Smug Strings

This advert has something it wants to share with you all:



Christ, negative campaigning's moved from politics to advertising. It's spreading like cancer. Next we'll have books with little sound chips in so that when you walk into Waterstones you'll be subjected to a cacophony of little synthetic voices smugly informing you that their book's better than the other's because it's got a longer word-count and it's part of Richard and Judy's Book Club.

It's not just the message of the advert that irritates me, it's the method it's transmitted as well - through hundreds and hundreds of miles of string, carefully laid across the entire country. Think about it - imagine how horrible that imaginary world must be if it's full of people willing to go to such a ridiculous effort purely so that can listen to some smug bitch ramble on at them about how one brand of fromage frais is better than the other. Ugh.

And another thing - why is it only mothers who are being told about this? What about dads? What about people from unconventional family units? This advert discriminates against more than just artificial ingredients. If I were a gay man made from fructose I'd be outraged.

Watch Out, Gillette's About

New Gillette advert:


Buy Gillette razors or they'll pay famous sportspeople to physically assault you in a campaign of violence and intimidation. Great. Next you'll have Alan Sugar shitting on your doorstep because you didn't buy whatever the hell it is that he flogs these days.

That's What I'm Talkin' About!

My exams are over, and so is The Apprentice 2008. I have my degree and Lee's the apprentice. As the Leicester Mercury put it, 'Amstrad's gain is porn's loss' (?).

But something Lucidna said way back in the advertising task has become massively pertinent.


Remember the bit where Lucinda was coming up with 'off the wall' ideas for the advertising campaign? I was a bit concerned about what she was going to say.

"If we're looking at shock tactics, and it's probably uncomfortable to some, but it's going to come up more and more and more..."

Shit, I thought. 'Tissue 9/11'. She's going to say 'tissue 9/11'. Oh God, please don't say 'tissue 9/11.'

She continued: "...And [what's] become stronger and stronger and stronger, as it should do, is homosexuality. And people would be talking about that advert."

Thank fuck, I thought, she didn't say 'tissue 9/11'.

But roll on a few weeks...

Heinz mayonnaise advert with two men kissing set to become most complained of the year
Heinz pulls ad showing men kissing
Gaydar Radio calls for boycott after 'men kissing' ad pulled

Byebye 3.6 million consumers! Didn't think that through did you Lucinda? You silly dick.

The offending ad:



And that's it. No more Apprentice this year. But there's always next year, and Raef might even get a chat show in the meantime, which will be nice... I guess?

PC Gone... Hair

New Head & Shoulders advert:


"OMG, why is it always acceptable to slag off 'white' but not other colours like 'darkie brown'? This advert could only be made under NooLabour, PC gone mad, etc. etc. etc."

No really, people actually think that. Actual real people.

I searched Google for this advert, and what was the first result? That's right, a fucking white power forum. Un-cunting-believable. I was going to take the piss out of this advert because obviously it's possible to read a racial context into it if you really try, but actually seriously taking the advert as some kind of anti-white propaganda? Jesus. Here are some of the best/worst posts:

I hate advertising. Whenever I see a PC advert, I can just imagine the brainstorming session that led up to it; "yeah, lets have a young couple advertising our new car"..."wouldn't it be better if we had a mixed race couple to reflect todays modern society?"..."Lets give them a couple of kids also to put the advert really out there".

Yeah, 'cos it's really cr-r-r-r-razy to suggest that mixed race couples are, y'know, capable of reproducing.

"Helps enhance your vibrancy, while keeping white flakes at bay."

Consider "vibrancy" in the modern PC context, always used as a euphemism for non-whites and their activities in society, and then "help keep white flakes at bay"; i.e. flakes as the nervous, nerdy guys trendy white women are spurning in increasing numbers in favour of the exotic Negro.

Am I reading too much into this?

Yes, you paranoid racist cunt.

this is just the beginning for anti-white soon there be chocomilk ad's where they say cause we don't like whites, and people won't read into these ads they will just become a normal thing then they hit us with the big anti-white ads but as people will of become tolerant with the ads noone will care

One day Ian Wright will cut the ribbon at a new concentration camp for white people, and it'll all be Quicky the Nesquik bunny's fault, the black leporine bastard.

Humanity is fucked.

Another Rubbish BT Advert

As you can tell from here, here and here, I'm not a big fan of the BT Family adverts. And now there's a new one. Hoo-twating-ray.


