Poll: So has an advert ever actually put you off spending money on the product advertised?

[BarbaricGoose]

Every Axe commercial that's ever been made. Their target audience is horny teenagers, clearly. I am not a horny teenager; I hate their ads.

 

[Catie Caraco]

If you want to see an ad that is truly insulting to gamers as a whole, go take a look at that 5 minute WiiU ad that was released a while ago.


Fucking patronising and insulting on every level I can think of.

I dunno, that's kinda like that terrible Legend of Zelda commercial from the 80's where they talk about the "sweet" graphics and rap. To me it's so bad that it's funny and I can't imagine that they meant for us to take it seriously.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Funnily enough no. But then they've never encouraged me to spend money either. I think ads just bounce off whatever passes for my mind

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

I decided, over ten years ago, that I was never going to shop for clothes at Old Navy because of their annoying commercials. And whenever a movie trailer proclaims 'Based on a True Story' it almost guarantees that I will never watch it.

What if it is a true story though, like The Blair Witch Project?


On topic: Ads in general turn me off to stuff. More often than not I'll see a product I already own or use advertised, and like it a little less.

 

[Catie Caraco]

For me, the answer is any commercial that features an computer animated anthropomorphized character that is something gross. Like mucinex, with the walking, talking wads of phlegm, or 'Digger', the toe nail fungus. Why do I dislike them?

1) They are gross. A walking phlegm wad that leaves green goo wherever it goes, or a little fungus monster digging into your nails? If I'm eating and watching tv and that comes on I never fail to lose my appetite.

2) I'm not sure why, but they're kind of making us feel bad for the little bugger that represents the ailment you're trying to cure. "Look, Papa Mucus is just a hard workings shlub with a nagging wife and a kid, just like you, right? This product will forcibly evict him from his new home, in your lungs. You heartless monster."

 

[Tayh]

Yeah, all the time.
The more it insults my intelligence, the less likely I am to ever buy their product, or any other products associated with responsible company, again.

I hate advertisements. So. Much.

 

[Mr Fixit]

Right off the top of my head.... Anything & everything Apple & all related products, so damn annoying & on every channel every five fucking minutes...

Dr. Pepper 10 is just fucking stupid, I really hope the idiot that made those ads gets fired for being an idiot....

Gamefly is a joke, makes every gamer look like a pathetic, childish douchebag... & its still pretty damn expensive if you like to play a game for more than a day.

Don't get me started on any & all "organic" products...

And there is one local internet provider that has an ad on the radio that pisses me off every time I hear it. Something like "Why would you want to go out into the big scary world & actually experience life, when we can bring you the whole world while sit on your couch & get fatter". Pisses me off so much....

 

[Master_of_Oldskool]

DirectTV's recent campaign about the consequences of having a different cable provider did this for me, because all of the so-called consequences sound awesome. Who wouldn't want to reenact Platoon with Charlie Sheen?

 

[Queen Michael]

Jacamo's "we have shirts in any size for REAL men."

Sizes from medium to xxxl

I'm a size extra small. You idiots.

If they don't have size extra small then you're not going to go there anyway, right? So they won't get to sell you shirts they never had in the first place. It's like a vegan saying that she's not going to eat at a certain steakhouse because the owner is sexist.

 

[Pinkamena]

I remember that when I was watching the livestreams of MLP episodes, there were some absolutely god-awful ads. "GameFly" comes to mind. Also that awful commercial with a mother named Lisa. Or something. Yeah, I'm not good at remembering commercials...

 

[SoranMBane]

I'm sure there are lots of ads like that, but I've probably just forgotten about them. The majority of ads today are completely banal, insulting, and just plain stupid. There is one that stands out, though, since it was for a product quite near and dear to my heart. An ad campaign so awful and ill-timed that it could have potentially doomed an entire industry...

Yah, another chance to complain about the ad that set gaming culture back a few years!

Dead Space 2

I liked Dead Space. I didn't love it but I was interested enough in it to purchase the sequel.

Then...

Spoiler: You've probably seen me bitching about this before...

Yes, the "Your mom is going to hate this game" ad is every reason I have for not getting Dead Space 2. That commercial is so utterly insulting to everything it should mean to be a mature gamer that I absolutely refuse to give that game any type of support.

