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Godawful adverts

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miss wonderstarr

11:11 / 17.04.04

Yeah dat HUGO BOSS advert is stiff... the voiceover is totally wrong. The guy sounds super-square, and you just get an uncanny sense that he's not the same man you're looking at in the visuals.

I tell you another ad that annoys the fuck out of me.
Those ORANGE ads in the cinema. They're funny ONE TIME. But if you go to the flicks once or twice a week like I try to, you see them way too much, and they're way too long, and believe me those jokes do not sustain repeated viewing.

"Oh, I get it...this film's about color."

SPIKE: "Yes, he was a black man.."

"Well, we're Orange." &c &c.

"What color strip did he play in."

SPIKE: "Brookyln Dodgers, blue and white." &c &c.

The relief when they canned the Spike Lee ad and switched to Alan Cumming... "hurt me, Gunther. Make...me...bleed!" only lasted for one cinema visit.

What I hate even more is the clowns who fucking laugh at the punchlines of these ads, as if they've never been to the movies before. I have started shutting my eyes through them and trying to trance out for 3 minutes.

11:17 / 17.04.04

"you just get an uncanny sense that he's not the same man you're looking at in the visuals"

This is a nice intro to the ads I hate: The ones that are filmed in one language and then dubbed into the local toungue. "...wait, those are Americans. The body language, the scenery, that's never British. But they're speaking in British accents. Argh!".

12:46 / 17.04.04

As a doctor, I never fail to become irritated at that one for whatever 'phone company where Overworked But Attractive Female Doctor eventually gets a taxi, and the cab driver says something like "You want my diagnosis, love? Get a new 'phone!" or something (I've taken to switching channels when it comes on).

I invariably scream "NO! THAT'S NOT A 'DIAGNOSIS'! THAT'S A PROPOSED PLAN OF ACTION! JUST FUCKING DRIVE!!"

Whisky Priestess

14:12 / 17.04.04

And like doctors can afford taxis. Pchah!

Thanks for the Cancer Research ad info. I'll try to get hold of the texts and obsessively deconstruct them to explain the many ways in which they are shit. Hold that thought!

14:21 / 17.04.04

Grey Area - well with you about the British voice over thingy. Drive me nuts.

Do you rememebr the *original* Ambassador's reception advert and the foreign old gent goes "et-chellenté"as he bites into the thing, well, when I saw this is Italy, the same guy says "excellent" in a plummy RP accent.

The one that's been annoying me for that at the mo, is the Herbal Essence one. For anyone not familiar, it's a sleeping beauty with great hair, who get's woken up by a prince. It looks like a US ad, and they have this Brooklyn gangster type voice-over, "so they lived, er, herbally ever after?" - and I reckon that it just has to be the plummy RP accent when it's shown in the states.

miss wonderstarr

14:27 / 17.04.04

That doesn't work in a Brooklyn accent anyway because my understanding is that Americans say "'erbal", as in "erbal tea". Unless it varies across the US.

14:31 / 17.04.04

I reckon the 'Hoibal Essence' voiceover is Steve, Miranda's Sex and the City boyfriend, and father of Brady.

I quite liked the old 'Ambassador's party' ads - and, to this day, have an annoying habit of calling things 'et-chellente' or 'delicieuse'.

Whisky Priestess

16:06 / 17.04.04

It surely must be the Organics ad for shampoo where the woman goes into the shower and starts coming loudly as soon as she washes her hair. Yet another clunky pun (Organics/Orgasmics, SEE?), yet another dub job (she even moans in an American way).

Lenor: "I've heard from my aunt
It's got extract of plant!" indeed ...
How much do they get paid? Surely enough to buy a fucking rhyming dictionary?

16:09 / 17.04.04

It could be another example of the American ad simply being transplanted to our shores. Most Americans I know do rhyme 'aunt' with 'plant', simply because they pronounce it 'ant'.

16:33 / 17.04.04

And so do I. Aunt rhymes with plant in a Scottish accent too.

16:45 / 17.04.04

Hang on, who doesn't rhyme aunt with plant?

16:51 / 17.04.04

North of England... I pronounce "aunt" and "aren't" as though they're the same word, but rhyme "plant" with "ant".

In the ad, though, there's something about the way the voiceover says it that indicates he isn't quite convinced they rhyme... "I've heard from my aunt It's got extract of plant... dude, is this really the script? There's something not quite right here"

Whisky Priestess

17:48 / 17.04.04

Exactly - it's not the fact that they don't rhyme at all, (which they do, the way Spider says it) but the piss-poor weakness of the couplet, and the fact that ALL they could think of to rhyme with plant was aunt.

