can you see through commercials?

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I don't know if it's because I'm an aspie or whether it's because I have the presence of mind to see what television ads do in order to make their product sell better.

For example, those stupid commercials for stuff where it make it seem what you have is sub-standard and they show you a demonstration in black and white and shake the camera to give you the feeling of chaos but when they show their product, it's in color and the camera has smooth, sweeping pans and the person using it is smiling.

Like it's THAT hard to strain spaghetti!

Or when the ad mentions the word "technology", their product is so many times more likely to sell if the word was excluded.

"But wait! Call in the next 5 minutes and we'll triple your offer!"

The person on the phone taking your order has no idea when the ad ran on TV!

I enjoy catching advertisers in their game. One of the biggest things to look for is in the way they phrase their statements. They may say "our XYZ product is better" Okay, better than what? Better in what way?

I was at a home show a while back and a seller of windows had a box designed to demonstrate their windows were better than the "competition" The box had a light bulb behind a sample of their window assembly. In front the window assemblies was one of those bulb thingies with the rotor in it that spins when infrared heat shines on it. The one in front of their window spun less than the other window, BUT I called their bluff, I noticed that the light bulbs used in their demonstrator were DIFFERENT! They had placed a halogen PAR38 reflector bulb (like a backyard floodlight bulb) behind the "competition" window, and the bulb in front of theirs was a CFL PAR38 reflector bulb. Obviously, the fluorescent bulb will put out less heat than the halogen bulb!


Us aspies have higher than average power of logical reasoning and understand a basic concept of business and advertising that the general populous seems to forget when making a purchasing decision. It is that the manufacturer and all the associated middlemen are in it to make money, and won't be selling or giving away anything at or below their cost.

When an advertiser says they will triple your order, or give you a free widget, they are not going to be giving you away more of whatever it is without still making money! When I see a claim such as this, the advertiser is actually shooting themselves in the foot! How good can the product(s) actually is if they can give it away at some ridiculous price and still make money off of it!

I tend to call it the "F" word in advertising..as in "free" Nothing is free! It's that simple! "Buy one get one free" is actually translated "two at half price"

I got into an argument with a telemarketer that called me stating that he was going to get me two free magazine subscriptions. he then told me that in order to receive the "free" magazine subscriptions, I would need to buy something else. I told him, "Then the magazine subscriptions are not free since I am having to lay out money" he insisted that they were free, but refused to give me the magazine subscriptions without buying his cleaning product or whatever it was. I held him up for 20 minutes with this, which I was quite amused with...Telemarketers' job performance is judged on how many calls they make in an hour!! !

No matter how stupid a commercial may be, they succeed in their advertising when you remember their product.

The ones that always give me a laugh are the ones that advertise weight loss pills, and they show the before a picture of a half naked flabby person, and the after looking like the spent a year with a personal trainer. Like pills alone are really going to give someone a perfect six pack and a tan! If you look at the screen really close it says "results not typical". The other one that gets me are the acne wash ones. Fist of all, many people with mild acne have really good days, and obviously they are going to take the after picture on a good day. Secondly, the before picture is taken with horrible lighting, the person has messy hair, no makeup, and wearing a miserable scowl. The after picture looks like a glamour shot. Perfect ligting, perfect hair, pounds of makeup to hide any kind of blemish, and of course a generous smile.

I think generally anyone with high intelligence and who are good at noticing details can figure that stuff out. Most of my NT family is pretty good at picking apart commercials too.

But yeah, remembering names is the trickiest. It creates false familiarity, which makes people (even smart ones) more comfortable to try the product. I'm sure this has worked on me many times, but I still try to find what works the best and what I like the best. I'm pretty careful that way.

Commercial art topic

If it sounds too good to be true, do not buy it.

If it looks too good to be true, do not buy it.

If you cannot taste it in the few seconds it takes to see it, do not buy it.

If you cannot feel it, do not buy it.

If it smells like a rat, then the whole thing is crap. Do not buy it.

Buyer beware.

I think being an Aspie has only a bit to do with it.
It sounds more like you have an eye for cinematography, and you can tell the effects it has on the mind very easily.
That talent could come from being an Aspie I guess.

I've studied enough psychology to know all the little tricks they're pulling to emotionally manipulate people. I can't watch adverts, it's like nails on a blackboard. What sells a product for me is a good review.

I don't have a TV (and the License people can get stuffed if they think I'm going to roll over and buy one just because they keep sending me red letters). I prefer the internet, because I get to use adblock to get rid of annoying pictures, and customise google filter lets me wipe out all those stupid price comparison websites from the results (If you want the cheapest it's usually in the top 10 that isn't a price comparison site. If you're in the UK you can get the price in the google results by putting the word VAT in your search).

I've always been really good with sales (mainly Girl Scout cookies and fundraising items) and I know a lot of the tricks in the book. And I know exactly what those commercials are up to. Here's one of the things people almost always fall for: They think they're getting a really good deal when the people in the ad double what quantity of the item and lower the price after they say the 'original' value. However, the 'new' price was technically the price all along! They just want you to think you're getting the best deal ever when you're really not!

How much do you think this all in one Veggimatic will cost you?

Not 500 dollars.

Not 300 dollars.

Not even 100 or 85 Dollars.

No. If you call within the next 30 minutes we will give you the Ronco Super Deluxe All in One Veggimatic for 3 easy payments of 19.95!

But wait theres more...

@digger1: what you're describing is this:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... teABlanket

I see right through those ones that are presented as human interest stories: presented like they were unscripted and unbiased. What's worse is the "learn more on YouTube (or abcxyz.com)" right..... There's also the ones (Coke, Pepsi and Tim Hortons are famous for) where there is a large public event and everyone is holding that product and only that product. I was once used as a photo op for my employer's website briefly and the amount of work put into ONE PHOTO was about an hour long! It wasn't even a front page shot: it was buried so deep I could barely find it!

Somewhat related to this topic is the fact few like to watch movies outside the theatre with me. I'm the one who says things like "It's set in New York but the only place that uses those type of Backplates on Traffic Lights is the province of Ontario!"

Commercials are engineered to play on people's emotions.

If you weren't aspie but trained in mass media/communications, you'd likewise never watch a commercial the same way ever again.

I think it's cool when you point out these sorts of things, GiantHockeyFan.

My wife hates it when, for example, I say a movie is set in the 1940s because of the cars. She finds history irrelevant.

I wish I had a woman who liked to point out anachronisms. That would be great foreplay!

@GiantHockeyFan: same here.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... iaDoubling

Commercials annoy me lol

I once got turned on by a woman talking economic theory!