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Godawful adverts

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Jub

08:18 / 29.04.04

Huh? I thought it was cos most Europeans pronounce J differently and the people there thought they should make it all the same to save on printing or something - which doesn't really make sense either as the directions are still written in the domestic languages, no?

(threadrottery: I love some of the warnings and directions on products, from the cotten buds saying do not place in ear, to the bag of nuts saying "this product may contain nuts" - may indeed!)

couch

12:15 / 30.04.04

I loved the excuse for the jif -> cif change. "People pronounce J differently in different places."

Cos I just know how to pronounce a C when it starts a word. I mean, is it Sif, Kif or what?. Must be Kif. They couldnt rename it so its named for a diminuative form of a venerial disease could they?

couch

12:19 / 30.04.04

And another thing...

Why did they have to do that to the Honey Monster. he used to be cool "Tell them about the Honey, Mummy!". Too hip to be true back then. Now... ugh.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:28 / 30.04.04

So true, so true. I vote we start the Campaign For The REAL Honey-Monster forthwith. Huge, hairy, and sharing a house with some guy he calls Mummy.

Currently hating: Every single travel ad on CNN Europe. They all make me want to heave.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

13:59 / 30.04.04

Are we going off-topic if we talk about adverts for TV shows? 'Cos the one advertising Littlejohn's show on Sky News (trying to make out he's a terrifying interviewer, presumerably in the same way as his book has a more complicated plot than War and Peace) is, like the man himself, extremely irritating.

William Sack

14:04 / 30.04.04

Currently hating: the one where some old Italian geezer is complaining about how his small family run pizzeria has gone to the wall because of some tasty shop-bought frozen pizza.

■

14:20 / 30.04.04

OOh, another couple of beauty product bollocks:
Natural ceramides! (Clay. Well, mud.)
Pure Vitamin C! (err, wouldn't that burn your face off?)

couch

14:53 / 30.04.04

If we're going Off Topic...

Sky adverts for anything I ever watch, where the stupid anouncy woman gives away ALL of the plot twists / surprises in the show by telling you them (!) at exactly the moment that you turn over to sky to catch the show.

Stupid anouncy woman. The one on Tru Calling last week was horrendous.

Olulabelle

18:57 / 30.04.04

'Chicken Provencale. From the new Sheba creation range.'

Cat food.

CAT.

FOOD.

PatrickMM

19:03 / 30.04.04

The worst ad I've seen in a long time is a Ford Focus campaign, where it has the car parked outside a house, and someone in the voice of the car yelling things to try to make its owner wake up and drive it. There was one where it goes "Cock-a-doodle-do," repeatedly, another where he signs that military wake up song. It's awful, and horribly annoying, shockingly so for something that's supposed to make you feel good about buying the product.

Whisky Priestess

20:18 / 30.04.04

Aha, but I have sneaking suspicion that the Sheba ads are aimed at cat-owners who are actually crypto-survivalists, who always think in the back of their minds:

"Mmm, Chicken Provencale. After the bomb drops and the M&S lasagne's run out, I'm having that."

Tremble, Sheba-fed cats, for you will be first on the grill when the nuclear winter comes.

Olulabelle

21:26 / 30.04.04

Sheba fed cats will never be first on the grill because, don't you know anything, WP? Don't you watch TELLY enough? Sheba fed cats are loved more than any other cat. On. This. Earth.

It's true. Watch the ad.

Me? My cat?

I say, "It's mouse or bust mate. Don't think you're getting any of that Sheba shit, since we all know it subverts the mind of cats and makes them believe they are human, but you're not human, you're a cat and therefore you eat mice and certainly not Chicken Provencale Sheba, which, likely, by the way has the same amount of caffeine in it as Pedigree Chum and Whiskas and since I don't want you up all night yowling, you're quite frankly not going to get either, so it's mouse or bust mate...mouse or bust...make your choice...

Mouse?

Excellent decision sweetie..."

Pants Payroll

17:07 / 01.05.04

I just saw this ad for Gatorade or somesuch that supposedly shows this basketball player making five or six 100 foot baskets in a row during warmup. Its set up to look like it's video footage taken while a courtside sports reporter waits for his live feed, as if it was happenstance that this amazing event was captured for posterity. what gives it away is the "reporter"s shit acting, and the purposely bad camerawork panning and zooming all over the place.

I know truth in advertising is too much to hope for, but it makes me sad that they went through so much effort to concoct this thing that really, has nothing to do with the product! It has 10 seconds of CGI basketball stunting, then a 5 second product shot. Perhaps the subtext is that if you drink this crap, you too can get a job in video post production.

rizla mission

17:24 / 01.05.04

Currently hating: the one where some old Italian geezer is complaining about how his small family run pizzeria has gone to the wall because of some tasty shop-bought frozen pizza.

