The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum / The New Most Annoying Radio Commercial Has Emerged

**Posted by RadioActive** April 17, 2025 8:00 pm

Wegovy is gone, but now there's a new spot that almost makes me miss it.

It appears to be for an auto mechanic service and involves a guy repeatedly making noises of a bad engine, constantly repeating P-P-P-P-P-P-P- before pronouncing the name of the place. Then he does the S-S-S-S-S-S-sound of a leaking tire. By the time he gets to the end of the copy, I'm gone.

It's so annoying, I can't even tell you the name of the place he's suggesting you take your car. Which means it fails as a spot.

I used to actually have a tolerance for the Ikea commercials, but the current ones with the scary monster and the nonsensical talking to Paul has me never planning to go back to any of their stores.

Do the people who write this stuff think deliberately being annoying makes for good copy or good impressions? If not, they're very, very wrong.

On the flip side, are there any radio commercials you think are well done? There must be a few, but I have to admit, I'm having trouble bringing any of them to mind at the moment.

**Posted by Binson Echorec** April 17, 2025 8:11 pm

Think I heard this one today. It's for a "Green & Ross"-type place.

Announcer is attempting to emulate the sound of a leaking tire.

I think the bit would work better if they shortened the effect.

Also - today's copywriters are creating these from an entirely different perspective. I feel they're writing for their generation, not realizing the radio audience is much older

Last edited by Binson Echorec (April 17, 2025 8:13 pm)

**Posted by RadioActive** April 17, 2025 8:14 pm

As soon as I hear that "P-P-P-P-P-P" stuff, I'm gone. Not since that horribly discordant note that starts "The Lion King" spot have I heard anything that annoying.

**Posted by Binson Echorec** April 17, 2025 8:20 pm

Effects like that should be 2 seconds maximum. Less is enough.

**Posted by Forward Power** April 17, 2025 8:33 pm

RadioActive wrote:
Not since that horribly discordant note that starts "The Lion King" spot have I heard anything that annoying.

Back for more, courtesy of Canada's own Valerie Poxleitner herself, aka Lights, featuring her late cat Stanley, circa 2020-ish.

Last edited by Forward Power (April 17, 2025 8:37 pm)

**Posted by mace** April 18, 2025 8:00 am

Wow! That is one big pussycat. It probably died of a heart attack.

**Posted by Walter** April 18, 2025 9:23 am

From the same 'writers' that gave us the incredibly annoying spot with the woman whining and creaking like a broken deck, or whatever it is? Never listened long enough to know who the ad was for.
Agreed about the latest Ikea spots. Never liked them, but 'Scary Monster' has to be the worst thing I've heard since Fiona finally (hopefully) left.

Last edited by Walter (April 18, 2025 11:38 am)

**Posted by RadioActive** April 18, 2025 10:27 am

Dishonourable mention: the Subaru spot that features an increasingly sped up list of advantages to owning the car, until they run out of time. I can't reach for the channel changer soon enough.

**Posted by 67GreenRambler** April 18, 2025 11:30 am

Just heard the tire ad. It's for Point S. One of those businesses like OK Tire, Uni-Select or Bumper To Bumper that are much larger than most people know.

**Posted by Easily Amused** April 18, 2025 12:14 pm

RadioActive wrote:
Dishonourable mention: the Subaru spot that features an increasingly sped up list of advantages to owning the car, until they run out of time. I can't reach for the channel changer soon enough.

I will always remember the call from a listener to 'Car Talk', to ask Ray and Tom about a problem with a Subaru. The listener prefaced the question by saying "Remember, Subaru spelled backwards is 'U R A BUS'."
😁

**Posted by newsguy1** April 18, 2025 3:20 pm

The creaky floor ad is for RONA home building box store.
As for Ikea, forget the roaring monster, the other Ikea ad featuring "my friend Paul" is just kind of creepy.
The annoying Swedish guy asking in a whispery voice "Paul" why he still ;awake.
Paul says he is worried he spent too much on his new mattress.
Swedish guy, says, yes you did, you should have bought an Ikea mattress like his.
Paul then asks, so why are you still awake?
Swede replies in a whisper, "Because I love to talk to my friend Paul."
Why are they both sleeping in the same room on two separate mattresses.?
If it was a gay couple, OK fine, but it seems to be two hetero guys who are sleeping together.
Are they poor and have to share one room?
Are they in a minimum security prison?
It's all very weird.

