Sunday will be football’s Super Bowl. Businesses will pay out big bucks to have their products aired during the game. Sometimes the ads are more interesting than the sport, especially if your team isn’t playing.
I have a love/hate relationship with ads. Occasionally they’re helpful but most of the time they’re just annoying. In the evenings, when a commercial comes on while I’m watching TV, I do household chores such as move a load of clothes from the washer to the dryer or personal things like going to the bathroom. The commercials for election candidates, the time to change your Medicare coverage and Christmas shopping seem to go on forever. I know they’re necessary to make the programs I enjoy possible.
I usually read around ads in newspapers and magazines. One of the first things I was surprised to learn when I started reporting for a daily was the size of each edition was determined by the amount of advertising sold, not the happenings of the day. They only printed the articles that would fill the news hole, space left after they laid out their paid advertising.
Once in a while, an ad alerts me to something I can use. When our family dentist retired, he didn’t sell his business so I had to find someone else on my own. I saw a TV ad for the Rockford dentist who had cared for Linda, our developmentally different daughter. I had liked him at the time, but after she died in 2008, I’d forgotten him. I called to make an appointment.
A few years ago, a magazine ad for a pair of summer sneakers caught my eye. I couldn’t find the shoes in any of the surrounding cities but I couldn’t forget them either. I ordered them on line, which I don’t like to do with anything that needs to fit. They were fine and I’ve continued to enjoy them during warm weather.
How do you feel about ads?