"There are a few reasons that this spot has had a seemingly disproportionate impact given its relative quality," explains Teressa Iezzi, editor of the advertising publication Creativity. "One, of course, is repetition. The spot is played over and over relentlessly during games, which are typically watched in real time, rather than DVRed. "According to the old media buying rules, you'd never run a spot with this frequency—precisely for the reason that you didn't want to annoy or deaden an audience to your message," Iezzi adds. "But I think ridiculous repetition has become a media strategy in itself, particularly for low budget efforts like this one." Though the public's reaction to the "Saved by Zero" ads has been mostly negative, no one will argue the campaign's effectiveness. "With so much clutter now, and so many media options, cultural transcendence is huge," Iezzi says. "It's what creative people aim for. In the case of 'Saved by Zero', if it happens to make thousands of people want to stick forks in their eyes—well, that's a small price to pay."