Don't worry Kris Marshall, this is the woman who managed to delete a folder from both its original location and the Recycle Bin all by accident, as well as somehow 'deleting' photos that exist in physical form, remember? It's not your fault, she probably just doesn't understand what a cock is.

Just for the record, I'd make a joke about you having a tiny-to-the-point-of-being-invisible penis, but I guess since you've just been in a car accident it wouldn't be in the best of taste.

Bakey Bollocks

Swing and a miss for Kelloggs with their advert for Nutri-Grain bars:

So I'm supposed to buy products from people who potentially put members of the public at risk of very serious harm by pretending to be doctors and, in most cases, misdiagnosing them with fucking 'cakey pangs'? Are you being serious Kelloggs? Hmmm?

And what is he going to with that oven glove? Shove it up his arse? Ugh.

Misogynistic Shite

Unsurprisingly I am not impressed by the latest advert for Coke Zero:



That ex - what a bitch, eh? How dare she move on with her life?! Why, she should spend the rest of her life alone, like some sort of faithful widow! After all if she doesn't want to be in a relationship with 'Our Hero' (as the somewhat presumptuous caption labels him) she deserves solitude!

Ugh... what a crock of neanderthal shite.

I'm waiting for the Coke Zero advert where a man callously hurls his wife down the stairs in a fit of frenzied misogynistic rage. I doubt I'll have to wait long.

I don't know what I hate more about these adverts, their swaggering lad-ish disregard for women or the fact that they seem to turn me into some sort of bizarre raving feminist. Ugh.

The Second Coming Of Clearasil

Clearasil have done it again. As if their previous advert wasn't brilliant enough they've now gone and produced this transcendental masterpiece:



"You should see me now."

What? Right now? In front of your Mum (or Mom - Britain doesn't deserve adverts of its own, it seems)? You want your boyfriend to ogle your naked body with your mother right there, sat on the sofa next to him? I suggest you seek professional help because you obviously have some deep-seated psychiatric issues. Fuck your spots, your head's broken, you mad perverted bitch.

Ugh...

The new advert for the BBC's Eastenders:



Utterly horrible, like a penis through the eyesocket (not that I'd know).

Hot Anne Diamond On Resident Evil 4 Action!!!

There were a couple of noteworthy things in today's Daily Mail, primarily TV presenter Anne Diamond turning video game critic:

Anne Diamond gives her chilling verdict on the violent video games that are to carry age ratings

Anne was given some 'of the most popular games' (ie. a selection of games with significant amounts of adult content, chosen totally at random by some Mail researcher) to play and report on. She gives Resident Evil 4 a particular kicking:


Then again, I'm not sure Anne's really in any position to be making moral judgements. Why? Because she's a witch:


I don't know what kind of sinister arcane powers are work in that photo, making those games semi-disappear. But whatever powers are at work, this kind of witchcraft can only be bad for you.

I was quite amused to find that a picture included in the article of two children playing Mario Kart 64 on an old Nintendo 64 had the filename 'spoiltkid'. Yeah, I bet those little bastards are being spoilt to shit, sat there playing a ten-year-old game.

Also in today's Mail was an advert for this thing:


Only £7.90! It's called a Scare Cat and you use it to scare cats away from your garden. It made me laugh, it looks like the least intimidating thing ever. I can imagine my own cats just wandering up to it and making friends with it - that's what happened when we got a vaguely realistic fake cat to see how they'd react. I'd save the money for something else - maybe you could put it towards your next video game purchase, although make sure it's not something with violence in or Anne Diamond might cry.

Kick In The Face

My most hated advert at the moment is the one for Wrigley Airwaves. Y'know the one, a bunch of people are psyching themselves up, chanting some uplifting aspirational bollocks and then your jaw drops as it ends and you discover all this is somehow about chewing gum, chewing gum, for fuck's sake. "Experience the kick", the slogan says. It's just chewing gum! Chewing gum some with a bit of eucalyptus and menthol stuff in it!

I looked for a video of the ad online but, oddly, couldn't find anything. All I could find was an article on talkingretail.com about the advert which pissed me off even more - link. According to Wrigley, the "energetic ad features people in various situations psyching themselves up in readiness for a revitalising ‘kick’ from Wrigley’s Airwaves". Who the fuck needs to psych themselves up in order to have some chewing gum? I intended that to be a rhetorical question, but fuck it, I'll answer it anyway: fucking mentalists psych themselves up before chewing gum. It's just fucking chewing gum! Jesus.

