Ad Absurdum

Adverts are annoying me again. Some in particular:

I'll Wear This Wig!

[Watch this dreadful ad] Just, no. It's just so awful. First of all, even after Quote-me-Happy-gate, they've decided to invent a character to represent themselves, named him 'Happy', and made a little film about him. But while they've chosen a voice (annoying) and a personality (none), they've not chosen a face for Happy, so to avoid showing it the entire ad is shot in first-person, where the viewer is Norwich Union. That's just surreal. I presume the ad is supposed to be humorous, with the hapless comic foil for Happy (whose name is not mentioned, but I shall call 'Dopey') agreeing to wear a silly wig in the very old and very tired (or 'Sleepy') "Our Prices Are Crazy!" tack. Well, it doesn't work.

But the worst part is, I nearly couldn't find a link for this ad because I honestly heard the character's name as "Abbey" and so never knew who it was advertising. (I don't pay much attention to ads -- I feel it's the ads' job to grab me.)

Mister Muscle: Super Scientist

[Watch this dreadful ad] This advert is bad for several reasons, principally that it makes no sense. It makes no sense in terms of dialogue: why does Mr Muscle say "no, thank you"? What, for having their kitchen cleaned? It also makes no sense in terms of message: the whole point of Mr Muscle's adverts for as long as they've been going out has been that 'Mr Muscle' is a weedy guy who can still clean the tough grease because of the power of the product. When he's a muscly superhero it says nothing about the product: that guy could clean all the grease with tapwaterand a sheet of Bounty. There's no reason why he should be CG, that I can see, except that it makes it simpler to redo his video to match his localised voice... but they didn't even do that.

And a 'super scientist' is not the same thing as a 'twat in a white coat'.

Your Dress? No, My Hair!

(I don't know which particular version of this tripe is on just now, but they're all basically the same so here's the first I found.)

Who wrote this one? It has exactly no merit at all. It features Davina McCall and appears to have been filmed after she was turned into a zombie but before Andy Nyman thankfully put a lamp through her. In the ad, she talks to her mother -- who again isn't shown (although this time at least it's shot in the third person and Davina is on the phone). Whether this is because they couldn't find an actress who could pass for Davina's mother or to stop her actual mother from suing isn't clear. Personally, I think it's because they couldn't bring themselves to feature anyone who could be a 41-year-old's mother in their advert.

The dialogue is awful even by the standards of other hair-dye adverts (except perhaps the Just For Men one where some guy's kids try to get him a girlfriend using dye) and the voices are, too. I just can't see what part of this advert is supposed to get people to buy the product. Girls, does this shit work on you? If so, I'm going to try talking vacuous crap in bars (more so).

I'm sure there are more ads I hate running at the moment, but I can't think what they are just now. Oh, and while I'm here, I'm not what you might call 'impressed' with what Visit4Info.com think constitutes an embedded video. A thumbnail and a hyperlink isn't embedded media.

A Glass and a Half of Effort

Cadbury's have two recently famous adverts. One, in which a gorilla plays drums along to the tune of In The Air Tonight, and a second one in which colourful airport vehicles race alongside each other to the tune of Don't Stop Me Now.

They've just aired both those adverts, in full, in a row. With two major changes. The gorilla advert is now dubbed with Total Eclipse of the Heart, and the race is now dubbed over with Living on a Prayer.

Why? Why waste 3 minutes of advertising with existing adverts redubbed? It just seems wasteful, and the only reason I watched both adverts in full is because I assumed there'd be some sort of twist. Like Bonnie Tyler in the gorilla costume. Sadly, no.

Very pointless.

I'd Make a "Pluto" Pun, But It's Too Obvious

An advert for Bakers Dog Food currently airing states that they

"are the leading brand of dog food in Britain, so you'll have to go a long way to find a dog that hasn't tried it."

It then cuts into dogs in space.

Surely France is closer?

Advertising Space

Earlier this week, Andrew noted an interesting theory about ITV's detective shows. It's a shame that the same theory can go for BBC comedy.

If you succesfully pitch a sitcom to the BBC, there's one of two things that will happen. It will either air on the main two channels at a late slot on a weeknight and get no advertising, or it'll air Prime Time on a digital channel and get lashing of advertisement goodness. I've been lucky to be able to find out, all on my own, about Still Game (BBC2, Thursdays at 10pm) and Not Going Out (which at the moment is Not Currently Airing, but I'll tell you when it is). These are two brilliant sitcoms with plenty of wit and humour, but not enough recognition.

On the opposite end of the scale, we have dismal The Visit (BBC3) and Grownups (also BBC3) whose adverts seem to be getting more airtime on BBC3 than the regular news updates. There's definately something wrong with that.

The problem is that the BBC are too busy advertising sitcoms on their channel that are genuinely rubbish, and never advertise the well-written ones. The latter includes all the American imports they tried to air when the Simpsons was taken off their channel. I'm just shocked that Grownups got a second series. It truly is rank.