EDIT: See below for I have decided to give the game a go. However, removing this post seems like it would create a weird gap so I'm keeping it here!

EDIT 2: See post 7, 10, 15, and 62 before you decide that I'm an idiot for this

Yeah, this one. Granted, I ended up buying Dead Space 2 anyway. I even preordered the Collector's Edition, and I definitely don't regret it; the game is completely amazing. But if I hadn't already been excited about it and following the game's development closely from day-one, that ad campaign would have disgusted me to the point that I wouldn't have even been willing to touch that game with a ten-foot pole. As it stands, I wasn't about to let the EA marketing department's horrible, horrible sense of judgement be a reason to punish Visceral by not buying what was shaping up to be a very solid game.

 

[Griffolion]

Thats my question to you and if your answer is yes, what was the advert and what was it about the ad that made your blood boil?

Recently for me it was the new Samsung Galaxy advert, the one that opens with the stupid little whistling noise and David Beckham smirking. I was in the market for a new phone and i was torn between the Samsung and the more classic Nokia, this advert made my mind up very fast. It was so irritating and was on tv so often I actually started muting the tv during ad breaks so i wouldnt have to listen to it.

Any Apple advert. If owning anything by them gives me such a level of pretentious douchiness, then I'm avoiding them like the plague.

 

[Noswad]

Apple seems to be a common theme on this thread and it's easy to see why, I remember a few years back they did an advert with Mitchell and Webb, without realising that Mitchell was the likeable one and accidentally turned it into an advert for Microsoft.

Other than that, basically anything that advertises on the escapist, particularly before videos, I'm around here quite a bit so even the best advert starts to grind. Oh and I swear I will never ever buy fucking Vimpto again, god I hate that advert. I don't just mean mild dislike, i mean that advert is only just behind Fox, Jersey Shore and George Osborne.

 

[TallanKhan]

Anyone in the UK has no doubt heard about Go Compare.

if not, well, you've been warned -


Because of this advert, I will never, ever use this company. They could give me £5 a year car insurance and 15 sexy russian models to be my wives, and I still would not touch them with a bargepole.

Thank you! I was hoping someone would mention this. I didnt want to take all the good ones myself in the opening post. Dont you just love how theyve acknowledged in the later advert that everyone hates him, and are trying to make them "ironic".

 

[Blackdoom]

I typically work on a system the more something is advertised the worse it is as they want more publicity so more people will buy it.

Anyway. The National Tiles radio ads.
Anyone who has heard them will agree.

Damn you right to a place worse than hell. I have national tiles stuck in my head now and it won't go away.

 

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

Every time I click a video and a pop-up ad comes on and I have to turn the sound off for 15 seconds and check twitter or something, I immediately despise that company and their products.

 

[omega 616]

I would have to say "not really".

You know there are compare websites, so you don't have to shop around for the best deal on something? There was a UK advert that ran for about 6 months (it still runs now) but it was on 3 times every advert/commercial break.

So 3 times before a programme, 3 times during and 3 times after you had to listen to this ...


There are now multiple adverts for the same thing, with the same annoying song but they are much less frequent.

I do say "not really" 'cos I have never used a price comparison site in my life. If I did, I would never use this one.

EDIT, been ninja'd but seriously, listen to that advert 9 times in a row ... it's like listening to nyan cat for 10 hours.

 

[AstylahAthrys]

Remember those annoying Slim Jim commercials on the Escapist a couple years ago or so? Yeah. Never eating a Slim Jim again.

 

[Dr. Cakey]

I would say "no", but that could mostly be because I never see ads for anything I'd want to buy to begin with.

Honorable mention does have to go to that IE10 commercial. What does that song have to do with Internet Explorer? I'm not too close to love IE - I'm not far enough away. I already am true to myself - I use Chrome.

 

[Gone Rampant]

I was in England for a bit and I saw an add on E4 while waiting for How I Met Your Mother, when there was an add about an old man talking about, "Everyone doing it." I sat for a minute... before it cut to Modern Warfare 2.

What.

I still borrowed the game to see what it's like (Spec Ops and Campaign are good, Multiplayer is more unbalanced then... something not balanced), but at that point I vowed that I'd never buy a COD game with my own money. Borrow and play? Yes. Spend money on? No. Fricking Way.