LOCKPORT —
Sometimes a commercial on TV will catch my eye and I wonder what they’re selling. They are clever advertisements, colorful, full of graphics and maybe funny, but I don’t always know what I’m supposed to buy.
There must be an app for that. I could sure use some of those apps — who couldn’t — but what do they do? Slow down. Tell me again, why do I want it?
I bet that silicon gadget on the TV will help me with my communication skills, if I could only understand how to communicate with it. Do my friends on Facebook have one? In that case, maybe I need it. What am I missing?
Nowadays, commercials are clustered, seems like 10 at a time. Instead of two minutes, they go on until you are numb, all doing something pretty cool to try to keep your attention.
Change the channel during a commercial cluster and see another commercial. The networks (all 2,000 of them) must have synchronized commercial time. It seems unlikely, but could lawyers “Cincerity & Baldy” have all the 10-minutes-to-the-hour time slots booked up at all the stations that service the Niagara Frontier?
Sadly, I understand the advertisements on the Old Goats Network. They interrupt Gunsmoke, M.A.S.H. and All in the Family with recommendations for the sick, stuck at home and couch potatoes. The ads tell me that, even at my age, I can afford term life insurance at an affordable cost.
The drugs which are hawked cure every ailment known to AARP members and some ailments Job never suffered. The dealers softsell the side effects and then come back with assurances in the last 10 seconds of their spiel.
During the golf tournaments and Wimbeldon Tennis, the country club guys are targeted in ads. The entitled don’t need Depends or life insurance. They’re the people who plug you up and sell you life insurance.
They’ve got lots of money and invest it on a BMW, Mercedes, Lexus and Lincoln. Look for their ads during the U.S. Tennis Open. Also look for signs of ING and HSBC and some brands that may be unknown to hoi polloi.
The middle class ($200,000 annual income) know what ING means. It’s Internationale Nederlanden Groep and it will help you with banking, insurance and asset management services — in the event you ever have assets.
HSBC Holdings is a global banking and financial services company headquartered in Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom. We know that, because the world’s second-largest public company is around the corner.
I didn’t know what AIG stood for when its signs surrounded the basketball court at the HSBC Arena during the NCAA Basketball Tournament. I was watching the games. AIG did get my attention, however, when we bailed out AIG in an $85 billion deal in 2008.
It’s hard to ignore the ads on TV, even when you don’t know what they’re selling.
Local News
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Bill Wolcott, Lockport Union Sun & Journal Reporter James Neiss/Gazette
Ads can catch, but for what?
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Moreland, a 62-year-old Lockport native enlisted in the Marines at 17 after dropping out of school. He was served three years and while in the service, he was a welder and stationed in Japan.
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