Commercials you hate

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

Originally Posted by Mouse

I still don't consider yogurt a food

You have yet to try the nectar of the gods that is Noosa:
http://www.noosayoghurt.com/
I'm not referring it just because it's a Denver-area company using sustainable, humane practices. I'm referring it mainly because it's one of the most delicious things you will EVER put into your mouth.

I'm serious. I've never had anything like it. It's just......wow.

[Mad Jay]

But.. But.. does it taste like fruit?

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

The ones with fruit do! Nom, nom, nom!

[ThistleS]

Originally Posted by Mouse

I still don't consider yogurt a food but I do agree with those who wonder why it's marketed as something that'll fix digestive irregularity. Why not talk about how it's healthy and/or has few calories or that you can have it on the go? Y'know like how the advertise most breakfast foods. Again, most people don't like to consider food on the basis of whether or not it'd make it easier for you to take a....

I think you get the point.

The way yogurt is made naturally includes bacteria, some of which are probiotic and good for digestion. It's just one selling point. Not all yogurt commercials highlight the digestive benefits.

Yogurt has traditionally only been marketed to women, though, and I don't really know why.

[WildaBeast]

Speaking of products aimed at women, there's a new ad I've started seeing for some product made by Vagasil, where a woman lists all the things that can throw off your "pH balance" and says she uses this product to maintain her correct pH balance or something like that. Gee, based on all the ads I see for femanine care products I'm starting to think maintaining a vagina is more complicated than maintaining a swimming pool. I mean, apparently you have to add just the right chemicals to maintain the proper pH balance and keep it smelling nice, not to mention taking care of the surrounding landscaping...

[A Turtle Named Mack]

Originally Posted by ThistleS

Yogurt has traditionally only been marketed to women, though, and I don't really know why.

Maybe because women have traditionally been more concerned with calcium intake and satisfying small portable lunches.

[Lainie]

It's not easy to satisfy a small portable lunch. They're surprisingly demanding.

[Mad Jay]

I got a "personal massager" for my small portable lunch

[Gayle]

Originally Posted by ThistleS

The way yogurt is made naturally includes bacteria, some of which are probiotic and good for digestion. It's just one selling point. Not all yogurt commercials highlight the digestive benefits.

Yogurt has traditionally only been marketed to women, though, and I don't really know why.

Because of the gas and gurgles and bloating and diarrhea and the fun that is menopause. A lot of women will experience digestive problems when the begin perimenopause. And sometimes it sticks around after menopause.

Like reading glasses and gray hair, there's a damned good chance you'll find out what it's about down the road a piece.

[Lainie]

But ThistleS was talking about yogurt marketing in general. There's plenty of marketing of yogurt toward younger women, too -- like the Yoplait "it is so good" ads.

ETA: LOL, MadJay! Also, eww.

[Blatherskite]

I think the assocation in advert-land with yoghurt and women is main because the 'female demographic' is more commonly associated with dieting and digestive health and so is yoghurt.

But there's a giggly, dirty part of my mind that wonders whether the appearance of yoghurt doesn't have something to do with it. Advertising isn't known to push boundaries of gender and sexuality norms, so I can't imagine most adverts want to show a man licking up creamy white stuff and loving it.

[Mouse]

Originally Posted by Lainie

The ads aren't aimed at most people. They're aimed at people who have a significant enough digestive issue that they do, in fact, consider foods on the basis of how those foods would affect their bowel movements. That likely won't be the only consideration, but it will be one.

If you don't have that issue, and therefore can't imagine that being a factor in food choice, count your blessings.

But do people with digestive issues really make up THAT big of a market?

Couldn't you say "It's low-cal" or something like that? That way you get the health nuts without limiting yourself to people with digestive issues.

Oh and for those wondering why I don't consider yogurt a food:

hy·per·bo·le: /haɪˈpɜrbəli/ [hahy-pur-buh-lee] noun Rhetoric.

1. obvious and intentional exaggeration.

2. an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally, as “to wait an eternity.”

[Errata]

Originally Posted by Mouse

Couldn't you say "It's low-cal" or something like that? That way you get the health nuts without limiting yourself to people with digestive issues.

Not all yogurt commercials focus on that, by any means. So there already are such commercials.

