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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Some Ads Are More Evil Than Others

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21:31 / 31.07.02

Is it just me, or has nobody mentioned dubbed adverts yet. That's dubbed adverts in general, not any particular one. I mean, I can see what they're thinking:

- Localise the accents, make the ad appeal more to the viewer
- Cheaper than filming a new one specifically for the UK market

The logic's screwed, though. For one thing, the dubbing is always in recieved pronunciation. Come on, the TV channels gave RP announcers up as a bad idea years ago. I don't know for certain, but I'll bet that you don't get a regionalised version of the Nivea adverts in Scotland, either.

And worse than that, it's just patronising. Dubbing makes the ads look cheap, which must make the viewer realise that the company are taking the easiest route to a fast buck.

Best ads ever: the series of Pot Noodle ones with the American presenter in a news studio. Especially the Evil Dead tribute one with the wig.

18:20 / 01.08.02

I mentioned dubbed ads. Sorta, anyhow. BUt dubbed tampon ads are different to dubbed cosmetics adds which are EVIL.

And Knight's Move: not only does the Volvo ad show you things a car can't do, it nicks the bloody soundtrack from Fight Club to do it. Arses.

20:39 / 01.08.02

Here's seconding the motion on "speaking to the soul ads" being the worst.

WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO TODAY?

Because you know, self determining, individuated, inwardly beautiful human, that you are ultimately free.

In fact, I might try making an ad along these lines, but I'll remember to bring along my copy of Being and Nothingness.

10:24 / 02.08.02

" And worse than that, it's just patronising. Dubbing makes the ads look cheap, which must make the viewer realise that the company are taking the easiest route to a fast buck."

Agreed. Around here (Germany) almost everything (loads of films, TV series...) is dubbed, so you'd recon one doesn't notice a few dubbed ads? WRONG! The cosmetics ones are especially bad offenders: they spend loadsa money on the models and production and blah dee blah, and then they do the worst dubbing job possible, so that it looks soooo cheap.

10:32 / 02.08.02

My current hate ads (and I don't even own a telly) have both got to do with related products:

The first shows a girl talking to her best friend and spurting wisdom like "Paul thinks my hips are too wide. Paul thinks my bosom's too small..."
Then she stuffs a sweet in her mouth and says to her rather bored looking friend "What does Paul know?"
And it advertises a line of low-fat/low calories food. Both women are on the slim side, BTW.

The second one I find quite horrible, even.
"When my mum told me 'My god you've become quite fat' I knew it was time for me to loose weight," says this 14-16 ish girl at the beginning of a SLIMFAST ad. Yeah, that's great.

13:23 / 02.08.02

The Honda ads.

Crime 1 - "What if the world's favourite word was: 'what if?' ?" That's two shitting words! Two!

Crime 2 (the worst) - Use of the crumbly, "hey, maybe I'm being an idiot here, I mean who am I to go telling anyone what to do? But, uh, [taps out pipe] wouldn't it be nice if we did this clever thing?" voice of reason - the voice of a wise and gentle (but slightly perplexed) old man from some farmstead somewhere who's strolled into the middle of our hectic lives to point out something bleeding obvious which we've managed to miss through rushing about so much etc. He's slightly riled by it, in fact, but is wise in the ways of self-control and so, instead of ranting, patronises us instead. Meant to make us think of some Mark Twain / Harper Lee character, with a dash of that cowboy from The Big Lebowski. A variant of the 'speaking to your soul' tactic. Argh! x100!

15:10 / 02.08.02

I yanked the cable eight years ago. All I watch on television now are DVDs.

No ads.

Ha!

18:00 / 02.08.02

Saveloy:

it's Garrison Keillor.

Middle America, talking right to you, in his soft, soothing tones. I can't believe he's sold out.

13:25 / 07.08.02

Re dubbed ads, what about the Loreal (I think) ad with Andie Macdowell in it with the dubbed voice???

Why the fuck would you hire a recognizable personality whose voice most people know, and then dub over it? Why oh why?

15:18 / 07.08.02

Andi MacDowell actually has no vocal cords, and is in fact always dubbed. Witness her performance in Greystoke...

Tryphena Absent

15:34 / 07.08.02

I've got a favourite advert ever, it's a Tango ad from the mid 90's (I think). This middle aged guy walks out of an office talking about some exchange student who's written to them criticising Tango. He strips off down to some shorts puts on boxing gloves and gets in to a ring on the side of the cliff while challenging the exchange student. I used to scream with laughter every time it came on... I wish they'd show it again *sigh*

XXII:X:II = XXX

23:36 / 12.08.02

Someone mentioned much earlier the Sunday New York Times ads... those annoy the living fuck out of me. "I know I'll find something I won't see, read or hear... anywhere else." OH SOD RIGHT OFF, GRANDDAD! Go back in your fucking den and slap it to your DirecTV Spice Channel, you Izod wearing sack of shit!

