Advertising example cleanup

As stated here, this is a cleanup for the various Advertising examples and subpages. This namespace attracts a lot of outdated page structures, misuse, and nattery writing, largely because... well, who ever checks the Advertising pages compared to more common media on the site? So when there's an issue with an Advertising example, especially on subpages, it can come here.

This will also be where we can clean up Advertising Tropes such as What Were They Selling Again?.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Would it be a good idea to turn brand names into red links to Advertising pages? Also, if a brand has a page in another namespace (like Useful Notes or any other non-Advertising namespace), would it be a good idea to make Advertising a redirect to it?

For the first question, only if there's reason to believe the ad would have enough tropes to warrant a page. Due to the short length and lack of complexity in most mainstream ads, it's difficult to give an ad its own page unless it's part of a campaign with multiple commercials. Most ads don't even have distinct names, and the product doesn't always link its ads together as one campaign.

For the second question, no, because if it's a Useful Notes page then it's not describing the brand as a tropable work, which is why we'd need an Advertising/ namespace, it's just giving the history of the brand in pop culture. If the page could be an Advertising/ page, it would need to be distinct from Useful Notes.

Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 13th 2021 at 2:55:30 PM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

I haven't really paid that much attention to the individual entries in the Advertising namespace, but I have gotten involved with some of the Advertising Tropes before and I still have issues with some of them being poorly characterized or having badly-sorted or irrelevant examples. Things that involve lying by omission like Never Needs Sharpening, Asbestos-Free Cereal and Lite Crème come to mind, as does Results Not Typical (all of which I've worked on at some point).

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This cleanup is also intended to cover Advertising Tropes — they're all quite outdated in example structure or woefully underused.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Quick question: Does this cleanup also apply to public service announcements? (and also tropes often used for PSAs, like Scare 'Em Straight?)

Those pages might need a bit of scrubbing.

(they/them)

Tell us your issues with the pages and I'll see what I can do.

I don't really have any particular issues, just ZCEs and violations of Weblinks Are Not Examples.

(they/them)

Yeah, any examples from ads can come here.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Here's a writeup I have for Murder Simulators:

• German TV network SWR Fernsehen (or just SWR Television) aired a PSA that was about the Columbine shooting. It compared the event to a First-Person Shooter, using actual footage of the shooting to emphasize how catastrophic the "player's" actions were. The message at the end tells us to "not underestimate the power of videogames." Naturally, thanks to the tastelessness of the PSA it was met with universal ire.

Does it sound objective enough? Just making sure.

I'd cut/rewrite the last line to just "It was widely accused of being tasteless" instead of implying the backlash was justified (though I believe it is, based on this description), but otherwise looks good.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

EVERYTHING about Heartwarming.Advertising is a mess. Nearly all of the entries are either ZCE, in first person, or both. Pretty much all of the YouTube links are dead.

Edited by AlmightyKingPrawn on Jan 24th 2022 at 8:59:57 AM

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Ugh, Sex Sells has a lot of nattery writing and even first-person accounts in that first folder. The only reason I didn't fix it yet is because I was on a train with limited internet.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Repeating Ad has an Examples Are Not Recent problem as well as complaining. It's not really well organized either so there's repetition, like with the Liberty Mutual example.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Yeah, the one brought up in the complaining thread for Amazon might be talking about a 2019 advertisement, and doesn't clarify either way, but also makes it sound like the advertisement is everywhere and everyone knows about it in 2022.

I'm not even sure why we have that page. An In-Universe version might be easier to manage.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

It's interesting to read, but near-impossible to verify and quite redundant in terms of examples. I'd be sad to see it go but I would completely understand why.

I could also see it being retooled into an "ads that always play together / in the same break" thing, to cover some of the deliberate examples listed on the page like Little Caesar's.

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 23rd 2022 at 4:40:04 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

So an entry on What Were They Selling Again? was expanded to this:

• The infamous UNICEF The Smurfs PSA. The PSA, aired after the watershed on Belgian television, showed Smurf Village being annihilated by missiles. The reaction to the PSA by the public both in and outside Belgium resulted in people forgetting about what it was drawing attention to — an important fundraiser by UNICEF.

To this:

• Any PSA that uses on-screen violence and/or gore to get it's point across can result in the often important and serious message being forgotten, especially if it garners media and/or internet attention. Examples include the infamous Belgian UNICEF The Smurfs PSA that showed Smurf Village being annihilated by missiles, which was intended to draw attention to an important fundraiser UNICEF Belgium was running, and the Canadian prevent-it.ca PSAs, which were intended to promote workplace safety.

Never mind that it's improper example writing by lumping two examples into one general example, but does the prevent-it.ca ad campaign^note for context, it's the one with the woman slipping on grease and boiling her face — which serves as the page image for NightmareFuel.Public Service Announcement really count? The ads have the characters talk about the workplace safety violations that led to their demise. I think people generally remember them to be workplace safety ads even if the gore is distracting.

This is a recurring issue wih WWTSA in that people use it as an audience reaction (probably left over from when it was called Distracted by the Shiny). And the description also implies it's based on audience focus rather than the ad's design.... shit, do we need a wick check?

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

The Canadian prevent-it ads were graphic enough that they ended up in the news due to their content. However, since it was an ad for workplace safety, it's selling exactly what they thought it was.

Yeah, the issue with those ads is that they worked too well, not that nobody knew the point.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

• The infamous UNICEF The Smurfs PSA. The PSA, aired after the watershed on Belgian television, showed the introduction to the show before missiles destroy the village and leave Baby Smurf crying. The reaction to the PSA by the public both in and outside Belgium resulted in people forgetting about what it was drawing attention to — an important fundraiser by UNICEF with the tagline "don't let war destroy children's universes".

The Smurf example has the same issue — it was selling exactly what they thought it was.

Looking through the page, I'd support a wickcheck.

To be fair, the Smurfs ad is more symbolic and doesn't focus on children until the tag line, so I could see people missing the point and just focusing on the surface level. The workplace safety ads talk about workplace safety throughout the entire thing.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

I already said this in the "removing bashing, compaining, etc." thread and nobody noticed it, but the entire Advertising folder of The Dead Rise to Advertise is filled with snark, complaints and natter commentary about how much this commercial is Nightmare Fuel and how that other one falls in the Uncanny Valley.

The best character is always the one-shot disguise.

The workplace safety ads do the same thing. People talk about how well their lives are going, then say "I'm about to have an accident", and then the workplace safety violation happens. The fact the Smurfs ad aired late at night, where you wouldn't expect children's shows, pushes it into the same category.

I already removed it but feel free to revert it.

Sure, but one is about cartoon characters being horribly murdered, and another is a realistic scene of a woman spilling boiling water on herself at work. The fact that one is so fantastical and one is so grounded makes the first one way harder to understand the point of.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

And airing late at night doesn't make a difference. People didn't mistake it as an ad for The Smurfs, they just didn't really think it conveyed the point clearly, I guess.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.