Adverts on telly

[Motherwoman]

Most adverts lately I find strange or stupid or both BUT the ads for a well known supermarket brand whose name begins with A and ends in i (other supermarkets are available) have had me laughing. I loved the tea one, the champagne one and most of all the bear one. Haven't laughed at an ad so much since the Smash aliens...

MW

[Geoff]

I'm afraid if I want to watch anything on a commercial channel I usually record and fast forward. The odd advert I do catch I agree are largely nonsense but I suppose they are trying for a subliminal brand recognition implant but as I have no brand loyalty I hope it doesn't work.
Marketing people are a breed apart. When I worked I asked one of our marketing people what he did when he received a magazine. Did he, like the rest of us, shake out the inserts and put them in the shredding pile? He didn't seem to understand the question.

[Ricard with an H]

I love this post Geoff, marketing and what goes on in the minds of the people makes me wonder about the training they get. A number of owlogies, no-doubt.

The other one is assertion training, if you have never been in a professional environment where everyone has been to assertion training and-so you have perhaps 50 people working in groups, each with a leader and they are all asserting themselves and trying to figure a way of cutting the leader down at the knee-caps.

It's horrible, and they all smile.

Ask me why I moved to the far-west.

[Tony Hague]

The other one is assertion training

Oh don't get me started on training. Everyone loves training. The personnel department at the government funded research institute I used to work loved it - they had a budget that they had to spend to be seen to be doing the right thing. The Engineering professional institutions are now getting excited about personal training and development records for Chartered engineers - presumably in the hope of being taken more seriously. Trouble is - what ends up being offered is never technical training to extend your skills, no. It is managment training, report writing, assertiveness training - so you can communicate yet more stridently about that of which you know little

Regarding adverts, I am with Geoff. Rarely watch things on channels with adverts anyway, but when I do I use the DVD recorder and start watching half an hour later, so I can skip the adverts. And the recaps on what the programme was about, in case you had forgotten whilst being absorbed in so many adverts. Still occasionally I catch up with the live transmission so I can't skip forward anymore. It is amazing how compact many programmes can be if you skip ads, self repetition, credits, etc.

[Motherwoman]

One of my pet hates is a presenter who runs through the content of the last section of a prog that was just before the ad break, how short a memory span do they think we have? And I hate those little pop-ups on the screen that tell you what's on in 10 minutes and spoil the exciting bit of the prog you are watching!

And as much as I enjoy the ads for the supermarket I don't actually shop there as it's a long way away....

MW

[Geoff]

Pity you can't attach sound files, I've got a great mp3 called 'The Pirate Sketch' where pirates ask for a training day. Suffered lots of training and psychometric testing over the years, even started making up my own questions.
You are at a party with your girlfriend when a man with one leg starts chatting her up, do you:
1) join in and chat understandingly about the plight of the disabled showing your softer side?
2) retire to the bar and drown your sorrows as the relationship seems to be a lost cause?
3) secretly kick the guy's crutch so he falls over and looks a fool?

Sadly there was never the tick box for me, I wouldn't have gone to the party in the first place!

[Ricard with an H]

I only watch BBC because I hate adverts and the thought that they think I'm so thick. To be honest I only watch TV in the winter and then only for company.

Back to the assertion training and whatever else training that goes on I'm out of it these days though Mo is still in the thick of this corporate melee as a result of further training. Every week she comes home with yet another story that makes me feel guilt she is still working, my favourite nonsense is one of her colleagues who always wears a low cut top in the hope her breasts will spill out onto the team leaders lap. It appears he is the most embarrassed, and even though he's team leader he doesn't have the authority to regulate sensible dressing in a mixed sex environment.

[Westi]

Although I tend to stay on BBC as well they also irritate with their adverts for their own shows & seem to follow the usual make it louder than anything else rule!

Annoying or what!

Westi

[Elaine]

Yes I've noticed that too, Westi.