BTW, if I hear Smashmouth's "Walking On The Sun" in one more commercial, I will go find a clocktower.

I can't hate the "And we're worth it" commercials. Many of them have Milla Jovovich, and she's just God's gift to most men and certain women.

This isn't an ad per se, but on one of the local PBS stations there's a series of PSAs from some public TV station in Mississippi or the like with a character named "Doctor Ticktock," who looks like a pickled Muppet. There's something unsettling about him.

Oh! OH! Who else needs to find Joe Strummer and kick his ass for letting Jaguar use "London Calling" to sell cars, hm? And after we knock out his teeth we can snap his pelvis for having "Should I Stay or Should I Go" be the jingle for Stolichnaya Citrona. Need some new hairplugs, Joe? Godfuckit... what's next, the Hollywood board of tourism uses "California Uber Alles" over a montage of Disneyland and surfers?

By the way, I can't even recall which car company this is, but the woman who bleats, "Freedom is calling, yeahhh" for Ford or Chevy or one them is either drowning in her own fluids or has just been surprised with an anal examination. Personally, I'd like to think she's getting double-donged by goats, but that's just a beautiful dream. And while we're on the topic of car companies, if Robert Wuhl has to do those idiotic Toyota commercials while Arli$$ is still on HBO, I will go Oedipus on myself for whatever he hocks when people no longer even give that much of a shit about whether he lives or dies.

Eh, I'll get back to you with some more. Never long before something new comes along to piss me off.

08:16 / 02.09.02

I'm sticking with you (picks up shotgun)
Cause I'm made out of glue (loads shotgun)
Anything that you might do (puts shotgun in mouth)
I'm gonna do too (pulls trigger)

08:22 / 02.09.02

Ad I hate at the moment:

Vodafone versus Nine Inch Nails. With lots of pre-watershed implied sex. Great marketing there, guys.

Also:

I really love the new Orange Picture Messaging ad, bar the fact it uses John Tavener's "The Lamb" (words are the Blake poem) as its music. It's a FANTASTIC piece of music, really hauntingly wonderful - and entirely inappropriate for the ad. The two are brilliant seperately. Together seems wrong. Still, it will sell Tavener albums. And they won't know what they're in for.

09:15 / 02.09.02

Has anyone seen the ad (for fabric softener I believe) in which a man at a party is blindfolded and made to tell who people are by their smell?
Now, I may be a little naive, but at which dinner parties is it normal to say 'I'm bored. Let's play the smelling game!'

12:31 / 02.09.02

Exactly. I find that man deeply disturbing, and if I was at that party, I would immediately feel the urge to shout 'Cut, David Lynch! Cut now! I do NOT want to be in one of your films, much as I may love them! Cut, in the name of all that's Kyle Mchlachlan, CUT!'

You just know that if that commercial was a film the dad would dress in a flesh suit, rape the daughter, and then wander into a left luggage locker and become a small green alien with a deeply unsettling face while a fat, moustachioed beat poet recites something freakish over a Barry Adamson track.

Sniffing your daughter, that's Blue Velvet, man. That's Dennis Hopper.

Now: Ms Cat, meet the pigeon family. MY least favourite advert of recent times is that Busta Rhymes song, 'Pass the Courvoisier'. Why? Because, deep down, I have the uncomfortable feeling that the whole thing was the idea of the Courvoisier marketing board who, having 'noticed rising sales of Hennesy and Remy Martin in the Afro-American demographic' after rappers started name-dropping them in songs, decided to pay Busta Rhymes (Busta RHYMES, f'f'ck'sake!) to record what is essentially a three-minute commercial for their product. Fuck off you bastards! D'you realise I can't listen to Extinction Level Event anymore, you motherfuckers? Do you know why? I'll tell you why: BECAUSE EVERY TIME I HEAR BUSTA RHYMES' VOICE FROM NOW ON I AM TORMENTED BY THE HIDEOUS MENTAL IMAGE OF HIM MANACLED TO A DRAINPIPE, WHILE SOME FAT, BALD, WHITE BUSINESSMAN BRUTALLY SODOMISES HIM WITH A BOTTLE OF BRANDY! FUCK YOU ALL, YOU COURVOISIER CUNTS! FUCK YOU FUCKING ALL!

And the same goes for the Samuel L Jackson/ Ed Harris Barclays/Vauxhall ads. Damn it.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:37 / 02.09.02

I'm sticking with you (picks up shotgun)
Cause I'm made out of glue (loads shotgun)
Anything that you might do (puts shotgun in mouth)
I'm gonna do too (pulls trigger)

I love this one, because I can imagine exactly what the conversation in the ad agency boardroom went like.

