Less than visually impressive Swedish commercial

Watching commercials in Sweden you can’t help but notice how unsophisticated they are. Perhaps a notch up from American local cable ads, which sometimes are glorified slideshows, not generally primitive.

Here in the US the commercials are visually excellent, lightyears ahead of Sweden. But I’ve noticed a new trend. The previous trend to use famous rock songs seems to have run its course. One current commercial uses Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”, just about the last song one might expect selling stuff on TV, and perhaps the last rock song commercial.

Vonage commercial

Instead the new trend seems to be massively irritating songs. Last summer the Internet phone company Vonage seemed to pioneer the idea, and their latest commercials continue the trend. But the current ads from budget department stores Ross and Target are “worthy” representatives.

Current Target commercial

Currently the absolute worst commercial soundtracks are from the online car retailer Vehix.com.

The argument for terrible commercials has always been that people will remember the product in the stores. One wonders if Vehix, Vonage, etc have sunk so low that potential customers will punish them? Or perhaps Americans are so used to being bombarded with commercials that the musical quality of the soundtrack is no longer important.