Also, "extract of plant" is sinisterly vague as far as I'm concerned. Like "vegetable fats" or "meat product". I know ginkgo biloba, avocado, cucumber etc. are not easy words to rhyme but just to say "plant" sounds like they're hiding something. Which plant? Could be poison ivy or deadly nightshade for all we know ...

19:48 / 17.04.04

The worst ads here are for Tim Hortons, Canada's lovely coffee chain that although now owned by an American company has decided to push patriotism as the reason you should drink their coffee... I can't even explain how these make me want to smash things... maybe it's just from being beaten over the head with "you're Canadian! You love this country! You love this coffee! We're Canadian! Canada rules! Go hockey! etc. etc. etc." Really creepy....

Their worst ad is about an exchange student in Glasgow who hangs out with all the Canadians at the university there, and they all miss Tim Hortons and Canada so much they write to the company, who then sends them a coffee maker and coffee... WHY THE HELL ARE YOU IN SCOTLAND ON EXCHANGE?? SO YOU CAN BLAB ABOUT HOW GREAT CANADA IS?? GO MEET SOME SCOTS YOU LOSER! GAH!

There's an old ad for Amsterdam beer I saw today outside a bar. The picture is of a prostitute sitting in a chair in a window, with a neon sign underneat saying 'Pure Amsterdam'.... is it me, or is there something creepy in using prositution to sell beer? Is that a good product association for people to have?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:20 / 17.04.04

I used to know the guy who says "echelontay"... he was also Loopy, the bee from the Honey Nut Loops advert...

20:11 / 18.04.04

Head & Shoulders. "The things I do to hydrate my skin!" Cut to toothy, badly-dubbed woman pouring water into a glass and drinking it.

WOOAAAHHH DUDE! See what kerrr-rrazy extremes this way-out kookster goes to keep her skin hydrated?!

She. Drinks. Water. Like every other human being on the face of the planet.

20:44 / 18.04.04

Shampoo ads as a species piss me off. Especially any that sugest that adding vitamin B7, extract of belladonna or our family blend of eleven herbs and spices will somehow 'nourish' individual hairs. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong as it will save wear and tear on my spleen, but anything hanging off your head is dead, isn't it? And if 'herbal extracts' or fruit based remedies can raise the dead then, frankly, we ought to be told.

Also, for those of you who habitually hang around the graveyard channels on Sky, is anyone else disturbed by the 'Yes Car Credit' girl? She hangs around in a scary green jumpsuit, like the fairy Godmother of crippling debt, promising to change your life through the magic of a new car you can't afford, but only if you're a nice person. Credit checks and endless bank forms I can deal with, but a spiritual audit of my soul? Are Satan's terms any easier?

22:22 / 18.04.04

The new mcdonalds ad's where they try to first convince you that they care about your health by showing you their nasty looking salads and fruit frap juice things, and then tack on a run through of the three women that they recon will be eating at mcdonalds now days (this is janet, she's impatient, this is claire she is stupid this is carol she is always late - I'm lovin' it) - fuck off.

Green Yes car woman get's on my nerves as well. And that 'did you get that, aromatic spices' bitch from the mexican chicken mix, I'd have burnt her face in my wok and told her to cook her own fucking dinner in future, the ingreatful sow.

The other mcdonalds one with the four gimps in a car outdoing each other (what'd be better than your girlfriend in a whelding mask? Don't know, you in a coffin?) and then they eat one of those filthy burgers and all go quiet. Mcdonalds is for lazy young mothers who scream at their children when they ask a question and only buy the crap because they know that their giro's stretch enough to afford 7 happy meals and still leave enough for their 20 B&H every day.

22:51 / 18.04.04

Whiskey P you are so right about the 'my Aunt' line. everytime I hear it it makes me want to cry.

Personally I have a problem with the Imperial Leather dancing duck. Firstly because the overlayed leg/cartoon duck shot just doesn't wash (sorry) with me, and secondly because it makes me say "I hate that duck," and therefore sound like Orville's nemesis.

Which is worrying.

00:15 / 19.04.04

Can't remember what the advert is for, probably a toilet freshner or something, but at one point a small Chinese kid is taking a shit and his mum is talking to him in an overdubbed accent. They always f**king show it while i'm eating my f**king tea!!!! If i was a scat eating paedo, then i'd be straight down Tesco to purchase a scented crap remover (probably a set of chopsticks with instructions on how to remove clingons from the side of your toilet)

Also, an advert of a lovely young woman washing her hair in in one of the most beautiful waterfall settings ever. AHHHHHHHHHHH! Let's kill all the f**king fish and other river life you dumb bastard. Probably a whole amazonian tribe downstream that are drinking vosene instead of water.

