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istartedi (123)
If you still watch broadcast TV, you can't miss these Kia ads with the CGI skeletons. They've saturated the airwaves with those things, to the point where I actually thought about the ad while I wasn't watching TV (that's some serious ad saturation, my lentils).
So I was like, there's got to be something behind this because there was music I don't know, and an aesthetic that's odd. I mean, seriously Kia is the car company whose very name reminds you of soldiers lost in war. For years they've gotten a pass on that here in the USA, despite the fact that it's far worse than the infamous Chevy Nova which sounds like "no go" in Spanish. I used to ride around the DC area wondering how many PTSD sufferers were triggered by it.
Did they really just embrace that and decide to associate their cars with DEATH? I mean, seriously, when I'm considering a car Kia has never really been on my list but all else equal I'd rather not consider the prospect of entering the afterlife and being condemned to drive your econobox as a skeleton for all eternity. What kind of marketing is this?
I suppose it's arguably good marketing, because I'm talking about it. OTOH, I'm not talking about it as something positive. This has literally done nothing but repulse me from their brand and image, but wait, it gets worse.
When I dug in to discover the story behind the skeletons it turns out They come from here, as confirmed by the Kia Soul Forums. That's right. NFTs. A "Dead Army Skeleton Klub". It looks like a macabre variation of the Bored Ape Yacht Club and so yes, Kia appears to have not only owned the KIA association but also embraced NFTs, the digital assets that a lot of us are sick of and love to hate.
Like, seriously, WTF? You just can't make this stuff up.
I never wanted to buy an NFT and now I want a Kia even less than before. I hope they come to their senses and, uh... bury this campaign.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fliptop on Wednesday August 17 2022, @08:05PM (1 child)
That's a good thing, since their cars are flimsy pieces of crap.
To be oneself, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday August 18 2022, @02:30PM
Big surprise, they're cheap Korean cars made by the same company who brought us the Hyundai Pony.
Ick!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2022, @08:08PM (1 child)
It's non-intuitive, but death sells - since forever.
It attracts the crowd who have resigned themselves to being hell-bound.
You are clearly not in their desired demographic.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2022, @07:19AM
See the Fine Front Page Uncommented Article, on how someone got Doom to Run on a John Deere tractor, mowing down, well, evil corn, or barley, for great justice. Why do we even have front page articles, any more?
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2022, @08:36PM
I suppose you could just get a Nokia, instead. Or, have some waxed tadpoles. [lingualift.com]
[This comment could be an aristarchus comment. You have been warned!]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2022, @12:38AM
I hated Coca Cola [anvari.org] for a reason...
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday August 18 2022, @01:54PM (5 children)
OTA TV, Cable TV, Satellite TV, etc. all suffer from advertisements. Netflix is apparently about to start hitting up that gravy train, though. I may just totally ditch all forms of media, if it comes to it. I don't want to watch advertisements, thanks. In fact, I've not watched OTA TV for a very long time. It's been over a decade since I ditched even OTA TV. I recently saw a women's underwear advertisement on the grandparents TV and was surprised a bit by my reaction. It's one of those things that you just got used to when they were being fed to you. Looking at it with fairly fresh eyes, I was like, wow, they show that on TV? Considering that it's improper/immodest/(possibly illegal in some places) to go traipsing around town in just your underwear. They've made it a normal thing to watch on TV.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday August 18 2022, @02:37PM (3 children)
I've been saying for decades that the ever increasing intrusiveness of advertising would be the death of "appointment TV," and I'm actually kinda surprised it's been holding on as long as it has. Live sports is probably the only thing holding it together, I suppose, just like live sports was the only real driver to go "high definition."
Nobody needs to see their local newscaster's crumpled face in HDR 4K, FFS! (Maybe some "weathergirls," though?) :-)
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday August 18 2022, @06:16PM (2 children)
I just go to accuweather.com, I get alerts, a radar map, and hourly forecast.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by istartedi on Thursday August 18 2022, @06:58PM
The .gov sites are better. No ads, and until recently they had a very clean and simple design. They caught some horrible messiness with the radar redesigns recently, but it took them a lot longer to ruin their sites with modern UI/UX than it takes commercial folks. That's the silver lining to not having such a big budget.
Also, commercial weather services have literally tried to pay off Congress and de-fund government weather services so I have a grudge against them.
I believe capital is innocent until proven guilty, and IMHO commercial weather services are guilty as sin.
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(Score: 2) by drussell on Friday August 19 2022, @06:19PM
I was meaning that some people might still be tuning in just to ogle the weathergirl...
(...at least on those broadcasts where they're trying to have some "hot weathergirl" to try to get certain demographics to tune in, instead of some old, wrinkley meteorologist who actually knows how to interpret data and attempt to forecast the coming weather... But I digress...)
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday August 18 2022, @05:11PM
Some of the "soft swears" are allowed OTA now. I've heard plenty of "bitch", "ass", "damn" and "hell" but "shit" and "fuck" are still off-limits.
Not sure when the underwear thing started happening. There's this one where a lady models Depends and I'm always thinking about how she looks absolutely nothing like the kind of person who would usually need them--she looks to be fit, 40 and she's swinging her hips in the Depends, LOL.
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(Score: 2) by owl on Friday August 19 2022, @04:02PM (1 child)
Yep, still do.
What are these ads of which you speak?
Although to be serious, while I do still watch broadcast, 100% of all broadcast is watched in time-shift form, and I remove all the commercial breaks from the captures before I later watch them. So the only reason you are still seeing ads is because you must still be watching live, on the broadcasters idea of a schedule.
It is very nice watching the fade out to what should be a commercial break become an immediate fade back in to the show. The breaks are still disruptive to the story line, but not as disruptive as watching the actual advertisements that used to be in between.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Friday August 19 2022, @07:14PM
Technology is wonderful, but it has enabled an arms race between the ads and the viewers. The only winners in an arms race are the arms dealers. Consumers have paid for all kinds of things to get away from ads, only for ads to re-assert themselves as interstitials and product placements, or for tracking to be substituted for ads. Then of course there's the fact that you paid for the device in the first place.
I'd be happy if the arms race came to an end, and we all just went back to getting up to use the toilet during ads. Now get off my lawn.
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