you can rest assured Commercial B will be followed by Commercial A again.

* Geico Insurance will frequently air two different short ads back-to-back. Since Geico ads tend to be A) short (the two together filled one "normal" ad slot) and B) clever, the end result isn't all that annoying.

** Allstate Insurance does this too. Two short "This isn't the time to wish you had accident forgiveness" ads are shown together.

** Many theatres, at least in Canada, have about a half-dozen ads that cycle through in a loop until the movie starts.

* During the popularity of the 'Crazy Frog' ring tone in the United Kingdom (where this trope is generally not as noticeable) an advertisement for the sound featured on almost every ad-break on some satellites channels, often re-occurring. This prompted large numbers of complaints to the industry regulator who responded saying that essentially they were in no position to stop a paid for advertisement simply on the grounds of repetition.

*** The frog also had a visible penis in the advert, until the censors noticed.

* McDonald's has begun using the third variation of this trope, using three commercials (featuring Line Rider, a black kid in a white shirt having fruit blasted at him, and a girl inexplicably acting like a chicken). If a commercial pops up and it advertises Dasani water, wraps, and fruit parfait, it's a McDonald's ad.

** Back during the Comedy Central era, the main sponsor of ''MST3K'' was Mentos.

*** Speaking of ''MST3k'', there was a screening of several episodes as part of a sci-fi festival. Unfortunately, the screening was delayed, so the three (three!) video game adverts that they had had to be shown again... and again... and again... there were cheers when someone turned the screen off.

** [[Drinking Game]]! During an airing (or sips for a marathon), take a drink of something that isn't a kahlua mudslide each time the commercial airs.

* Speaking of Comedy Central, this network seems to delight itself with this practice nowadays, often taking one random commercial every break and airing it twice.

* A traffic law office near St. Louis, Missouri named "Ticket one" does this, in the most annoying fashion. Playing the exact same commercial twice in a row, and often, twice during the same commercial break. (I now have their jingle memorized. * sigh* )

* Another version that McDonald's did was the "dad forgot the fries" commercial. In the first spot, you see a father buy food for his family and eat fries all the way home, so when he comes home, there are no fries left to give to his family. The kids cheer when he comes home, but become disappointed when there are no fries, so he goes out to buy more. End commercial. The second one starts the same, but this time when he comes home, it's to an empty house and his wife says to him "you did it again, didn't you?"

*** So does another lawyer, in South Carolina, the law offices of Bill Green. "What's the matter? What's the matter? What's the matter?"

** Parodied in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP01dGZGf8g#t=7m57s Yugioh The Abridged Series].

** Don't forget Girls Gone Wild every commercial break.

*** That isn't ''so'' bad - what's truly annoying is (say it with us) "Smilin' Bob".

* Bob's Discount Furniture, a local New England business with a tendency towards obnoxious advertising, pulls this a lot.

** They use multiple variants, too. Probably the worst is a variant that technically falls under the A1/A2 variant, but the only difference between the two commercials is ''the color of the couch''. Seriously. They start the commercial break with an ad featuring a dark brown couch/sofa/whatever set, then the last commercial of the same break will be exactly the same, only now the couch, sofa and everything else are beige. The real question is, [[Fridge Logic|why the hell did they make the exact same commercial twice?]]

* MLB.tv, a streaming baseball website that charges for its services, originally had no ads at all. Slowly, though, they began sneaking ads in; at first, they would repeat two or three ads over and over again. By the end of the season, however, single ads were run repeatedly through the entirety of the ad breaks. Anyone watching a lot of baseball on MLB.tv in the 2008 season will remember the Yahoo!Sports and Sharp Aquos ads with particular venom.

*** The same applies for ''[[South Park]]'', except that 5-6 episodes in a row will all play the ''exact same ad'' at least ''four'' times during the each episode.

** Other MLB viewers will get much of the same. Those using DirecTV's Extra Innings package to view their out-of-market baseball games will often find their ''entire'' commercial break populated by DirecTV commercials. Most noticeable when, on at least one occasion, four consecutive commercials of the "smear the competition" variety aired, all stating reasons why DirecTV is better than rival Dish Network (the anti-Dish commercials ''rarely'' air just one at a time, but blocks of two anti-Dish commercials combined with other DirecTV commercials are more common).

