It is very interesting, and frankly I hadn’t really thought it through until you pointed it out. We have a TiVO-like DVR (courtesy of our cable TV company), and zapping through commercials has become second nature. If we want to watch a show in real time, we wait 15-20 minutes after its start time so that we don’t have to sit through the ads.

And yet…I remember that when I lived in France, one of my favorite TV shows was something called “Culture Pub,” a weekly magazine-style show exclusively about TV advertising. The best TV ads, when they’re compiled in this way, can be hugely entertaining. I guess it’s just that the chaff-to-wheat ratio is so overwhelming that we don’t even think of watching commercials, just in case a good/funny one pops up.

(It’s also worth pointing out that “Culture Pub” was especially fun for me as a Yank, since most of the ads shown were European—and thus consistently “edgier” than what can be shown here.)

For those who can handle more, here are a few presented in puzzle form for additional amusement. (Flash required.) #1 is less exciting (the picture will be obvious right away), but #2 and #3 are worth solving.

Not that I would actually buy anything made by Sweatshop king Nike, but it is a great ad nontheless.

Since I don’t have a TV, don’t listen to commercial radio and generally read foreign magazines, many of the adverts I see are for products no one will actually sell me. (Billboards thoughtfully confine themselves to things I’m not remotely in the demographic for.)

I don’t claim to be wildly averse, though.

Jason Kuznicki: You forgot the possibility that coturnix is deaf. Or, more likely, since s/he doesn’t pay attention to the ads they filter directly through to the subconscious where they can motivate purchasing decisions in secret…

I hate to say it, but I don’t believe this for a moment. Unless you’re a cloistered monk, in which case I apologize.

On the other hand, I know a couple of people who design ads. They love their annual meetings when they show off their most creative stuff, but mostly they are forced by their employers to make bland ads as they are afraid to go too creative (market-untested). They also like to talk about creative yet impossible ideas for ads. I remember one: “If they used OUR nails, nobody would have been able to take Jesus off the cross”.