There's more though:

Combining dynamism and engagement, the campaign aims to further strengthen the overall Airwaves brand popularity with consumers, which will in turn support retailers’ sales. Our advice to retailers would be to keep fully stocked to take advantage of the profit potential.

Quickly retailers! Get some Airwaves in stock now, or you'll be fucked! You're dealing with 'dynamism' and 'engagement' here. You don't piss around when those concepts are on the table. Just think: run out of stock and those dynamic customers'll be going to other stores to get their gum: they'll be taking it from another store's rack, handing over the money at another store's counter, spending several minutes psyching themselves up in another store, scaring away customer with their demented aspirational ranting at another store, getting shouted at and told to leave by the staff of another store... Actually, you know what? You're probably fine. Leave the 'dynamism' and 'engagement' to other people. People who enjoy selling chewing gum to the mentally challenged.

69! Hahaha! Do you see? 69!!!

I'm really disappointed with the advert for the new Now 69 album:



Forty seconds and not one bit of '69' related innuendo. Fucking rubbish.

Okey-cokey

Diet Coke lift advert:



I don't understand. At the end, why does he look like he's been done up the arse?

Filthy

I haven't posted over Christmas, although that doesn't seem to have damaged the number of hits I've had. Hope you all had a lovely Christmas. And what comes after Christmas? Why sales of course!

Have you seen Currys' sale adverts? You should have done - there are bloody loads of them. They're all based around Alexa, the 'Head of Sales'. I've decided that Alexa is a filthy depraved bitch, largely due to the advert that you can view thanks to the advert viewing thing below:

I'm not sure I've ever seen such a short advert so packed with innuendo. I mean it doesn't start well with her saying "a good workout" in a slightly suggestive voice, but at least she's talking about something abstract. It all goes downhill from here. We get told about "top-of-the-range Dysons - with extra tools!". Lord knows what extra 'functions' those tools will allow Alexa to perform with her new Dyson. It doesn't bear thinking about.

The advert ends with Alexa repeating her slogan with a shifty look on her face: "If it's not really low, I don't want to know". I hope for the sake of human decency as a whole that Alexa does not apply this mantra to all aspects of her life. Particularly her sex life. "What's that? You want to have ordinary, regular sex? On a bed? You don't know me very well, do you? Remember: if it's not really low, I don't want to know. I want you to smear me in piss and shit and get a Premiership football team to come and roast me whilst a tramp injects me with cheap heroin. That's me. That's the real Alexa."
"But... um... I'm not sure I... I... I think I'm going to go now."
"No! No, wait! Oh. He's gone. Oh well, I least I have White Lightning. I'll always have White Lightning."

In other news, 70 people have joined a Facebook group. Yeah, that's right. This is news apparently. Or at least it is according to the Daily Mail. Look: link.

Mobile phone users are protesting after their network ditched a well-spoken middle-aged woman as its official voice - and replaced her with the "matey" tones of a much younger woman.

Then, further down:

Already, more than 70 people have signed up to [a] forum, called Bring Back The Original Orange Answerphone Woman, on the internet networking site Facebook.

On it, Ms Gibson's voice has been described as "squeaky", "matey", "annoying" and "patronising" and one customer asked: "Is it unnormal to be this irritated by a voicemail voice?"

I think you'll find it's 'abnormal'. And, to be honest, yes it is. Seriously, is this all it takes to get in a national newspaper these days? Because I'm pretty sure I could conjure up a 70-strong group on Facebook. In fact there are lots of groups on Facebook with more than 70 members. Here are some: 'The Anti-Daily Mail Coalition' (9002 members), 'The Daily Mail really are a bunch of fucking twats' (6692), 'Fuck the Daily Mail!' (607), 'Daily Mail Hating Feminazis From Hell' (241) and 'I'd rather chew my own nipples off than buy the Daily Mail' (111). I wonder if we'll be seeing a story about those sometime soon in the Mail...

Not So Amazing

A crazy chain of inter-blog influence has led to this post. I began by writing a post about TellyAds Top 20 TV ads of 2007. Then Jon, after reading that post, did his own post about his own personal top ads of the year. His worst ads of the year were the ones for the iPhone. This lead to me thinking "oh, I'd forgotten, I was going to a post about one of those ads". And that led to me writing this post.

Anyway, here's the particular ad that offended me.

