<p>There’s one radio ad for some bank here in the NYC listening area and as soon as I here the ‘sophisticated piano’ music, I snap it off. There are about 5 scenarios and it’s all about losing the ATM card while flying out to the Hamptons, or realizing the passport was in the bank vault and the husband wants the wife to fly to Paris on Saturday night, or the banker stepped in to make peace among the siblings after the patriarch left them with untold millions. And the voice-over is all done with what’s known around here as ‘Southampton Lock-Jaw.’
It’s like the bank for .5% - I hate it.</p>
<p>Woody–I always heard it called Larchmont Lockjaw (more alliterative)–but I know the tone you’re talking about. Haven’t heard that commercial yet, but yeah, that would grate on me, too.</p>
<p>Maybe not absurd, but definitely very annoying… I cringe every time the USPS ad for flat rate boxes comes on. “If it fits- it ships.” I do a lot of shipping, and unless you are shipping bricks, you will pay much less to ship via USPS Priority based on shipping zone. The flat rate boxes are way too small for most heavy items. I live on the east coast, and I have customers on the west coast who want me to ship at the flat box rate, because they listen to the commercials. However, they do not realize that the boxes are way too small for their item, and I’m not willing to scrunch their high end leather item into a ball to fit the box. Plus they would be very unhappy with the condition when it arrived. Most people who use the flat rate boxes are paying much more in postage than if they would just use a regular box and pay by weight, but I guess it’s a way for the USPS to make more money, and they need it.</p>
<p>Here’s an example: to send a three pound box to my daughter at college, I can use a priority box and ship for $5.96. OR I can use a medium flat rate box and ship for a “low flat rate” of $10.50. OR I can use a large flat rate box and ship for $14.20. If I’m sending three pounds worth, I probably could not fit it into the medium flat rate box, so I would need to pay $14.20. Why? I would have to send 12 pounds, which would cost $14.01, to even consider the flat rate box. I’m betting if I have 12 pounds of stuff, it wouldn’t fit into the flat rate box, unless of course, I was sending bricks. And then the box wouldn’t be strong enough to hold it.</p>
<p>^^^Clearly you don’t send bicycle parts. Just this morning I shipped son 28 pounds of bicycle parts from his “junk” box and they all fit in the medium flat rate box for $10.50. And for those of us lucky enough to have a local post office, my postmaster will weigh my stuff for me andtell me which is the most economically way to ship it. I use a lot of priority AND flat rate boxes.</p>
<p>Never sent a flat rate box lighter than 15 lb, and 15 is at the lower end. 
I guess someone else is subsidizing my shipments across the country. :)</p>
<p>I’m enjoying a peaceful week - no TV! No ads! No Cramer at 6 am! Yipee!</p>
<p>There are certain types of ad that always annoy me. For example, a perfectly ordinary-looking car goes down the street, and people stare at it in amazement as if they were seeing Lady Godiva go by.</p>
<p>I also don’t like commercials where the consumer is shown as an idiot–like the recent insurance commercials where the really stupid guy has driven his car through his house and is on the phone with the agent. “I guess that’s the insurance designed for really dumb people,” is what we say about it.</p>
<p>I do like the Old Spice commercials, and I especially like the candy bar commercial where one of the people turns into a “diva” because he’s hungry.</p>