**Posted by mace** April 19, 2025 8:58 am

I know its not a radio ad but the Fixx Auto ads are clever. Something bad happens to your car and the first reaction is Aww F... Then the announcer cleverly butts in saying Fixx Auto. Have any of you seen the Fluke Transport trucks? On the back of the trailer is printed "If it's on time, it's a Fluke"

**Posted by DX** April 19, 2025 10:10 am

Forward Power wrote:
RadioActive wrote:
Not since that horribly discordant note that starts "The Lion King" spot have I heard anything that annoying.
Back for more, courtesy of Canada's own Valerie Poxleitner herself, aka Lights, featuring her late cat Stanley, circa 2020-ish.

TBH That looks more like a professional wrestling Gorilla press slam than a Lion Kinging.

**Posted by Storm** April 19, 2025 1:12 pm

I never listen to commercials on radio. I listen to the radio at home in the morning with my coffee and feet up in my lazy boy. I have a remote and as soon as an ad break comes on I am searching other stations for music. same in the car. So, I don't recall hearing these annoying radio commercials. A couple that do bother me is the current Fowler Tire tv ad when the guy pulls his beard off. I cannot stand that and it certainly turns me off of Fowler Tire. Another is the Meridian ad referring to people as numbers. That one shows up regularly on YouTube so I can't ignore it if I want to play the music video I have selected, but it does not make me feel good about Meridian.

**Posted by Shorty Wave** April 21, 2025 9:40 am

I find the Point S commercial a bit disturbing as when I was a kid, one of my classmates stuttered, not always but with certain sounds and the “P” sound was probably his worse, and would go on a bit. Even as kids we knew not to tease him about it, he was a decent guy. Apparently his stutter improve as he got older, but we could tell it embarrassed him as a kid. So I quickly change stations when I hear the “P-P-P” machine starting up!

Footnote, what’s with all the bad commercials of late?? Some really terrible creative out there!

**Posted by Radiowiz** April 21, 2025 11:20 am

Shorty Wave wrote:
I find the Point S commercial a bit disturbing as when I was a kid, one of my classmates stuttered, not always but with certain sounds and the “P” sound was probably his worse, and would go on a bit. Even as kids we knew not to tease him about it, he was a decent guy. Apparently his stutter improve as he got older, but we could tell it embarrassed him as a kid. So I quickly change stations when I hear the “P-P-P” machine starting up!

Footnote, what’s with all the bad commercials of late?? Some really terrible creative out there!

The music stations have better commercials.

**Posted by paterson1** April 21, 2025 12:40 pm

Yes music stations do have better and a bigger variety of commercials, also they have better ratings than AM talk radio generally, so a bigger variety of advertisers.

I guess I don't listen to talk stations enough, but all of them, 1010, AM 640, CityNews 570, 680 News, and CFPL in London don't seem to me at least to have annoying ads. I don't even find the length of their commercial breaks unreasonable. In fairness I will often flip around the dial when they go to commercials, but not always and when I listen to the spot breaks I really don't find them off putting or overly long. So I am always amused by the comments about annoying commercials or the long commercial breaks.

Always thought if CBC Radio One sold commercials, they would have an interesting mix of advertisers. Mostly upper end products, high end vehicles, financial planning investment ads, maybe commercials for universities etc. They could also charge high rates given the demographics that the network attracts.

**Posted by mace** April 21, 2025 3:47 pm

I listen to a great deal of U.S. radio online. First American Bank ads usually make me chuckle.

**Posted by RadioActive** April 22, 2025 7:01 am

Walter wrote:
Agreed about the latest Ikea spots. Never liked them, but 'Scary Monster' has to be the worst thing I've heard since Fiona finally (hopefully) left.