* For at least three months before ''[[Cloverfield]]'' came out, movie theaters were averaging two previews for it per movie. Before the trailers there was a Kodak ad made up entirely of clips from ''Cloverfield'', and then there'd be the actual movie ad during trailers.

* There's a fifth variation-commercials which are, shot for shot, identical, except for the ''race of the people in the commercial''. Two examples are one where you can get your Marines in white or black, or a commercial for some doll or other where you get not only black and white doll/mother/child, but an incredibly light-skinned Hispanic trio as well.

* Pizza commercials are often shown twice in a row. Includes Papa Murphy's, Dominos, and possibly others.

* The Finnish movie festival ''Love And Anarchy'' shows their own ad at the start of every screening. While it's usually witty, many regulars buy their tickets in sets of nine and see ''two to four movies every evening'', so the ad gets old fast.

* Why buy a mattress anywhere else? * Ding!*

* A variant Ad Nauseam applies to those still ads that run on movie screens ''prior'' to the trailers and Audi commercials. How many times can you re-run the same stupid trivia questions and guess-the-silhouette gags, that invariably promote either Coca-Cola or whatever flick's showing elsewhere in the movieplex?

* A certain online senior dating service has at least six different, very short commercials, and CNN once chose to air them ALL IN THE SAME COMMERCIAL BLOCK, back to back.

* Sponsored online streaming video sites will often contain commercial breaks, and it's almost always the same one every time.

* A small-time international music awards show in 2009 (so small-time in fact it looked like it was filmed in a hotel theater) was apparently only sponsored by ''[[Guitar Hero]] IV''.

* Parodied on ''[[Family Guy]]'' when Al Harrington's Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man Warehouse and Emporium has a sale on Crudely Painted Not So Funny Plywood Cutout Folk Art. Like, over and over.

* French TV had an extremely annoying variation on this trope in 1998. It was one single 20 seconds spot for Mercurochrome band-aids, which started by the slogan (which was "Mercurochrome, le pansement des héros" - "Mercurochrome, heroes' band-aids"), then a 10 second scene, then 3 times the slogan again. In 20 seconds you could hear 4 times the brand. Another version of the same ad had the 4 slogans at the end. Available [http://www.ina.fr/pub/hygiene-beaute-sante/video/PUB882462092/pansements-mercurochrome.fr.html here] and [http://www.ina.fr/pub/hygiene-beaute-sante/video/PUB882462092/pansements-mercurochrome.fr.html here]

* Brilliantly combined with [[Product Switcheroo Ad]] in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFPDaQrPjus this] Pedigree Dentastix commercial. The first commercial is for a ridiculous product called "Doggie Dentures", and the first thing the second one (which, by the way, has the same "setting" as the previous one) shows is a dog with a Dentastix treat in its mouth staring at the camera, while the announcer says, "You're...kidding, right?" as if in response to the previous commercial.

* ESPN partners with certain college football conferences (particularly the SEC) to show some second or third-rate conference games on limited distribution networks; a viewer has to subscribe to the obscure channel the game is broadcast on or order it through Pay Per View. Unsurprisingly, these games have few sponsors, and throughout the three hours of Florida vs. Crummy Division II Team Destined To Lose By 60 Points viewers will see the same commercials several times.

* [[Discovery Channel]], [[Animal Planet]] and Investigation Discovery all do this on a regular basis. If one of their shows has a new episode coming up, expect to see it advertised at ''least'' once per commercial break.

* For a while, whenever cable channel FX would air short, repetitive commercials for whatever original "gritty" drama it was trying to push for the upcoming season. Sing it with me: ''"[[Peter Gabriel|This time you've gone too far. This time you've gone too far...]]"''

* [[Carmike Cinemas]] shows 2-3 advertisements for Coke/Diet Coke before previews start.

* If you live in Wisconsin, local ad blocks tend to follow a set pattern of "HOM Furniture/Local Advert/HOM Sleep Express".

[[Category:Advertising Tropes]]

[[Category:Ad Nauseam]]