I've always hated the meerkat ads...I love the real animals but these advert ones are most annoying....especially the present one with the baby staying in Africa....pfffttt

[Ricard with an H]

Are you saying you don't have a baby Oleg at home ?

Sorry, I just realised that whilst I dislike all advertising I do love the meerkat one though thats possibly because I can watch meerkat wildlife documentaries even if they are repeated repeats.

No, we don't have a baby Oleg.

The loudness thing is so irritating and inconvenient. If she or I are having a sicky in bed or a power-nap and the other is respectfully watching TV with the sound down it's horrible. We do have doors to close though we rarely close them, and why would we have to just to convenience advertising sound increases.

In my previous life the TV was never off even though no one watched it most of the time. Either one of three daughters or the ex would immediately switch it back on if I had the nerve to turn it off.

[Shallot Man]

Most ITV program's I record. Then I can fast forward during the adverts.

[Ricard with an H]

I need help on this.

We just got rid of our old CRT TV and I'm now the owner of a smart TV, whatever that means.

Ok, I have yet to go through the user booklet. First time I opened it, it scared me so I didn't look again. What do smart TVs do that our old one couldn't and if you record what are you recording on. They tried to sell me Blue-Ray and a sound bar, I was quite proud I resisted even though the sales prices were good and seemed genuine, did I do good or was I plonker ?

I used to have a fantastic set-up with a bar-code reader, I didn't use that for some reason that escapes me.

[Geoff]

A Smart TV is basically an Internet enabled TV so whilst how smart it is does vary with make and model it is largely down to the quality of your broadband connection. I suspect from your rural location your connection is the usual BT pants of about 2 Mbps which sadly will put your TV well down the class. One of the common smart functions is built in iPlayer (and sometimes some of the other catchup services such as 4OD and ITV Player) but to work properly in HD and behave like an extra channel I think you require at least 5 Mbps, standard definition might work at 2½. I had about 1.8 until my recent upgrade to 300+ and my semi-smart TV from 2011 didn't think much of that.
You asked about recording. If you connect just through an aerial straight into the TV you won't have a recording facility. I guess if were using a Sky, Freesat or Freeview box you would already know about it so wouldn't be asking. Some TVs can record to external memory like a hard disc or a memory stick but as they only have one tuner they can only record one channel, you can't watch one and record another, so are of limited use. There may be smart TVs with two tuners but I am not aware of any.
Sound bars can be useful as some modern TVs have fairly poor speakers, you'll have to judge for yourself. If you have difficulty picking out dialogue from the over loud semi-music that often accompanies it some of them are supposed to be able to give preference to speech and so help this problem. I've no experience of these.
If you like films you can buy them on Bluray discs which have an amazing picture quality, if you combine them with a sound bar the audio is enhanced as well. If you aren't thinking of buying lots of films probably not worthwhile.

[robo]

The most used button on our remote is the mute one, every time we are subjected to the volume going through the roof as the adverts start we mute the sound most of the time we record anything we consider worth watching then skip through the adverts

[Chantal]

The other one is assertion training

The Engineering professional institutions are now getting excited about personal training and development records for Chartered engineers - presumably in the hope of being taken more seriously. Trouble is - what ends up being offered is never technical training to extend your skills, no. It is managment training, report writing, assertiveness training - so you can communicate yet more stridently about that of which you know little

.

Hi Tony

I work for one of the Engineering Institutions and we've had Continuing Professional Development (CPD) forced upon us by the Engineering Council for some years now. At first we had to "encourage" it, then we had to ask people to record it, then it was up for voluntary audit, as from 2016 it's mandatory that we audit a percentage of our membership (sigh...). We at least don't demand what you list, although this can be included, but we also allow people to list football training with kids, running scout groups etc as this is all man management and personal development. I've got quite enough assertive people around me already thanks, don't need any more!

As for adverts, we use Sky+ most of the time so rarely watch real time TV, thus allowing us to scoot through the adverts at turbo speed, but each time I see the Freeview Cat and Budgie advert, I always stop to watch it, I just love it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vxt2--qEyM