Ad Hominem

You know what annoys me about adverts? When they cut them and edit them and change them about for no immediately apparent reason. I've seen an advert which, after running for a few weeks, underwent some kind of weird voiceover gender reassignment surgery, quite for no reason that I could see. Possibly it was done to make people notice the advert. It worked, although I couldn't tell you what the hell product it was for. The NatWest advert running at the moment has been changed, and a new, far inferior, "check the lining" sequence has been pasted over the original one, to create a pale imitation of the advert's previous glory. I've seen TV adverts translated into print adverts so poorly that the end result is nothing more than a statement of fact about the service, the phrase "that's better", and a photo of a woman of unclear relevance. (I'm looking at you, Direct Line.) I've seen countless rather good adverts cut down to a shorter length and lose all their meaning in the process — I think this is an attempt to, rather than show you the whole story again, simply jog your memory of having seen the real advert, so they can get the same effect in a shorter timeframe, much like showing you the end of an episode of Coupling without the build-up: you already know all the details, so it's not just a bunch of nutters claiming to be Dick Darlington. But this doesn't work, because in real life people really don't pay that much attention, and those that do will notice that your new advert is nonsense. Even the Sheila's Wheels advert is somehow more annoying in its shorter form, just because the structure of the song doesn't work properly any more. It jumps half a bar without so much as a key change. (I'm picky about these things.)

The other day this was taken to a new level. The Lotus advert that Steven (quite rightly) loathes so (first, let me point out that the lotus is a plant whose leaves are of scientific interest only for their unique inability to keep hold of water and therefore is a rather stupid thing after which to name a brand of paper towel) was cut down to nothing more than the spurious explanation of how the towels are full of tiny elephants which "shlurp" up all the water.

It's really hard to know where to draw the line between false advertising and averts which merely contain false claims about the product they advertise.

Everybody's talking at me

Earlier this week, I did something which some people might call a bit silly. I immigrated from the UK to the US, leaving just one week shy of the Doctor Who series finale. That irked me to no end, especially when you consider that if it hadn't been delayed by the bloody Eurovision Song Contest I would've seen the bloody finale three days before I flew out. Heigh ho.

I've not watched a lot of American television, but as I type this my Dad and Stepmom (who have very kindly put me up for the time being) are watching a television show called So You Think you Can Dance. It's largely a copy of American Idol, but with dancing instead of singing. There's the Obligatory British Judge, who bucks tradition by being the Friendly One. it's also hosted by Cat Deeley. What she's doing on American television I will never know, but then again she did used to co-present SMTV Live, so she's probably used to presenting shows aimed at people of that intellectual level.

it's at this point I realise that I've indirectly insulted my Dad and Stepmom. I should probably start looking for somewhere else to live.

I've been to America before, and I've watched some television. The biggest difference between American and British television is that American TV is broken up with more advertisements on a more regular basis. I wouldn't mind if the ads were vaguely intelligent, if they so much as alluded to some creative intuition on the part of the company hired to put the things together.

Imagine you're walking down a street. Now imagine that as you walk people are taking in turns to walk beside you and shout things at you. You find it difficult to focus on what they're actually trying to say, because they're so loud and the words they're saying don't necessarily make sense when placed in the order they're being used in. It's like they're trying to have a conversation with you, but without asking for any interaction whatsoever.

There don't appear to be any intelligent ads either, ads that make you laugh because they're clever, or make you smile because they're making you think. Ads over here are remarkably patronising, and are rather pointless. Despite this, you can now buy them on DVD at Best Buy. The mind boggles.

Child's Play

I've just seen quite an odd commercial break. They've shown three adverts in a row in which the main theme appears to be Parents Lying to Their Children.

First, we get a Green Giant sweetcorn advert. A mother is happily telling her two children that eating runner beans will make you become a runner and French Fries would make you become French. Firstly, this is ridiculous. This is Britain; we do not call chips French Fries. But still, the two moronic children happily guzzle down their sweetcorn in the hope of becoming emerald-shaded men of titanic proportions.

Our second advert is all about some sort of paper towel. In it, a father happily tells his ugly son that the way paper towels work is because it's cram packed with tiny, tiny elephants. Of course. Luckily, his snot-nosed child doesn't seem to believe him. Mainly because the child is about twelve and wouldn't believe tiny elephants would live in tissue paper. Thing is, the advert doesn't say that the elephant story isn't true. I think I'll sue on the count that my kitchen towel doesn't contain a tiny race of Elephantidae.

Finally, we get the most annoying cereal advert in the world. Even more annoying than that Frosties advert with the hyperactive child. It's the Rice Krispies advert where a mother tells her annoying daughter that rice doesn't snap, crackle nor pop because it hasn't turned into Krispy Rice by Kellogg's. They then try and look out for the three mythical characters by listening to a bowl of the famed cereal. They decide on which odd noise the cereal makes is determined to which character; Snap, Crackle or Pop.

My favourite bit of that advert is when the little girl chekily answers back "No mum, I think that's Snap". If she was my daughter, I'd tell her to shut up. Advertising clearly lacks responsible parentage nowadays.

Raindrops on Roses