The Broken Chair

My office has CNBC on all day. That alone is enough to make me wish for a good old-fashioned punch to the jaw. There is however another form of torture, and that is the rotation of commercials, or lack thereof.

There is the New York Times home delivery commercial with an annoying woman encourages us to get the paper by squawking "call". This ad is on all day.

Then there are the seasonal commercials that get heavy play and it would seem every time you stop and listen it is there in the background.

This past Christmas it was the screaming Fortunoff's lady. No wonder they're bankrupt. And over the summer, we had a Mercedes-Benz Summer Love Event. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you… for pity's sake end it now.

Valentine's Day is coming so I get to see and hear the Vermont Teddy Bear commercial. This has a song so excruciating it makes waterboarding look good.

I have a very simple solution to this. The companies that pay for these commercials to be produced should be required to sit in a room and listen to it over and over again. If you can get through the day without clawing at the locked door, then let it run. I would guess that five or six repeats of any of the above commercials above would have resulted in them all being shelved.

All of these companies have lost my business forever (well I would never touch the NY Times anyway) because of their ads. I wonder if they know this.