Tag Archives: TV ads

| Montreal, Public transit, TV, Video

More retro STCUM ads: “Vous connaissez pas Telbus?”

I actually remember this ad from 1994, when the then-STCUM introduced and publicized its seemingly revolutionary system where you could call a phone number and get the arrival time of the next bus.

The Telbus system (in which each stop for each route had a phone number attached to it) was eventually replaced with the current AUTOBUS, which has a single phone number and a five-digit code for each stop.

A second ad returns to a dry, if accurate, talking point for public transit: It’s cheaper and more reliable than a car in the long run.

Plenty of other (non-transit-related) retro Quebec ads uploaded recently too, including some related to the 1994 Quebec election, a station ID for Musique Plus and a French ad for CHOM FM.

| Opinion, Technology, Video

Fast. Finally.

Dear FinallyFast.com,

I understand computers are hard, and that filming a commercial with people you found off the street can be difficult.

FinallyFast.com is for PC Computers Only

FinallyFast.com is for PC Computers Only

But when you say your product is for PCs only,

This iMac is apparently supposed to be a PC in the magic fairytale land of FinallyFast.com commercials

This iMac is apparently supposed to be a PC in the magic fairytale land of FinallyFast.com commercials

perhaps you shouldn’t show people using what are obviously Macs (albeit with the logos covered up).

BSOD on an iBook.. err, PC laptop

BSOD on an iBook.. err, PC laptop

I can’t tell you how often I’ve gotten a blue screen of death on my iBook. Oh wait, yes I can. It’s never.

| Opinion, Sports, TV, Video

RDS goes black, will it go back?

In one of those moments that marketing geeks wet their pants over, RDS apparently agreed in December to cut out the visual feed for 10 seconds of its Sports 30 recap of a Canadiens game, replacing it with an ad for the Quebec Foundation for the Blind which was mostly a black screen. The audio feed was left as is.

I can find no news coverage of this feat, nor anything from RDS, so I’ll just have to take the word of the marketing agency that this actually happened.

I suppose with all the product placement, pop-up ads and other junk that increasingly attacks our television viewing experience, something like this is inevitable. Let’s just hope this idea isn’t expanded to commercial advertising.

(via iPub)

| Humour, TV, Video

Relive the 90s with kitsch Québécois commercials

 There’s something about late-80s early-90s television you can’t help but admire. And by “admire” I mean “wonder how we as a society could have produced such crap.” When it comes to Quebec commercials from the time though, you have something extra special that deserves to be preserved.

Fortunately, some people have taken it upon themselves to do just that. There’s even a blog, Publicités poches du Québec, that has tasked itself with that mission, uploading recordings of these ads to YouTube.

Here are some of my favourites: