Microsoft paid Jerry Seinfeld $10 million to fit Bill Gates for shoes in a TV commercial. I don’t see the logic behind this. I mean, if you were Microsoft, would you have Seinfeld fit your chairman for shoes? Or would you go the more reasonable route and use his voice for that animated paper clip? (“It looks like you’re writing a letter. What’s the deal with letters?”)

Microsoft’s ads, which the company has announced it will cancel, are the latest in a surge in pointless commercials. They’ll give you some mumbo-jumbo about trying to improve their image with the public, but come on. Bill Gates just wanted to hang out with Jerry Seinfeld. It may seem unfair that Bill Gates gets to spend company money to purchase Jerry Seinfeld whereas you would get questioned for a $15 business lunch, but in all fairness, Gates has to go through life with that haircut.

Anyway, I understand the need for TV commercials in general. I get why they need to interrupt important baseball games to inform me which brand of beer is endorsed by Dr. Cox from “Scrubs.” (As the commissioner of the “More Taste League” he shows leniency to drinkers of Miller Lite, which is good, because people who drink Miller Lite need whatever help they can get.)

These commercials pay the television stations’ bills, and it gets companies’ messages (“If you don’t drink Miller Lite, Dr. Cox will mildly chastise you”) to the public. But more and more, I’ve been seeing ads for organizations that need not spend a penny to get their products’ names out. You know the ones. The Microsoft ads aside, they are mostly narrated by Morgan Freeman, because he provides a level of gravitas money can’t buy, unless you can afford to have Morgan Freeman narrate your commercial.

They start with a child in a park. “Because you love kids,” Morgan says, with gravitas. Then it cuts to old people staving off death. “Because you love old people,” Morgan continues, his gravitas intensifying. The next shot is an ethnic-looking celebration. “Because you love ethic-looking celebrations,” Morgan informs you, the gravitas shattering your coffee mug. “We’re all these things. We’re oxygen. Helping you breathe since the 1800s.” Cut to a shot of oxygen, as Morgan reaches his big finish, the gravitas oozing from your TV and forming a little puddle: “Oxygen. Breathe it.”

I can’t stand the ads from Waste Management, the company municipalities hire to dispose of residential trash. The commercials are designed to point out how Waste Management is environmentally friendly. Never mind that we’d still have to throw away our garbage, even if their mission statement somehow involved using that trash to plug the blowholes of endangered species of whales.

Then there’s the gasoline industry. Apparently there are executives who think people choose gas stations based on ads highlighting their little convenience stores that sell leftover hot dogs from sporting events. People don’t pick gas stations for any reason other than price per gallon. Although they might be swayed if Dr. Cox promoted a brand as the more taste, less filling alternative.

Even my beloved Chicago Bears have fallen victim to this trend. You guessed it – the most popular sports team in the Windy City, the one that has sold out every game for infinity years, the team that absolutely does not need to advertise, has done the unthinkable: selling uneaten hot dogs to gas stations.

They also launched their “One City. One Team.” ad campaign recently, mainly on billboards and brief TV spots. A sample billboard ad I saw on their Web site features a blue-collar looking worker next to linebacker Brian Urlacher. The worker is saying “I punch the clock,” and Urlacher says, “I’ll clean yours.” So I guess the message is that, if you are not a fan, Brian Urlacher will punch you in the face.

This would be a good marketing tactic if you were, say, a local mafia capo, but not if you run a professional sports team with 100 percent market saturation. Of course, I don’t know how much sense I should expect from an organization that runs draw plays on third-and-long, even when I specifically yell at my TV not to.

So we need to step it up if we are ever to stop these campaigns. I say we boycott offending companies. That’ll teach those garbage collectors.

Scott is a third-year law student. He means no offense to Mr. Urlacher.