Why does TV advertising suck?

TV advertising is a massive form of marketing for a large number of businesses. It presents companies with the opportunity to reach a mass market with a universal message or promotion of their product or service.  Now i'm all for a really cooly advert, but i am increasingly finding myself annoyed by them rather than persuaded or influenced. This often results in me forward winding through adverts whenever i get the opportunity to do so. Why does TV advertising suck you ask? Well i have a few reasons, and i'm sure you do too, but for the sake of this blog post, here are mine:

Time

TV advertisements just seem to go on forever and consequently disrupt the viewing of programmes that people are emotionally and materially (time) invested in. They say that on average the amount of time TV advertisements actually take up between programmes is about 4 minutes, in an hour long program that's 16 minutes! There are so many advertisements on TV that it may lead you to question as to whether you have actually taken any information in. Try recalling all of the adverts that were on in the last advert break you saw and you would probably struggle to remember more than two. 

PPI and Injury Lawyers

Now i know i'm not alone on this one! These incessant adverts not only seem like they are on all the time, but there are so many of these types of companies offering the same service. I can understand that it needs to be constantly pushed due to the nature of the service they are offering, but too much of anything becomes annoying. The adverts are so cringeworthy too, often demonstrating the massive injustice that has been done by leaving a puddle of water on the floor in the workplace. I know for a fact i don't need either of the services provided, but even i start to question myself they are on so much!

Untargeted Ads

Quite simply, there is nothing worse than an advert that is promoting a product that has very little to do with the audience currently watching the TV show. Picture if you will gents, that you are watching a film with more guns and fast cars than James Bond and the Fast and Furious franchise combined yet suddenly, out of nowhere, an ad for high heeled shoes comes on. Are you going to be interested? Probably not. And ladies, imagine you are watching America's Next Top Model and smack bang in the middle of the show is an advert for mens shaving foam. Again, you're probably not going to be that interested.  Despite the fact there has been an increase in targeted ads over the last decade, there is still a great divide between what is relevant to us as an audience and what is shown. In short, untargeted ads do not really benefit anybody!

With all of this being said, i love the occasional creative and intuitive adverts that come on my TV. Feel free to tweet me yours! @bradleygavin