I really don't understand the thinking behind that advert... doesn't it instantly create hostility toward the nasty frozen pizza company whose evil capitalistic schemes have put this guy out of business? Or is it just us commies who think like that? Is the rest of the world thinking "ha ha, stupid pizza man! He shoulda MOVED WITH THE TIMES!"?

Actually, I was thinking it works quite well as a sort of "fuck you!" to all those horrible "yeah, we're really down with the honest and lovable cute Italian peasant folk" food ads, but sadly it probably wasn't intended that way..

■

17:37 / 01.05.04

"Sunny Delight, because no child's like Max Wilde"
So, Suuny D's being promoted on health grounds now?
READ THE FUCKING LABEL! Ingredients in order: Water, Fruit Juice, VEGETABLE OIL!
In fact now I think about it, I think fruit juice is normally pushed out by sugar into fourth place, if you count all the versions of corn syrup etc together.

Grey Area

09:36 / 03.05.04

I hate banner ads with a passion. From irritating flashing in all colours known to man, to shooting cartoon monkeys, to disguising themselves as system warning messages, they cause nothing but trouble (as evidenced by the fact that I had to spend four hours on the phone to Singapore talking my father through cleaning his computer of all spyware, adbots and Explorer toolbars that had installed themselves thanks to inadvertent parental clickage).

But this one takes the biscuit. What on earth went through the mind of the first-year Internet Media Design student who thought this one up?

Spatula Clarke

11:25 / 03.05.04

I need the logic behind this one explaining to me. It's the new L'Oreal one for some hair dolouring or other. Got some disturbing CG cartoon women in a cupboard, each one supposed to represent one of the colours. Real life girl on bed waiting for her new (and completely unsuitable) red hair to dry. As the ad finishes, she heads out the door with her mates, turns to the camera and gives us the "because you're worth it line."

Now, here's my problem. I'm used to these things having dubbed voices. That's nothing new. The point of dubbing is some lame, cheap attempt to localise the ad. What I don't understand is why they've dubbed her voice with a French accent.

?

Grey Area

11:28 / 03.05.04

We-auyl, Loriole's a French brand, 'innit? Stands to reason 'at the bird'd squawk loike a Frenchie.

Ganesh

20:25 / 18.06.04

Really really loathing the current one for McDonalds (or maybe Burger King) featuring an utterly repellent quasi-focus group of wankily precocious children discussing 'change' ie. whether the changed McGizzards recipe is Good or Bad - and conclude, oddly enough, that the little pieces of breaded ischaemic heart disease are as looovely as ever. The final image, of a child licking his fingers, for some reason repulses me particularly; he might as well be rubbing the last of the stuff into his gums.

I tend to think, 'yeah, change your fucking diets, turdchildren, or you're gonna be twenty-stone heart attack statistics by the time you're twelve'.

Arse.

gingerbop

22:07 / 19.06.04

A radio advert for Nivea for Men goop;

Que irritating cosmetics counter lady voice: "Would you like to use Nivea for Men sensitive shavey washy stuff?"
Man: "Uh, nope."
Annoying cosmetics counter lady: "Would you like to try Nivea for men whist go-karting/wrestling/watching football/ big huge list of manly activities"
"uh... ok then"
(manly voice) "The non-girly solution for skin care"

It says, not only do point out that it's percieved as girly and make awful ads, but our reps will also pester you to death until you USE OUR FUCKING MANLY SKINCARE SYSTEM.

Baz Auckland

06:25 / 20.06.04

Ganesh: the worst bit about the new 'white meat' McNugget ads, are the fact that the kids are rattling on about "how they're now white!" Shouldn't chicken be white meat? What exactly were they before? Sort of greyish as I remember... I guess you can't have an ad campaign based on "our meat isn't grey anymore!"

Multiple Man

17:36 / 20.06.04

That stupid hair hyrdrating advert where the annoying woman says "Atleast keeping my hair something (forgotten) is a doddle" Doddle? DODDLE? DODDLE?!?!?!? What sort of word is that?!

Warewullf

18:17 / 20.06.04

Not much crappy, but unintentionally funny/insulting. The current ad for Ariel is about them giving away free tennis lessons. It shows Tim Henman walking along while ordinary people (like you and me!) are playing tennis, like, really well.

The ad-man says "blahlahblah so you'd better watch out, Tim!"

Subtext: "Because even ordinary members of the public who have had one lesson are better than you! Twat!"