There's good news and bad news on that front!

The good news: The new Spence spots started airing on Tuesday (endlessly, of course) and Fiona announced her work is "done" and she's leaving.

The bad news: unfortunately, she threatens to keep in touch "by phone."

**Posted by RayDeeOh** April 22, 2025 9:06 am

RadioActive wrote:
Walter wrote:
Agreed about the latest Ikea spots. Never liked them, but 'Scary Monster' has to be the worst thing I've heard since Fiona finally (hopefully) left.
There's good news and bad news on that front!

The good news: The new Spence spots started airing on Tuesday (endlessly, of course) and Fiona announced her work is "done" and she's leaving.

The bad news: unfortunately, she threatens to keep in touch "by phone."

Please say it isn't so!!

**Posted by Walter** April 22, 2025 10:07 am

RadioActive wrote:
Walter wrote:
Agreed about the latest Ikea spots. Never liked them, but 'Scary Monster' has to be the worst thing I've heard since Fiona finally (hopefully) left.
There's good news and bad news on that front!

The good news: The new Spence spots started airing on Tuesday (endlessly, of course) and Fiona announced her work is "done" and she's leaving.

The bad news: unfortunately, she threatens to keep in touch "by phone."

With any luck, the room full of monkeys that 'write' the Spence drivel will just forget she ever existed.

**Posted by YoungerTracker** April 23, 2025 5:42 pm

Honestly I wonder how long it'll take before another local jeweler steps up and provides a parody/takedown of the Spence ads to laugh at their poorly-promoted expense

**Posted by Chrisphen** April 23, 2025 5:48 pm

Isn't the ad service Spence uses American? If so, a competing jewellery outfit could simply incorporate this fact into its copy.

This idea is free, and anyone may use it.

**Posted by RadioActive** April 27, 2025 3:58 pm

It's been a while since I could say this - most of the spots that were driving me crazy seem to have run their course.

The Wegovy insanity song stopped a while ago.

I haven't heard about Rybelsus in more than a week.

And the annoying guy stuttering over the letter "P" for a car repair place has driven away to parts unknown. Have not heard it in about two weeks.

Even Fiona is going home on the Spence spots, which hopefully means we'll hear less of her, at least for a while.

Now if we can just get rid of the Subaru list commercial and that horrendous Lion King scream in your ear, I might not even have to tune out as often!

My fear is they'll return now that the election ads are almost done and there's more inventory available.

**Posted by Shorty Wave** April 28, 2025 8:03 am

RadioActive wrote:
It's been a while since I could say this - most of the spots that were driving me crazy seem to have run their course.

I noticed this on Saturday! I was listening on and off most of the day and realized that I wasn’t getting annoyed in the commercial breaks and your observation was the reason why. Boy, we had a run of bad ads there for a while, let’s hope they hold off, at least for the summer!

**Posted by newsguy1** April 28, 2025 6:13 pm

I'm still hearing that weird Ikea commercial about the Swedish guy and his friend Paul who sleep in the same bedroom on different mattresses for some reason.
The scary monster Ikea ad is kind of annoying but just rather silly.
I also notice the Rona ad with the squeaky floor voice is gone.
I betcha it had many complaints.

**Posted by Walter** April 28, 2025 6:33 pm

How did 'Sarah' record all those 1-800-GOT JUNK commercials while she was on her 'world tour' from the idiots at Spence?

**Posted by newsguy1** April 28, 2025 9:14 pm

Ever heard of the Internet?
Or Zoom, Slack, VPN etc etc
But of course she didn't because she's a fictional character who apparently works for Spence Diamonds and Got Junk at the same time.
Maybe she and Michael can buy a mattress from Ikea together.

**Posted by RadioActive** April 28, 2025 9:32 pm

newsguy1 wrote:
Maybe she and Michael can buy a mattress from Ikea together.

Oh no! What will Paul say?

**Posted by Walter** April 29, 2025 4:09 am

RadioActive wrote:
newsguy1 wrote:
Maybe she and Michael can buy a mattress from Ikea together.
Oh no! What will Paul say?

"Move over"?