I Hate This TV Commercial, to the Point of Seething Rage
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/2/18/2016868/-I-Hate-This-TV-Commercial-to-the-Point-of-Seething-RageThe first time I heard the TV commercial for Volvos $50k+, XC90, a bloated road hog, the hair on my neck twitched. The ads tone-deaf choice of background music, with each of many repetitions, has fed more fuel onto the fire of my rage and further inflated the monumental oxymoron of the background musics singer + songwriter, compared to the product advertised.
Anyone who knows the life and art of the singer, Pete Seeger, may likely also recognize the songs author, Woody Guthrie. A recording of Pete, singing Woodys classic industrial labor anthem, Hard Times in the Mill, was first released in 1956 by Folkways Records, along with 23 other songs recorded by Pete Seeger, representing 150 years of struggle by workers for economic justice against greedy and powerful captains of commerce and industry.
Demovictory9
(32,323 posts)Thank you
jimfields33
(15,462 posts)The license plate gives it away. Ive never seen the commercial before. It seems chaotic and all over the place.
greatauntoftriplets
(175,695 posts)I noticed the license plate as well. Possibly Sweden since that's where Volvos are made.
jimfields33
(15,462 posts)You could be very right about Sweden.
bushalert
(200 posts)The hipsters driving that yuppy Volvo is an insult to the message of that song. Clueless assholes.
pazzyanne
(6,518 posts)2naSalit
(86,050 posts)Siwsan
(26,177 posts)And I never really understood why, but maybe I wasn't listening close enough to my subconscious screaming at me!!
XanaDUer2
(10,327 posts)the song choice is disgusting
TNNurse
(6,911 posts)are in any commercial. Who owns the rights to his work??? What the hell were they thinking?? It is such a level of disrespect.
CTyankee
(63,769 posts)El Supremo
(20,365 posts)So repulsive!
Ferrets are Cool
(21,059 posts)Tbear
(480 posts)and I like it. Now that I know its origins I like it even more. So theres that.
The commercial itself is stupid and I wont watch.
But, I listen.
bucolic_frolic
(42,670 posts)It's a negative for the product, but the company probably has no idea.
HUAJIAO
(2,362 posts)dupagelib
(139 posts)Which is worse, most annoying, Kars for Kids or this? Tough one. I mute most commercials though I have been enjoying Wayne and Garth for grub hub.
NellieStarbuck
(265 posts)of music for this bourgie couple and their Volvo, but I just delight in hearing Pete Seeger's voice over and over again.
hunter
(38,264 posts)There are no ads on my television. It plays DVDs, Netflix, and touchdowns of robotic explorers on Mars.
Commercial television made Trump. I'll never forgive it.
rickyhall
(4,889 posts)And, of course, drug pushers.
MRDAWG
(501 posts)Jon King
(1,910 posts)Its creepy, she looks like a teen in a forced marriage and he looks like a 50 year old lecher.
I tell my SO that their choice of actor for this role is awful looking, creepy. Now I'll think lecher!
Susan Calvin
(1,644 posts)I wonder if the same person was in charge of both of these commercials.
https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-volvo-queen-of-night-20190128-story.html?_amp=true
Its idea, plainly, is to make a connection between the luxuriousness of its XC90 SUV and the classiness of grand opera. Can you design an SUV for an aria? asks the commercial, which is in frequent rotation on broadcast and cable TV. The camera wanders lovingly over the vehicles soft leather upholstery and its high-tech sound system while the aria sounds sweetly in the background. The ads tagline is: Our idea of luxury.
Opera fans watching this commercial must cringe, if theyre not guffawing. Thats because the music on the soundtrack is no paean to grace and lovingkindness, but the homicidal signature aria of one of the most monstrous characters in the canon.
Shes the Queen of the Night, the supreme villainess of Mozarts The Magic Flute, and shes one vicious specimen. Think Cruella de Vil times 1 million.
https://m.
Submariner
(12,485 posts)What moron at an advertising company convinced his boss that an out of control screeching Emu representing a large insurance company is a good idea?
What Liberty VP of Media Affairs approved such advertising garbage?
I can't get to the remote mute button quick enough
LisaM
(27,759 posts)I do like the "are you your parent" Geico ones. But Flo's shelf life expired years ago and I am getting peeved with the ones with the clogging and pipes 'problem' since they almost seem anti-Celtic (I am sure that's not the intent, but it's irksome to me since I had one grandmother who did clog dancing and another who was crazy for bagpipe music).