There are lots of reasons to hate the iPhone ads, such as the grating background music, the general patronisingness ("This is your e-mail" - well holy shit, I've never seen e-mail before, what a revelation!), the list goes on and on.

The reason that I hate the above advert is that about twenty seconds in when the guy says "endless entertainment" you suddenly realise (if you hadn't already) that the guy doing the voiceovers is an insincere tossbag. It's as if, at that point, the guy makes a conscious decision to lurch into self-parody and actually starts reading the script as if it were a pre-school story book with lots of pictures, trying to create as much of a (false) sense of childish wonder as possible.

I also hate the way these adverts try and make the 'phone' aspect of the device seem like a bit of a novelty, shoving it at the end of the ads. "Ooh, look, it does calls as well, aren't we wacky electronics people?" No. No, you aren't. It's a phone. That's what it's for. Oh well, maybe one day Apple will invent the iBrick so that someone can smash it into the face of Apple's head of marketing. Over and over. Until he dies.

Tellyads Top 20 Ads of 2007

So Tellyads has sorted its Top 20 ads for 2007. Look: link.

The Cadbury Gorilla being at number 1 is fairly predictable. I don't think it's a bad advert but... I don't get what people find so great about it. "Ooh, a gorilla... playing the drums! How zany!" It's just... I could come up with a ton of ideas like that. All you have to do is come up with some random bits and bobs and throw them together. How about... an anthropomorphic duck... shooting a shrew... in the kneecaps... with a banana...? And there you go, an advert for banana smoothies or something, just like that. I should work in advertising.

There's a fair bit of shite on the list. Some misogynistic tat advertising Lynx is at No. 2. The biggest abortion of the lot, however, is at No. 17. Yes, it's a BT ad. A fucking BT ad. Ugh. It's the best man one, where the guy uses the Internet to come up with a best man speech. Why does he bother? He's a cunt. No matter what he says, everyone will secretly be thinking "ugh, this guy's a knob". He's probably already fucked off every single member of the audience by constantly babbling about BT's twatting home hub at every solitary social event he's attended for the past God-only-knows how long, fictional bastard that he is. Ugh. Ugh. If BT do an advert where a gas fault burns the BT family's house to the ground, with them inside, then I guarantee it will be next year's No. 1. Go on BT, do it. Do it for me. Please? Please?!?

tellyAds

Sorry about the lack of recent posts. Um... it's not good. Anyway...

If you're a long time reader of this blog, you'll know I often post links from tellyAds, a site that has streaming version of lots of television adverts. Well tellyAds are running a 'best of 2007' vote with a fairly big shortlist: look at it here.

But look at that list. There are some shit adverts on there. The Head and Shoulders Mickey advert - why the fuck is that there? It's one of the worst adverts of the year!

There's that Aero advert with the muscular guy, a totally random advert which basically goes 'OMG!!! BUY OUR PRODUCT! WE HAVE A SEXXXY MAN ON OUR ADVERT!!!!1111'. It's an advert for fucking morons. If you bought an Aero because of that advert I demand you have yourself sterilised as soon as possible.

There's an Argos Christmas advert which automatically loses for me because they started broadcasting it in fucking October! October! That's just wrong. That's like having a hysterectomy before having kids (and then thinking 'Oh... shit. I want a baby!')

There's a perverted boy who likes sniffing his sofa (don't worry, he'll soon graduate to glue and the odour of lap-dancer sweat).

There's Victoria Wood whoring herself out to Wal-Mart. There's a fucking BT ad with that fucking man and his fucking family (where's the advert where they all die from carbon monoxide poisoning?).

These adverts aren't good. They're shit. Shame on you tellyAds. Shame!

Clearasil

This has to be one of the most incompetent adverts I've seen: link.

First there's the tragically poor over-dub. The guy with the lighter coloured hair sounds like a random 35-year-old man. This is not good. Is he some sort of paedophile in disguise?

Then there's that weird finger-mouth-pop, which I don't understand. Maybe the light-haired guy saying "don't go stealing all the girls now!" is meant to be some kind of ironic joke because they're both gay and the mouth-pop is meant to be some kind of weird display of love? I don't know. But then if the advert was some kind of Brokeback Mountain for people with spots, then why do they keep going on about girls all the time? Unless they're horribly in denial then my theory doesn't make any sense. So just what the fuck is that weird finger-pop meant to be? I'm sure if we lived in the European mainland it would make sense. Damn Clearasil and their poorly localised adverts!

