Retro Commercials--What's the Attraction?

[CensoredAlso]

I've just been noticing lately, there's big a huge and sudden interest in retro commercials. Even though we despised them at the time for interrupting our shows and talking about nonesense, years and years later, we are desperate to find them again, hehe! Any thought as to why this is?

 

[D'Snowth]

Beats me.

I wish I could find that AOL commercial with the sandwiches and the chili.

 

[Ilikemuppets]

What a great subject to discuses! It just fun to see the way advertising used to me. At least thats the case for me.

 

[CensoredAlso]

That's true, it's fascinating to see how times have changed. Idk, for me they also seem to somehow represent a simpler time of my life that is long past. I mean, you can watch TV specials any old time (at least most of them). But the commercials were part of your life and then they're just gone. A friend of my pointing out that they can take you back to treasured moments of your life. I can't remember who said this, but I've heard people call commericals, "the soundtrack of our childhood."

 

[Ilikemuppets]

Yeah! It' true that they do take you back to a simpler time! I also think that it's interesting to see the way the advertising has changed over the years. It seems to be he the attitude now about advertising is that it takes a lot more to sell a product then it used to. So it's gotten a lot more complex over the years with how companies advertise. You simply can show just show a product, talk about how great it is, sing it's praises and then expect people to go out and buy it. But the heart of advertising is much the same in a lot of the same ways, too. It's also gotten more complex with things like age groups and demographics and targeting didn't things to different consumers to whom a product may appeal.

 

[Fragglemuppet]

Exactly, for me it is all about my childhood. Most old commercials I see on the internet are for things that were advertised in the kid market during cartoons. Cereal, toys, McDonalds, and the like.
One thing my mom and I both miss, and Snowth I'm sure you can back me up on this, is the retromercials they used to show on TV Land.

 

[CensoredAlso]

I've heard that many feel commercials as we know them are on the way out. With IO and everything, people don't have to watch them so much. They'll have to find other ways to advertise. Won't it be so strange, if the commercials we remember go the way of the telegraph and the record player?

 

[Ilikemuppets]

Hey, I remember the retro commercials that TV Land used to show when they first started out! That was so cool!
Yeah, I have heard about how the future of commercials may be in jeopardy. Strange to think about that it could happen in our lifetime. And with thing Like Tivo how people are starting to skip over the ad's. At one point I think the networks wanted to start putting ad's going across the screen during the show. But I heard that sense Television is approximately 24 frames per second, but they actually move a frame from every second just to get like either thirty extra seconds of commercial air time. It a current practice of networks now.

theres is a show on PBS called Frontline and it has this episode Called The Merchants of cool and it's all about ploys that things advertisers use to target young consumers. It's a little old as it's from a couple of years ago, but I found it to be very informative but a little sad, too.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/

Heres a direct link to the episode.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/view/

 

[D'Snowth]

and Snowth I'm sure you can back me up on this, is the retromercials they used to show on TV Land.

TV Land hasn't played in "retromercials" in like four years or so, but I have to admit, there were some good ones... like "Where's the beef?" or "Hey man, you got your chocolate on my peanut butter!"

But I agree with Fraggle, I believe for the most part, it's mostly about revisiting childhood; I've found myself absorbed in reruns of Kenan and Kel on YouTube, while spending hours in front of the computer watching clips of Alvin and The Chipmunks on YouTube because it takes me back to my childhood.

 

[Ilikemuppets]

"Hey man, you got your chocolate on my peanut butter!"

Haha! I remember seeing that commercial before! I love that one!

It's also really interesting to see how commercial were before your own time, too! I love the really early Rice Krispies commercials from the earliest day of television. I like watching a product through the years and seeing all it's changes and how the time changes and reflects the ad's and how their marketed and how it leads to where were at today! I just have a fascination with things like that! I love know everything about a product and it history and seeing it through out it.