Submariner
(12,485 posts)and Flo knows she's maybe typecast out of future acting gigs, so as long as she doesn't do a Subway Guy-like career ending felony, Flo will milk her contract for every cent she can get.
I think because of her husband, the Jamie guy (fights Muay Thai, plays Spanish guitar, etc), her shelf life has been extended.
LisaM
(27,759 posts)He's married to a tall foreign beauty.
Yes, they have gotten into my head!
Dream Girl
(5,111 posts)They have to break through the clutter as they say in advertising
SCantiGOP
(13,856 posts)The more obnoxious a commercial, the more memorable, therefore the more effective.
Here are dozens of people discussing the ads, which is just what the producers hoped. Their target audience is not liberals who would be offended by the misuse of Pete Seegers legacy.
The classic textbook case were the Please dont squeeze the Charmin ads with Mr Whipple from the 60s. Everybody talked about them, and how much they hated them and Charmin sales doubled over he next few months.
Very similar to negative political ads: the two things true about them are that the public hates them, and that they are effective.
LisaL
(44,962 posts)It certainly is very annoying.
Auggie
(31,061 posts)Nothing kills advertising faster than when franchisees complain to corporate
usaf-vet
(6,094 posts)tavernier
(12,322 posts)That was hubbys truck before he passed and now grandson drives it up at his college three hours away and back on weekends. Although gramps cigarillo boxes on the floor have been replaced with fast food paper remnants.
usaf-vet
(6,094 posts)tavernier
(12,322 posts)Miami traffic is brutal and an angel in the passenger seat is mandatory.
usaf-vet
(6,094 posts)LisaM
(27,759 posts)Hard times in the mill? Really? And then they are too stupid to back into their parking space or trim their bushes?
I have a friend that is in a Pete Seeger Facebook group, and she said (I haven't checked this, I am taking her at her word) that some of his songs had gone into the public domain.
MrModerate
(9,753 posts)The ad creatively repurposes Guthrie's rather jaunty chorus to correlate the challenges of multiple parenting to hard labor a joke parents make all the time.
Thunderbeast
(3,382 posts)When can we start discussing something other than grievance victimhood about EVERYTHING!
Woody survived the depression by writing songs celebrating Federal power projects that have made salmon nearly extinct, and nearly destroyed native culture that thrived on the Columbia River for 10,000 years.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/remembering-celilo-falls-62-years-after-it-was-silenced-by-the-dalles-dam/article_be6c698a-93a9-11e8-b4d1-538eaf5535d0.amp.html
It is hard to imagine, however, WW2 ending in 1945 without the aluminum and plutonium facilitated by the dams.
Black and white thinking without context is not productive.
SCantiGOP
(13,856 posts)Nice to see reasonable responses to this rather unreasonable rant thread.
Dream Girl
(5,111 posts)Unoriginal. The theme of unexpected twins has bee Worked to death for years. Whenever I see that ad I always think lazy adverting creative team and dumb or inexperienced marketing team at Volvo. Sometimes advertising creatives have ad concepts in the can an they just recycle them when they pitch to client terms until the client bites. This ad always strikes me as a ad concepts that theyve had lying around for years and they just keep clients until someone (client) bit. I love the musical overlay, but it is a total mismatch. I always thing, high paid tech workers with great medical plans that pay for frozen eggs, IVF.. The working man song so beautifully song is an insult.I just hate it and cant mute it fast enough!
MrModerate
(9,753 posts)It was charming, and the music (notwithstanding any historico-political controversies) jaunty and fun. The sudden intrusion of danger was effective in changing the subject to the product. And the "and life goes happily on because you own this car" denouement wrapped it up on just the right note.
IMO.
mountain grammy
(26,568 posts)video of Pete Seeger at the Obama inaugeration.. Made me cry. This Land is Our Land.
https://www.openculture.com/2017/08/the-powerful-messages-inscribed-on-woody-guthrie-pete-seegers-guitar-banjo.html
MontanaMama
(23,238 posts)Thank you for posting about it. This commercial always seems to play on msnbc while Im making dinner....daily. It never made sense to me....Pete singing about hard times in the mill and there we are looking at a Volvo.
Paladin
(28,202 posts)Wish for hotter temperatures in hell for Limbaugh, and ask that trump and Cruz join him there just as soon as possible. That's channeling your hatred properly.
Peregrine Took
(7,408 posts)all those new, $$$ prescription drugs with the jivey names whose real names are like Yrlbommub.
Susan Calvin
(1,644 posts)About the drug names they say on the commercials, and then they say real name some gibberish. They're both gibberish.
Response to safeinOhio (Original post)
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