There are lots of things that are low calorie. Yogurt isn't especially remarkable in that regard. Yogurt is pretty unique when it comes to probiotic benefits. There aren't many other foods with quite those same properties. How many commercials for very specific types of medicine have you seen? It's not surprising that some subset of commercials about a food might tout the specific health benefits.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by Mouse

But do people with digestive issues really make up THAT big of a market?

I haven't done the research, but I'm betting the big corporations dspending money on national ad campaigns have, and aren't spending their money that way without reason. And of course, not all yogurt advertises itself that way, as has been pointed out a couple of times.

Couldn't you say "It's low-cal" or something like that? That way you get the health nuts without limiting yourself to people with digestive issues.

Some brands do.

[Gayle]

Well, I was answering why certain yogurt commercials address women's digestive issues. While I can't say for certain what's in the advertisers minds, I notice that all the women in those types of commercials are early middle aged. Like me. I had no digestive problems when I was younger, but now you can hear my gut rumbling outloud.

As for the low cal part, hoo boy, do people ever need to read labels! There's a lot of high calorie, high fat yogurt out there.

[WildaBeast]

A couple of commercials have been annoying me lately:

1) Any ISP ad that uses the word "megs" when talking about the bandwidth they offer, as in "Up to 16 megs of speed!" I suppose there really isn't really a formal definition of what a "meg" is, but it's always been used as a shortened form of "megabytes" when referring to data storage capacity. It's grating to suddenly hear advertisers using it to mean "megabits per second", a completely different unit. Also, it's "bandwidth", not "speed" darn it.

2) There's an ad for Comcast internet service that compares they're service to "old DSL", emphasis on the "old" part. DSL technology isn't significantly older than cable modems. I'm not sure which could be said to be invented first, but they were both being developed in the 1980s and 90s, and both first became widely available in the late 1990s/early 2000s. (Based on they're previous ads, I think they're trying to make people associate DSL with telephone technology and is therefore old and obsolete).

3) The ads for Vonage VOIP service that claim their service is better than "bundled" services because with them you know what you're paying for each service. Why is that important? Does it really matter whether you know the exact price of your phone, TV and internet service if the total price of the three bundled together is less than the cost of getting the three things separately?

[Dasla]

Originally Posted by Errata

Maybe she got fruit on the bottom kind and she didn't stick with it enough to find the bottom and mix it in.



Isn't it just specific brands that are marketed like that though, like Activia? I don't know if there is a real difference or not, but they push that so heavily I'd be afraid to buy one of those brands unless I was having digestive problems.

Here it is only Activia advertised this way, I have seen no other yogurt advertised this way. Also here plain yogurt has not pictures of fruit on it. I buy plain, unsweetened yogurt for cooking (mostly Indian food) called natural yogurt and fruit yogurt to have with ceral for my breakfast. I have never liked milk of any kind (cows, soya, goats, rice). I don't like vanilla yogurt (bleah) it not like the natural vanilla extact I use for my cooking, in either taste or smell.

[Dasla]

Originally Posted by WildaBeast

Speaking of products aimed at women, there's a new ad I've started seeing for some product made by Vagasil, where a woman lists all the things that can throw off your "pH balance" and says she uses this product to maintain her correct pH balance or something like that. Gee, based on all the ads I see for femanine care products I'm starting to think maintaining a vagina is more complicated than maintaining a swimming pool. I mean, apparently you have to add just the right chemicals to maintain the proper pH balance and keep it smelling nice, not to mention taking care of the surrounding landscaping...

ahem , I just put some bicarb in my bath water. But how can anyone make money of that.

[rockland6674]

Originally Posted by WildaBeast

2) There's an ad for Comcast internet service that compares they're service to "old DSL", emphasis on the "old" part.

I never had DSL. I jumped straight to Comcast high-speed internet after eleven years (!) of dial-up, so I don't know how DSL compares to what I have now.

Comcast/Xfinity likes to mention "The Phone Company" in their ads. I assume this is a dig at Verizon? I had Verizon dial-up service for seven years. One day, it just... stopped working.

[firefighter_raven]

Originally Posted by rockland6674

I never had DSL. I jumped straight to Comcast high-speed internet after eleven years (!) of dial-up, so I don't know how DSL compares to what I have now.

Comcast/Xfinity likes to mention "The Phone Company" in their ads. I assume this is a dig at Verizon? I had Verizon dial-up service for seven years. One day, it just... stopped working.

Out here Qwest offers some kind of internet service also