The most recent ad that actually got my attention was on Reddit, so this was at least a year ago now. It was an ad for caffeinated chocolate candies. I don’t remember the brand name but they had an owl motif, because caffeine = awake. I saw that ad in passing ONCE. Just enough for me to learn the product existed.

In the case of that Mission: Impossible movie, if it had played the long form of the trailer at me once or twice in an entire week, and then the shorter version of the trailer once or twice the next week, I might have gone “You know that looks like a cool movie I might go see it.” But I got served that ad and only that ad several times an hour for weeks on end, and I have now resolved to never watch another Mission Impossible movie, a movie starring Tom Cruise, or any film distributed by Paramount Pictures ever again. When it comes to boycotts I do my brain surgery with a backhoe.

Gonna blast another ad I hated: A scarecrow dancing around on a GE coal-fired powerplant to the tune of “If I only had a brain” from the Wizard of Oz. Apparently the show I was watching was sponsored by General Electric’s heavy industry division, which okay fine, but…what decision was the average SyFy channel viewer supposed to make based on the contents of that commercial? “Gee Tina, we should run out and buy a 1.5GW steam turbine generator.” Why’d they feel the need to bother me about it?