Why Are TV Ads From Other Countries So Often Better Than Ours?

By Wednesday August 3, 2011





40 Comments
  1. msbpodcast says:
    8/3/2011 at 4:00 am

    Because they actually have ad agencies employing people
    • with some taste,
    • with some fortitude,
    • with some sense of humor,
    • who aren’t just phoning it in,
    • who actually have something to say,
    • not just a bunch of lawyers,
    • not just a bunch of accountants,
    • not non-creative garbage (but I repeat myself, twice.)

    Reply
  2. msbpodcast says:
    8/3/2011 at 4:07 am

    I realize that “sense of humor” actually should have been some sensibility.

    Its was a moving ad, not a funny one. (Humors can be anything that makes your blood flow.)

    Reply
  3. sargasso_c says:
    8/3/2011 at 4:16 am

    Ads, soap operas for the ADD.

    Reply
  4. lynn says:
    8/3/2011 at 5:26 am

    Oh, I really needed to be tearing up at my desk at 9:26AM.

    Reply
  5. pedro says:
    8/3/2011 at 5:36 am

    This is just a case of “the grass is always greener” syndrome.

    There are a lot of US commercials that are good, save for a few. Those made locally are always not so good compared to national ads.

    And you’ll always find very good foreign commercials if you go and watch ad agencies awards. But that’s normal, those are selected ads.

    There are good & bad commercials almost everywhere.

    In Europe, most of the time ads made in a specific country suck, whereas those made for the whole Europe have a better chance to be good.

    In Latin America, usually Argentinian ads are quite good, but lately there are a lot more ads there that suck real hard.

    Reply
  6. Rob Leather says:
    8/3/2011 at 5:47 am

    I thought all advertisement in the US were for pharmaceutical drugs, then I saw the VW “Vader” advert.

    Reply
  7. Phydeau says:
    8/3/2011 at 6:23 am

    I’m a father of a teenaged daughter, and we’re having some tough times… this ad brought tears to my eyes.

    Reply
  8. bobbo, hero worship is rarely warranted says:
    8/3/2011 at 7:10 am

    Funny the nom de flame still works. There was NOTHING good about that ad. For a freaking life insurance company when the issue was health care coverage and more specifically in this case mental health care coverage: in Thailand????? You can’t get more complete BS than that other than the country being run by the military after a series of coups.

    or-was it that the Dad still loved the only person he had any relationship to at all who disliked him enough to commit suicide to get away from him? His spidy sense must be pretty good though to feel her body hitting the bathroom floor—since he is deaf!

    or-after all this was in the fact that when she came to under the influence of drugs and hypoxia that she held his hand and smiled???

    Claptrap.

    Please raise my insurance rates so I can be informed how much my carrier loves me.

    Silly Hoomans.

    Reply
  9. chuck says:
    8/3/2011 at 7:19 am

    #8 – In Thailand you have the freedom to choose not to buy life/health insurance. So you can die in a gutter if you want to.

    Reply
  10. B. Dog says:
    8/3/2011 at 7:23 am

    I guess in Europe the ladies are topless in ads, so there’s a plus right there.

    Reply
  11. Milo says:
    8/3/2011 at 7:53 am

    Good? It packs all the depression of a Swedish movie into a fraction of the time, so I guess that’s a kind of good.

    Reply
  12. pedro says:
    8/3/2011 at 8:00 am

    #7 Sorry to hear that. Hope things get better soon.

    Reply
  13. Amar says:
    8/3/2011 at 8:12 am

    You all have it wrong.
    The US TV viewers would not stand (or sit) for 3 min. commercials.

    Reply
  14. JimD says:
    8/3/2011 at 8:30 am

    Amar, your right !!! Come the 6 min Ad Break, we are usually off to the John, and the fridge after that !!!

    Reply
  15. admfubar says:
    8/3/2011 at 8:54 am

    no us company could afford a 3 min commercial in the us it is simply cost prohibitive to do. now they could do this on their web sites…or maybe through one of the newfangled hi-tech social sites..

    Reply
  16. Faxon says:
    8/3/2011 at 9:20 am

    I don’t subject myself to any of it any more since I got a CCrane Internet Radio.

    The web may have it’s faults, (like reality), but it certainly has plenty of choice.

    If you need to stare at your Costco 92 inch 3D wall sized television, go ahead. I’ll bet the commercials are particularly irritating as they assault your visual and aural neurons relentlessly. Why not strap the seven foot wide thing to your face so you can see real good.

    Reply
  17. spsffan says:
    8/3/2011 at 10:13 am

    Others have touched on most of the points. First of all, we only get to see the very, very best of foreign commercials. Like everything else in the world, 90% is crap, and soon forgotten. The 10% that’s actually good gets shown off and remembered.

    And, no Americans won’t sit through 3 minute commercials. 30 seconds, yes. 12 minutes of assorted commercials with two of them repeated in the same break, yes. 30-60 minute infomercials, yes. Home Shopping Network, yes. But 3 minutes, no.

    Still a touching commercial. Even if the whole plot is based on the fact that if the girl lives, Thai Life doesn’t have to pay on her death benefit. :) .

    Reply
  18. CrankyGeeksFan says:
    8/3/2011 at 10:57 am

    In the mid to late 1980s, there was a feature-length film released annually (I think) that was made up of nothing but award-winning, usually foreign, television ads; perhaps 200 30-second ads for 100 minutes of running time. It showed a few times at mainstream theaters and possibly “art house” cinemas.

    Does anyone remember the title?

    I wouldn’t be surprised if after a showing the audience members were asked for their opinions on which ads were the most memorable?

    Reply
  19. Pay2Think says:
    8/3/2011 at 11:09 am

    The sad truth is that most companies know that Americans will buy any crap they put in front of us, so there is no need to spend any time, money or effort producing intelligent, thoughtful, or interesting commercials.

    On top of that, the collective IQ of the country is going down. Otherwise, why would we continue to give up our voice to vote and keep letting these schmucks run our country and drive it into the ground.

    Anybody that doesn’t become informed enough and get off the couch to vote should just STFU.

    Sorry, I got a little off the topic…

    Reply
  20. legendinmyownmind. says:
    8/3/2011 at 11:29 am

    Not better, they just lie better or differently.

    Reply

Newer Comments »

Leave a Response


Bad Behavior has blocked 25758 access attempts in the last 7 days.