The remote control and urine – an advertiser’s two worst enemies. (Sorry if you were reading this over lunch!) There are other anti-ad distractions as well: the refrigerator, the kids, the dog, but the remote and pee are the main enemies.

Whatever their excuse, huge numbers of Canadians regard this form of the corporate pitch with disdain – they actually turn off the commercials during their favorite television show. The nerve! Don’t they know how much work goes into these things? What about the heartaches, headaches and varied forms of carpal tunnel? Ad people put their very health on the line to get these things on TV and nearly 70% of Canadians just turn them off!

This staggering statistic is just one of a number of tabulations from Canadian research studies conducted over the last year. Researchers say anywhere between 60% and 69% of Canadians avoid commercials using the usual methods (see above) and find other more creative methods, too. It should be noted that the dreaded avoidance figure is up from 57% confessed in a similar poll conducted 10 years ago.

Many people blame Canadian creative, which is an unfair generalization, but perhaps not completely unwarranted. It seems for every one great commercial made in Canada, there are at least three awful ones. As Alan Gee, chairman and executive creative director at Toronto’s Gee Jeffery & Partners and chairman of the 2001 Marketing Awards, noted pithily at the March 22 gala: ‘There’s the good stuff and then there’s everything else.’

How can creative people expect regular folks to enjoy watching ads if ad creatives, the slaphappiest of back-slappers, can barely stomach them?

We are being pitched to death. No matter if ads are cute, funny, emotive or sexy, Canadians are sick to death of them. In every free space lives an ad. How do you relax without them? Go to the movies? Hell no. There’s anywhere from five to 15 minutes of ads ready to unspool for you there. Go for a drive? Billboards go with you. There are even ads placed on those bars at parking garages that lift once you’ve paid. Do you read a book? Sure, if there’s anyone left who still reads. Do you surf the Net? To avoid advertising? Please. Ads are in bathrooms, elevators, arenas, all forms of transit and everywhere else there is space to be filled. It’s pretty overwhelming.

Unlikely as it may sound, therefore, TV offers the great escape, with its remote and its pee breaks. So what is a brilliant ad creative or the definitive spot director to do? Think about a future in targeted ads delivered via devices such as TiVo or enhanced TV. In these delivery systems, the programmers can, in theory, predetermine the demographics of the people watching and customize their evening TV schedules, and they will want (yes, want) to see your ads.

So the agencies, production houses and directors who adjust fastest to this reality will truly be the ones to watch.