Can it even HAVE Scrappies?: The Scrappy.Advertising

This page is really a mess. The Scrappy is defined as a who the fans hate. Ad campaigns don't have fanbases the way works of fiction do. The page itself even starts off with: "Commercials THEMSELVES are The Scrappy of television, to the point that DV Rs were invented to get by them", rendering everything below moot.

The rest of the examples are worse. They amount to "here's why this commercial sucks". Several of them don't focus on characters, and even if they do, those mascots effectively are the ads, and a work can't be The Scrappy.

If this page is any indication, I don't think commercials can have proper Scrappies.*

I think we should just cut this thing.

Actually a girl.

I think they can have examples, but it's really rare for the hate to be focused on the character rather than the ad itself. The Trix children might be an example (funnily enough, I've never actually seen one of those adverts).

Generally it would only be in adverts like the Compare the Market Meerkat ones, which are added to enough to become almost works in their own sense.

Never actually heard of those. I'll look it up.

I guess to say they can't have proper Scrappies is a stretch. If we can get some actual examples, I'm all for keeping the page. The problem is, most of these are bashing the ads themselves or bashing the only character who shows up. I'm pretty sure that doesn't count, as that's not a sole fan-hated character so much as Periphery Hatedom.

Actually a girl.

I can see that there could be scrappy ads, using the definition of The Scrappy. But very few, and certainly not most of the ones that are listed there. Right now, it's simply complaining about ads (or spokesmen) you don't like. One I can think of was that GoDaddy one from the Superbowl a few years back — I think with Chinese people? It caused a huge outcry over how obnoxious it was.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Back in the 90s, Dave Barry ran a poll in his column to ask readers which ads they hated the most. I remember Mr. Whipple receiving particular scorn, as did that stuffed-bear toilet paper mascot whose name I can't remember (Snuggle Bear?). I recall Dave kicked the whole thing off by mentioning how much he detested Whisk's "ring around the collar" commercial.

Depends on the ad campaign. o.o

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

Oh yeah they can have a fanbase look at the old Taco Bell dog commercials, the energizer bunny, budweiser superbowl comericals, hell Super Bowl commercials in general.

[1]

edited 11th Sep '11 9:42:42 AM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

And the "I'm a Mac" guy (although I find people don't necessarily hate the actor).

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

But all of those also have fandoms. Which is going to invite Natter and edit wars. I don't think the page will be worth the effort it will take to keep it from becoming another version of "Ads I really hate."

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

I dunno, I tend to think of advertising as "the show between shows" which can surely have scrappies in the form of mascots many people seriously dislike. The criteria should be that a character is clearly identified, rather than just the company or the ad.

I don't think advertising should be singled out as the category not "worth it" for all the natter and complaining when all the other subcategories are equal attractors. Advertising is media. It's not less valid.

Hey, I've been a fan of a few ad campaigns (I launched The Burger King, after all), and I can say, it is possible to have an element of a campaign that you just don't like. I can point to a few - the GEICO Cavemen (I much prefer the gecko), Fabio as the replacement for The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, the kids in Trix commercials (the poor rabbit gets the Trix legitimately more often than not, and those thieving bastards just take it from him)... there are a few others, but there's a common thread. They are all campaigns I feel mostly positive for, and yet there are elements that I really couldn't stand.

Yes, there will have to be policing to make sure it doesn't turn into a complaint-fest, but that's true of all Scrappy subpages.

Also, it occurs to me that I'm extremely nitpicky. I almost cited Lucky Charms cereal, until I remembered that I don't have an issue with the commercials - I have an issue with the fact that they took out blue diamonds and replaced them with blue moons. Yes, I'm immature enough to have a Replacement Scrappy candidate for a breakfast cereal.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

It's been a while and I just noticed I sort of abandoned this thread. I'll do some clean up and remove examples that merely bash the commercials.

Also: if a campaign has a single character, should it be removed? It seems like that would be complaining about the ad in general.

You're not alone. I did get used to the moons, though.

Actually a girl.