"Velvet Underground. Got to be the Velvet Underground. Yes, Nathan?"

"Absolutely, Nathan. Remember that great ad for Goodyear? With 'Venus in Furs'?"

"It didn't sell any more tyres, Nathan. And Kay is a washed-up old has-been who thinks a shaved head and piercings make him in any way interesting or novel. And it wasn't for Goodyear."

"Ah."

"Yes."

"Shit."

"Absolutely."

"Great ad, though."

"Yes."

"And we've already prepared the presentation."

"Yes."

"So...Velvet Underground, but something less confrontational. Less dark."

"Something for the mothers."

"And the children also."

"Couldn't have put it better."

"Good meeting, Nathan."

"Good meeting, Nathan."

The Natural Way

14:25 / 02.09.02

Because there's a new campaign:

"FUNKY", SINGING BANK MANAGERS!

15:38 / 02.09.02

what about that oh so clever advert that wasn't an advert. Or actually a movie trailer that wasn't a movie trailer. "Lucky Star" I think was the title and I know it was for Mercedes and had him who played the lawyer in "Fear & Loathing..."

I quite liked it (I know wrong thread, but hear me out) although in the first instances was confused that there was no realease date. have since read that Mercedes (and huge apologies if I've spelt that wrong) have said if there is enough interest than they would consider making the movie.

All in all very zen: selling without selling kind of thing.

Wierd ads of our time (because hate is to strong a word for less than a minute of my life): Pele and impotance. You know the one. The once greatest footballer of our time can no longer get it up and isn't afraid to appear on national (maybe international I just don't know) TV and advise guys to contact their doctors, or some non-geographical specific number (the 0845 or 0345 that are show as either local or national, but still cost a bomb to call) and discuss their problem.

And while I was in Toronto at the end of June saw a ad for "Mike's Hard Lemonade" (correct me if I'm right), Canada's answer to Hooch or Smirnoff Ice. The one particular ad had the view point of an ENGLISH roadie (god bless Wayne's World the best roadies are English/Brits) searching the hotel suite for the alcohol-pop.

Just one question do people in Canada know what the word wanker means. As you can hear it in the ad and swearing in advertisments. Be still my Victorian values.

The Tower Always Falls

18:37 / 02.09.02

So many to choose from.

Probably one of the ones that got my riotous and righteous indignation up the most was a Mercedes-Benz commercial. Just one of those average slow push and pull camera jobs where they're going over the curves of the car like it's a Victoria's Secret model, pretty standard product sexualization deal... except the music being played over it was Janis Joplin's "Oh Lord Won't You Buy Me A Mercedes-Benz"

I just about threw a fucking bottle at the TV.

19:50 / 02.09.02

How much of a wanker is Jamie Oliver in the current Sainsbury's ad? Well, and all the rest of the time as well I suppose.
Anyway, Jamie's git mate rings him up and convinces him to come round and cook him dinner as well as going to Sainsbury's on the way and buying everything for him.

Jamie : "How mauch shall I spend?"
Jamies Git Mate : "About 30 quid?"
J : "Well you owe me a fiver so let's call it 25"
JGM : "Ok"

Have I missed something or has Jamie just done himself out of a tenner? What a wanker.

The moral of the ad? Only wankers shop at Sainsbury's.

gentleman loser

20:09 / 02.09.02

Vlad Baptiste:

Oh! OH! Who else needs to find Joe Strummer and kick his ass for letting Jaguar use "London Calling" to sell cars, hm? And after we knock out his teeth we can snap his pelvis for having "Should I Stay or Should I Go" be the jingle for Stolichnaya Citrona.

Oh yes. Me please.

The first time that I saw that Jaguar ad, I went to my old tape collection and smashed all of my Clash tapes to bits with a hammer. You know what? It felt great! Every other Clash album I come across, I'll do the exact same thing to them as well.

I can live with Britney. She never claimed to be anything but a Pepsi whore. Smashmouth? Those guys would sell their own mothers into white slavery if they could make a couple of bucks off of it.

But the Clash? Selling Jaguars to rich elitist assholes? They can go screw themselves.

The Tower Always Falls:

Probably one of the ones that got my riotous and righteous indignation up the most was a Mercedes-Benz commercial. Just one of those average slow push and pull camera jobs where they're going over the curves of the car like it's a Victoria's Secret model, pretty standard product sexualization deal... except the music being played over it was Janis Joplin's "Oh Lord Won't You Buy Me A Mercedes-Benz"

About threw a brick through the TV on that one myself. I forgive Janis though. She's been dead for over thirty years and can't complain about her music being used to whore for luxury cars.

