On Television Advertisements

I was looking at some video spots we are doing at work. We posed a question to a student. What makes you want to just up and smack your television? That's an approximate quote. She mentioned car dealership commercials. SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY. You know the drill... Those probably annoy everyone outside of the families of those ego-maniac dealership owners. Hell, probably the families themselves grow tired of the infamy.

Later that evening, while watching the fantastic NBC Thursday night line-up, I had a commercial realization. Every year, commercials seem to grow a little bit louder. Last night, there were a few commercials I could barely hear, while others bordered on bull horn decibel levels. An ad by Obama, for example, was quite quiet while the car ads were incredibly loud.

Why am I droning on about this? It's only because I realize that television commercials seemed to be caught up in an arms race. If the cold war of tv ads started five years ago or so, then we're nearing the Cuban Missile Crisis here. If your commercial plays at the same volume to fit-in seamlessly with the volume of the currently airing show, it won't be heard because everyone has turned down their volume. I, for one, have a sleeping child and cannot tolerate him being blasted awake by car advertisements.

Do you get the parallels here? How loud will be loud enough? Can't we set a standard volume max for commercials?