We all have to endure adverts on TV, even if we channel hop throughout the evening, you do trip over the adverts that we just cannot stand.
In my humble opinion these are the five most annoying adverts on TV in the first quarter of 2011:
Goi Compario arrived in 2009 and has been on our TV’s now for years. Undoubtedly the most annoying TV advert ever it has proved an amazing success as it is so annoying, we cannot forget it.
The marketing team behind this unique TV advert undoubtedly knew what they were doing, by producing a TV advert that will stick in our minds for the wrong reasons.
Most of us do not like TV adverts at the best of times, but to create an advert that is so annoying, it is like marketing gold dust.
We live in a digital world and the days of calling directory enquiries is a thing of the past. However back in the day, BT did one of the most annoying TV advertising campaigns featuring two runners to represent 118 118. The advertising campaign (which was launched in 2002) was deliberately made annoying so that it would stick in peoples minds.
If anything, it still supports the overall marketing of BT, which is still a leading telecoms supplier in the UK as they own all the telecoms infrastructure.
Popular in America, injury lawyers in the UK really started to pick up speed in the early 2000’s and Injury Lawyers 4U took to doing a ruthless TV advertising campaign.
Covering different injury scenarios to include injuries in a supermarket. cars, builder and cyclists. Of course there are many ways we can injure ourselves and they encourage making a claim against someone. This of course encouraged many ‘crash for cash’ claims whereby many people claim fraudulent whip lash (which cannot be proven) claims via an injury lawyer.
Churchill car insurance launched an aggressive advertising campaign back in 2005 and again deliberately made their adverts as annoying as possible in order to stand out.
The adverts did not last very long as the price comparison websites like Money Supermarket, Go Compare and Compare The Market all started booking up huge amounts of TV airtime making it difficult for insurance companies to stand out with the exception of Direct Line.
Charities such as Oxfam, UNISEF, Help The Children, The Samaritans all advertise on TV. Their adverts are not made to be annoying, but using donor funding to pay for TV advertising makes the TV adverts annoying.
This plays out in the charities advantage, as marketing is marketing and the charity will stick out in our minds over the other 170,000 UK charities.
Over the years the government have used TV adverts to promote many government departments from time to time.
HMRC, The Army, The Air Force and the NHS have all had adverts on TV over the years, particularly during the lockdown periods of 2020 during the COVID pandemic.
With the exception of number 6, these have to be the most annoying TV adverts that are being screened.
However, being annoying, they do stick in your mind (like that silly red phone on wheels we have all come to know) so therefore they do what they are supposed to do (no, not to annoy and irritate you putting you in a bad mood for the rest of the evening) but make the service stick in your mind.
It is interesting, that all of the above TV adverts are for services (as opposed to products) and tend to be on throughout the day (not just in the evening)
Of the 6 most annoying TV adverts, charities has to be at the top, on the grounds they are funded be people donating to a specific cause.
Advertising for charities around Christmas is particularly annoying. Mainly as they are using donations to fund their cause. This is normally linked into slow sultry music to make you feel sad, make you feel like donating.
The TV advert is put together by an advertising agency, who has been paid (again by donations) to make you feel bad.
Who uses TV advertising? Pretty much any UK business.
As mentioned, most of us dislike watching TV adverts, pausing them (since we have the ability now to pause live TV) or muting them as we are watching out programs.
Companies purposefully create annoying TV adverts in order to stand out.
Many companies do this in a subtle way, McDonalds for example with the annoying whistle makes the TV advert stand in our minds.
TV advertising is still the most powerful form of marketing there is and there is only a short amount of time to communicate so much using just two senses, sight and sound.