Grey Area

08:26 / 21.06.04

Picture Here

This is taken from the North Face website, youth section. Now, does that youth look like he's having fun with the cute penguins? Or does it look like he's about to get pecked to death as the majority of the flock debate ways of gutting small humans? This is the first picture you see. It's the largest picture in the section. I think someone pissed off the webmaster.

Ganesh

19:00 / 22.06.04

The one for the Blood Transfusion Service where a succession of po-faced D-list celebs tell us gravely that "this woman" or "this man" (ie. a non-famous 'civilian' pleb like thee or me) saved their neice from head cancer (or something), through the simple act of donating blood.

Quite apart from the patronising implication that one might give one's humble Little Person life a smidgeon of meaning by helping save the life of someone related to a celebrity, the 'Give Blood' at the end should really be asterisked with 'Unless You're A Poof. Even If You're HIV And Hep B Negative. Because Them's The Rules.'

Spatula Clarke

19:14 / 22.06.04

A few of the current ones are bemusing, rather than annoying. The main culprit is the car ad (Renault? Vauxhall?) that features a city full of life-sized toy cars. There's a police car with cardboard coppers in the windscreen, a big pink plastic cadillac, a clockwork Beetle, a nearly 2D wooden one. It screams fun, enjoyment, lust for life.

But that's not the point, because then some identikit lump of shiny metal comes around one of the corners and all the toy car owners look on in awe. Why? Did nobody at the company realise that instead of passing on the message that their cars are for grown-ups, what the ad actually does is make their product look painfully dull and po-faced?

Bizzaro ad.

Also finding myself amused/perplexed by the BBC1 Sport Relief one, with Gary Lineker doing a "suits you" impersonation at the beginning and the substitution of the word "underarms" for "armpits" in every single women's deodourant ad ever made.

Jack Vincennes

20:02 / 22.06.04

Saw a magazine ad for decaff coffee from (I think) Nescafe, which managed to miss the point quite impressively -the headline was something like 'For us, caffeine in coffee is like the "n" in "autumn"'. It went on to explain that the word 'autumn' still sounds the same if you spell it 'autum', so taking the 'n' out doesn't make that much of a difference except, they omitted to mention, being glaringly wrong.

I quite like the toy cars one though, simply because toy cars on real roads look very cool...

A beautiful tunnel of ghosts

20:14 / 22.06.04

Every advert for a cosmetic or skincare product that has been tested on '2 women in a dark room'.

Ganesh

20:35 / 22.06.04

The recent one for (I think) Caesar dog food, which suggests that your terrier would, given the requisite digital/cranial/financial capacity, order an Interflora bouquet to thank you for his gourmet horsemeat. Puts me in mind of the "shary moments" Smack The Pony sketch where a cat does essential carpentry and helpfully lays out one's cocaine.

Whisky Priestess

09:09 / 23.06.04

Where can I buy such a cat?

rizla mission

10:38 / 23.06.04

But that's not the point, because then some identikit lump of shiny metal comes around one of the corners and all the toy car owners look on in awe. Why? Did nobody at the company realise that instead of passing on the message that their cars are for grown-ups, what the ad actually does is make their product look painfully dull and po-faced?

YES! Definitely! That one is added to the ever-growing list of adverts that make me feel alienated and frightened because.. am I really living in a world where people consider the idea driving a crazy giant toy car that appears to run on magic to be inferior to the idea of driving.. a Vauxhal or something? It's just not right.

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:12 / 23.06.04

Fortunately, one can now get Smart coupés, which are not only fuel-efficient, but *do* look like they shoudl transform into a miniature autobot...

Warewullf

11:45 / 23.06.04

And, hopefully, someday they will.

Warewullf

11:49 / 23.06.04

What about that horrible "Injury Lawers 4 U" one set in a courtroom?

"Will I recieve 100% OF THE COMPENSATION?!?!?" - screams woman.

"Yes" - replies smug lawyer-type.

"May I remind you, you are under oath." says woman-what-thinks-we're-fucking-stupid-enough-to-think-that-it's-a-real-courtroom-and-therefore-they-must-be-telling-the-truth-grahhhhhh!!!

ALso, I don't want to hire legal professionals that use "4 U" in their name. Spell it properly, fuckwits. It's not a damn text message.

Warewullf

11:55 / 23.06.04

Any ad that features some version of the following:

"At last! The first shampoo with BosweloxcermaideRpro-V2000!"

Of course it's the first, you just fucking made it up!! It's not like the world has been desperately waiting for someone to make a hair-care product with this stuff in it!! Stop being so goddamn insulting!

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