00:18 / 19.04.04

I don't think her voice is dubbed in that commercial, 'Nesh - at least, if it is, they use her own voice for the dubbing. I wonder if the constant exposure to poorly-dubbed ads is making us think that every glossy shit-for-brains skin/haircare one suffers from it, even when they dont?

And, as much as I agree about those damn Anna "I'll never do nude scenes, there's no artistic justification for them at all" Friel ads (good to see someone sticking to her deeply-held principles there), I feel the need to point out that *all* video messaging adverts are as fucked as each other. If you wanted to see an industry desperately trying to sell a product to a completely uninterested public, you need look no further. The concept of the video phone as revolution - a societal change that ranks alongside the civil rights movement and humankind walking on the moon, no less - fails to convince anyone, so they tone their ambitions down slightly and try to position it as an evolution instead. Coming in two months' time: "Video Messaging - it's different from what you're used to, but not all that different if we're being honest about it. Still different, though, so give us your cash."

00:31 / 19.04.04

"I'm George Bush, and I approve this message."

Oh, and I'm fucking sick of Specter and Toomey coming on TV constantly and lying about each other. This won't mean much unless you're in PA, but I imagine every other state has similar.

UK TV is shite, true, but the one thing it doesn't have (so much of) is political attack ads.

00:33 / 19.04.04

Video phones are pretty cool though. Not so much for the "you can send it to people" aspect as the "you've got a video recording device on you 24/7" one. I loved my Nokia 3650.

I appear to be turning into Warren Ellis.

XXII:X:II = XXX

02:55 / 19.04.04

There's one ad that's pissing me off to no end, and it's the one for the newest Pokemon game for GameCube. It starts with a shot of what appears to be a rally, much like the antiwar ones we've been seeing so much of lately. (But nevermind WHY we see so much of them; they're just kooky, ain't they?) You see a very earnest, bald man at a podium, saying, and I know I'm getting the first part wrong:

"They may take our freedom... but they can't steal our Pokemon!!!"

[everybody cheer]

The picture goes to letterbox splitscreen, a direct reference to the Woodstock documentary, with people marching through the streets with banners that read, "Moms for Mudkip" and "Give Pikachu A Chance," plus bubbles and balloons and people swaying in time to the music in a shot that seems ripped directly out of "Hair." At this point a mock[ing] folk song kicks up with lyrics to the effect of:

Who will save our Pokemon
Gotta save 'em, gotta save 'em all

I just wonder, years from now, when today's Gen Y-ers look back upon these times, will they think we risked World War in the Middle East over video games? Because if that's the case, I say euthanize the lot of them now.

VJB2

07:55 / 19.04.04

"I just wonder, years from now, when today's Gen Y-ers look back upon these times, will they think we risked World War in the Middle East over video games?"

No, it's just the Commander-in-Chief learnt everything about running a real life war by playing a computer game.

As for annoying adverts: the plethora of adverts featuring 30-something dipshits doing yoga or some other 'spiritual healing' bullshit, and then using that to advertise breakfast cereal or yoghurt or some other horseshit. No wonder fucktards like the Barefoot Doctor can publish so many books so succesfully - people are brought up on this "Mind, Body, Spirit" crap, and they think that eating grapefruit three times a day and getting all the essential oils will rebalance their karma and cure heart disease. Admittedly, it has quite a lot to do with the nation's scientific illiteracy, but it's undeniable that this New Agey shit comes in to play.

DFS adverts bug the shit out of me too.

Those Time-Life CD's which are available mail order only and feature "Your favourite Milli Vanilli hits, all over again!" etc.

Anything involving Richard and Judy and their so-called "Book Club".

Any advert that prominently features mobile phones - either being sold, being used or having ringtones or logos or any other dipshit stuff being sold for them.

Psuedo-scientific shampoo/beauty products adverts ("those little scrubbers", "gets right to the root", "scientifically tested" - that last one doesn't mean "scientifially proven to do anything" it just means "we got some nice guy in a white coat to try it out and he said 'Yes, I tested it'").

AOL adverts. It's the mixture of Condescending Connie and the 2.4-kids Middle Englander that gets me. Did Tim Berners-Lee invent the Web for it to be sold in an expensive package to fuckjobs? No!

The constant use of the word "lifestyle" in adverts, which, with every use, seems to become more and more meaningless. Note to advertising 'creatives': if you use the word lifestyle, ask yourself what it means, and whether there would be any other word that isn't so fucking stupid that you could use in its place.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

09:44 / 19.04.04

Those 'McDonalds as an airport' ads, what in the blinking crimminy is going on there? With the soundtrack that someone decided 'get someone to work out the exact percentage of changes we need to make to 'Around the World' by Daft Punk so we don't need to pay them anything but so people still recognise it as their track'?

