Entry 9: Head On! Apply directly to the forehead!

If you've ever been watching TV later than 11 you've probably seen the completely annoying commercials for Head On. Here's a series of them that were actually aired in this order, with nothing in between. 

It's a gem, isn't it? What...what was the name of the product again? I didn't quite catch it the first time. Or the second. Definitely not the third. In my opinion, stuff like this is the epitome of bad advertising. It's like the stereotypical "all-time low" of an underacher's life: desperate, meaningless, and beyond dignity. 

I mean, what on earth? Hey guys rub this glue stick on your face to make headaches go away; seems legit. APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD. APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD. HEY APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD. It's so annoying! There's no other way to put it. The clip is 12 seconds long and they just repeat it over and over. There's no advertising techniques used (other than repetition, and maybe time pressure), and it seems like they threw it together on a dinosaur computer in 15 minutes. 

It has no substance at all, it's just screaming a brand at you repeatedly hoping you'll give in and buy it. Head On has been proved to be little more than wax and a placebo. The brand no longer even claims their product works, they just say to apply it. They definitely say to apply it. 

This represents the state advertising has come to. There's so much stuff out there that to break through the clutter advertisers can either try to one-up each other and come up with new, innovative approaches to advertising, or just beat their customers in the face like Head On does. 

The innovation is just as desperate as this, it's just the more appealing version. This kind of ad might actually portray how frantic advertising is more accurately than fancy, witty ads. If you think about it, getting famous comedians/actors/musicians/sports stars, great writers to come up with a worthwhile plot, the best technology to have good defenition and audio, etc., takes a LOT of work and shows how badly they're trying to reach you. Its hard to notice in the final, polished advertisement, but the desperation is there. With commercials like Head On, they serve the desperation quite raw. Maybe they don't have the time or dedication or money to come up with awesome commercials. It serves as a good illustration of the lengths advertisers go to to get our attention.