Finally there's the weird bit at the end with all the girls stroking the guy's face. There are many things wrong with this:
1) I'm pretty sure few females find Clearasil use alluring.
2) What kind of conversation would lead up to that situation? "Hey girls, I've been using Clearasil! Stroke my face, bitches!" "OK!" - Yeah, exactly, it's not going to happen, is it?
3) Isn't a load of people poring over your face with their hands just going to make it more likely that you'll get spots again?

Honestly, this advert is fooling no-one. People really aren't stupid enough to believe that Clearasil makes them really attractive. The fact that the advert's clearly been made for another market and has just had a lazy over-dub slammed onto it doesn't help either. Bugger off, Clearasil.

Coke FUCKING Zero

If there's one series of adverts that I absolutely, utterly despise then it's this one:



That's right, it's the adverts for fucking Coke Zero. Where do I even begin?

The whole thing seems to bring up memories of 1930s/1940s fascism (not that I was alive then, but, y'know collective memories). What's going on with the main guy, who's like a cross between a blackshirt and an Ayran wet dream? What's going on with the first guy he meets up with, who bears a passing resemblance to Adolf Hilter? The crowds and the big banner at the end look like some kind of Nazi rally. It's fucking weird.

And it's not just the appearance of these sub-normal looking freaks that bothers me, it's what they're saying as well. I swear the marking people who created this went "what demographic are we aiming at?", and came up with "Daily Mail readers". Ugh. Why are all of their problems so irritatingly tedious and trivial? "[What about] workmates - without the work!" cries one. Yes, that'll work in our consumer capitalist society you absolute fucking moron! I mean seriously, does that guy have shit for brains?! Work isn't great, but it's better than the alternative - living in a cold damp cave, smeared in your own shit, finding food and then beating it to death with a big stick, all because society basically doesn't exist. Stupid twat.

And if they aren't bitching about work then they're bitching about women, in a desperately misogynistic fashion. "Girlfriends - without five year plan", "bras - without the fumbling"... I bet the writers were longing to include something like "women - without the ability to say 'no'" or some such bollocks. I mean let's be honest, most of the men on that advert looked and sounded as though their interactions with women exclusively revolved around: 1) looking at a screen, 2) frantic masturbation, and 3) dying inside, bit by bit.

But it doesn't end there, they did follow-up adverts as well (the fucks). Here's one of them: link. It honestly makes me despair to think that a young man would actually give so much of a shit about someone playing 'somewhat loud' music in their 'car'. Twat. I occasionally have nightmares where that guy goes "what if all good things could come without the downsides? Like this country - without the black people!" Well, I don't really, but if I did then that'd be the kind of bollocks he'd be coming up with. The knob.

But, sadly, the ordeal still isn't over. They did more adverts with fucking Wayne Rooney. Witness. Mind you, I'd quite like to see spiky metal balls become a part of football. I'm sure there's a joke about footballers' sexual shenanigans there, but I can't be bothered to make it.

So there you go, pretty much the worst advertising campaign ever. At least unless they start trying to flog Fanta with images of starving African children with AIDS being decapitated by piano wire. The bastards.

Not So Secret

I didn't really know what advert I was going to 'do' today, until I went on the tellyAds website and saw this face gurning out at me:


That's right, it's Nadine Baggott from those Olay adverts. Apparently she's a 'Celebrity Beauty Editor', whatever that is, although for someone holding such a position she has a very ugly surname. Anyway, here's the advert: link. I think she needs a deed poll, not pentapeptides.

Anyhoo, I have some 'beauty secrets' I'd like some answers to:
1) Why does Ms. Baggott's job apparently consist of her watching people have their hair done, or at other times simply grinning at random people as if she's doped off her tits on heroin? Surely no-one in their rights minds would pay someone to perform such unnecessary tasks (especially if she is doing heroin, that's some expensive stuff).
2) Why does Ms. Baggott constantly move her head around in a disconcerting manner when she's speaking?
3) Why does Ms. Baggott constantly have that smug look on her face as if she's doing something great for society and the world in general when all she's doing is whoring some face-cream? Perhaps she likes to imagine that she builds wells for the kids dying of thirst in Africa. Well you don't, you bitch.
4) Why does Ms. Baggott's life take place entirely in split-screen? She's not on 24. And if she is then they've really let it go to shit in the 6th season.

So yeah, answer me those questions 'Nadine', you irritatingly unnecessary woman.

Gosh, I'm so full of anger today...