5 Muted Commercials

That was interesting. I rarely watch television. Actually, I never watch television. Only recently have I gotten into watching football and basketball again, so it's only right that the commercials I watched were all from ESPN. I never realized just how many beer commercials were aired between ESPN programs in comparison to other television networks. Of all the types of commercials I saw, the beer commercials were the most straight forward and followed a similar formula. Scenes were limited to one location, with one to about a small handful of people talking. It was either friends at a party or one man speaking directly to the camera. No real action, but you could tell that every commercial had a comic nature. What unified all the commercials was the last slide which was a black background, with the product logo and the slogan beneath.

All the sports commercials were pretty similar. One doesn't really need the audio on in the first place. Sports commercials, alongside the new Jeep commercials and one law firm commercial lent their message communication to kinetic typography; this is slowly becoming a popular medium for advertising and I'm surprised that it took so long.

It wouldn't be complete if I didn't run into an informercial. The hackneyed grayscale shots of competitor products failing on visually disappointed customers are always funny. A lot of text and clear enactments. Infomercials are typically another instance where the audio isn't that necessary.