10:08 / 04.09.02

What’s with that Agassi-Graf one where she’s in a hotel and she’s passed a photo of him with ‘Try to find me’ written on the back ? Surely that looks like a kidnap note or something ?

Adpeople, if any of you are out there : sometimes it’s a nice touch if the ‘story’ makes some kind of sense outside of your executive suites.

I think Haus was all too right in assessing just how these things get put out… if I didn’t need my soul for later, I think I’d get into advertising. Pays the rent and I don’t think it’d impinge on my brainspace overmuch.

DBC

No star here laces

13:18 / 04.09.02

Aah, sweet innocence...

14:41 / 05.09.02

--adamswish wrote:--
>Just one question do people in Canada know what the word wanker >means. As you can hear it in the ad and swearing in advertisments. Be >still my Victorian values.

It's a funny loophole that we can get away with British curses not being censored. Things like shagging, wanker, bloody, arse, etc. come across as cute instead of insulting. Is it true that the title to second austin powers was changed from 'the spy who shagged me' to 'the spy who bleeped me' in the UK?

Classic moment: The writers et al. of Entertianment Tonight do not know what these words mean. During a commercial break, one of the presenters was all made up in bad 70s style make up and glitter. When the show came back on, she announced "Well, now that I've been shagged!" Thinking that shagged meant glammed up or something.

18:48 / 05.09.02

Is it true that the title to second austin powers was changed from 'the spy who shagged me' to 'the spy who bleeped me' in the UK?

Sort of. The title remained the same but I seem to remember the adverts just stopping before the "second title" (and what is the term for that - sub-title I guess).

And slight thread-rot: Barry if you think that's funny about "shagged" there's a company who produces t-shirts in Japan with slogans like "Nothing beats a good wank" (or some such) which Japanese kids and teens are lapping up. They thing it means the same as hug. Bless.

But enough of that on with the rants...

10:53 / 06.09.02

On music in card ads: The Fall. Touch Sensitive. That new Vauxhall Corsa ad. No.

Also: Plone. Taxi. New Levis ad. No.

15:58 / 10.09.02

e randy dupre, again i totally agree with you. that levis ad is gross. rub yourself, what the fuck has that got to do with jeans?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

10:27 / 11.09.02

Am I missing something or is that Janis Joplin song actually one she used to sing regularly? It's not as if they dug her up, put a small motor in her mouth and fried her with electrcity until they got a tune out of her rapidly decaying voicebox. If Gilbert and Sullivan did wrote a song for the Mikado called 'Gosh I Could Really do With a Coca Cola Lord Admiral' would you complain if Coke took advantage of it?

13:44 / 11.09.02

On music in card ads: The Fall. Touch Sensitive. That new Vauxhall Corsa ad. No.

I saw that one as I was walking past the TV the other day .. nearly shit myself in horror and then decided I must have imagined it..

I would have thought The Fall, and a song like that in particular, would be the absolute antithesis of a trendy blue-tinted car ad..

No star here laces

13:56 / 11.09.02

Which is where you'd be wrong. The punk generation are all grown up now and have seats on the board and luxury vehicles to cart around their young. Unfortunately they still listen to the same music.

14:20 / 11.09.02

Mark E. Smith's got a history for dubious politics anyway.

14:33 / 11.09.02

Well he's got a history of dubious just about everything .. that's kinda the point, he's a fucking ranting nutjob who seems to hate just about everything .. The Fall's music is driven mainly (seems to me) by hatred of modern life and a desire to be oblique, obscure, nasty and vengeful .. thus perhaps not making it ideal for flogging cars..

Not that I'm terribly offended or anything, I just think it's a really weird and misguided choice of advert music..

10:02 / 12.09.02

Rizla:
"The Fall's music is driven mainly (seems to me) by hatred of modern life and a desire to be oblique, obscure, nasty and vengeful .."

Yeah but Mark E Smith is driven mainly by a desire to get pissed. He doesn't make a penny off those dodgy compilations, you know.

13:24 / 23.09.02

Several new ones that make blood boil:

1. Schwartz Shotz
"Can I cook it?" FUCK OFF. Really, dreadful - and they run two back-to-back all the fricking time! Awful!

Also, a more general series of ads I cannot stand (and have forgotten if we mentioned earlier):

2. The Britta Water Filter Ads
Great water filters, sure. But awful ads. That couple are just OBNOXIOUS: cringe-makingly bad Karl-and-Susan-style sexual tension, awful gags, nasty transparent cups, house that doesn't look lived in - and they don't put milk in their tea. Really. There's just SO MUCH WRONG with this Ad. It hurts.

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