If you haven't seen the new ad by Charlie and Tommy from Ground Force for some poxy barbecue cleaner then look out for that, not only is the product cack but C + T can't act to save their lives and have to mug to camera in a way that will embaress any children either of them have had, will have or even will never have.

The DeAgnosti ads are always awful to (what ever happened to Panini anyway? Last I heard they took over Marvel UK) and does anyone know if any of their awful products ever make it past issue 3? 'Mr Bean investigates'... 'The complete Inspector Morse', 'I Love Horses', tat in a bag.

And they remade that Ferrero Rochet ad twice, both times sucking more and more of the amateurish charm of the original so that now it's into negative values...

10:40 / 19.04.04

To begin with, you will eat three dozen sea urchins, gathered on one of the last two days that precede the full moon, choosing only those whose star is coral red and discarding the yellow ones. The collaboration of the moon in such cases is necessary, for otherwise not only do you risk that the sea urchins will be more empty but above all that they do not posess to the same degree the sedative and narcotive virtues so special and so propitious to your approaching slumber. For the same reason these sea urchins should be eaten preferably in the spring...May is a good month.But in choosing the time you must make the gathering of the sea urchins coincide with the precise moment when the first tender new beans are picked, and this varies according to the years.

10:50 / 19.04.04

Those 'McDonalds as an airport' ads

Indeed -if these catch me on my more irritable days I tend to start yelping things like "But everyone hates airports! Everyone! Since when have Things People Hate been a good way to advertise your product?".

At least they're not so long as they used to be, though. When they first came on TV they were roughly the same length as the program they so rudely interrupted.

lord nuneaton savage

11:11 / 19.04.04

Those adverts for that shit-filled-bloke-wank-comic weekly Zoo. Not only do they have the sheer fucking nerve to pick the mighty Brian Blessed out of the gutter and tempt him into the studio using a trail of whiskey and women's soiled underpants to donate his sonorous tones to this 24 page paper abortion, but they have the gall to tell me that if you show a bunch of blokes a picture of some bird from Hollyoak's in a skimpy binliner along with some football results and a picture of a cancerous testicle, they will bray like the spastic donkeys they are and run like dogs to the newsagent before pissing themselves and drinking the piss "for a laugh". If that's what being a bloke is all about then I'm starting my own sex.
Turd-fuckers.

11:30 / 19.04.04

Don't worry Lord. It's aimed at the male equivalent of the "Bella" reader. They're generally called dimwitted fucktards.

Hattie's Kitchen

12:00 / 19.04.04

McDonalds ads usually make me want to throw my TV out of the window, but the ones that reaaalllly pissed me off were from a few years ago, when they featured montages of people from ethnic minorities speaking in various accents such as Scouse, Scottish etc, as if to say: "Look at these Asian people, they talk just like us! You'd never think they were born and brought up here, would you? How inclusive and wonderful we are at McDonald's for bringing this to your attention!"

Go McFuck yourselves, you bastards.

12:59 / 19.04.04

WP should be knighted, crowned, robed in ermine and paraded through the streets on an enormous gold throne to bask in the love and admiration of a grateful populous for SMITING the Anna Friel ads so mightily. Yes! Easily the most annoying ads of the last year. It's the delivery that pisses me off, the "perceptive comments encased in mock-dinny hey-ho whimsy." Grrrr.

So, what about print ads? There was one in the glossy Sunday supplements a couple of weeks ago that made me punch a hole in a concrete wall with my bare fist. It went:

It's not your car.

It's not your friends.

It's not the way you laugh.

It's your watch that says the most about you.

Nnnnnnnggghhhh!

13:12 / 19.04.04

I can't really muster up much bile for this one, but there is an ad that does bug me. It show tyres falling out of the sky down the side of a skyscraper, then cuts to people walking about down below. I just don't think that it's a good idea when you're selling a product associated with road safety to remind people that a tyre at terminal velocity would probably smash your skull or snap your spine like a twig.

13:20 / 19.04.04

God, sometimes I even bore myself.

The Natural Way

13:40 / 19.04.04

Taken from the "Urgh! Fuck!" thread:

You know the new Coke ad? Well listen to what my housemate had to say about it after Twart laid down his "evil corporation" spiel:

"I like to believe she really is handing out love and peace - Coke's gift to everyone."

Now, you think this is a joke, don't you? You think the Twart was prolly going on a bit and she just said it to shut him up. Well even though, yes, Twart has a tendency to polarise debate, I can tell you right now: I know her and SHE MEANS IT.

It's thoughts like this that keep me warm at night.

Can anybody actually watch this ad w/out switching channels?

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