Well the January sales are way in the past now and television is starting to get a bit of normality back into itself. If only that was a good thing.
With Christmas and Valentine’s Day done with advertisers have changed their focus, trying new and exciting methods to fool, I mean entice the poor general public into buying into their product or service. But my God, they’re terrible! Alright it’s not sofas, but some companies aren’t even trying anymore!
Take Confused.com. They have a new advert these days, sticking with that animated cartoon woman who goes on about being confused all the time. Only this time she’s not confused, instead she’s singing Queen’s ‘Somebody to Love’. Why? I have no idea, I’ve never seen anything so totally unrelated. Is the point of it to confuse your own target audience? Because I don’t really think that’s the best tactic. A confused punter won’t buy anything. Maybe they’re selling Queen’s Greatest Hits.
Sticking with insurance, Compare the Market are still milking that sodding meerkat advert. Now they have a new one, which is basically the same one you’ve seen before. It’s simples! Oh what a loveable catchphrase you have there. About as loveable as a dead rabbit being eaten by Gillian McKeith. Still, it beats Omid Djalili knocking about with John Prescott.
My old favourite webuyanycar.com have decided to tone themselves down a bit too, they know people had become fully aware of their sneak tactics, luring the viewer in before stabbing them in the medulla with their constant chirping of their dire theme song. They’ve gone for the more casual approach now, it’s heavily boring, much like their service. And I’m sure you’ve noticed our pals at 118 118 have been ripping off the Ghostbusters theme, constantly singing away as our memory of Ghostbusters slowly diminishes to dust.
There’s a bit of a theme, lots of adverts these days seem to be promoting some sort of service, whether it be car selling, insurance, or accident and injury. One I noticed on ITV the other week was that of Accident Hero, yet another company who want to take advantage of your unfortunate situation for corporate gain. Accident and injury adverts are obviously nothing new, they’ve been around for years now. Some of the classics include the woman who fell over a piece of string in a warehouse and received a scandalous figure for her troubles; the bloke who was crushed against a wall by a fork-lift; or the woman with the ridiculous fringe from the Accident Helpline ads; not to mention the one for Pi Accident Helpline where a big fat Vicente del Bosque look-alike kept on saying Pie over and over again.
They’ve changed little over the years, with the general formula being: someone falls over, complains, has time off work, receives large novelty cheque, returns to work with smug look on face. They changed it a little when they decided to pretend to care about people’s wellbeing in the workplace, adding at the end of their ads that not only do you receive shed-loads of cash but your company brings in new safety measures, and your boss ends up loathing your existence as he tucks into his tin of Whiskers at lunch. Yep that‘s right, if you don’t claim your putting everyone at risk and you don’t want that do you?
Accident Hero is a little different from the usual formula though. But yeah, don’t expect originality. All they did was rip off Pixar’s The Incredibles. It’s all computer animated and Accident Hero is dressed identical to Mr. Incredible. Not only that but the poor defenceless woman in the advert looks identical to his wife Elastigirl! Sigh. Why is it that advertisers seem to have lost all creativity? I actually think they went to a Primary School in Chisholm for their marketing, though that’s probably an insult to primary school kids. And Chisholm.
Another blatant rip off that’s been doing the rounds this year are the ones for More Than. Yes, another insurance company wanting you to pay them money to protect yourself/themselves from massive financial loss. You probably know the one I’m talking about. You’re watching TV and all of a sudden Morgan Freeman’s soothing voice starts cradling your ears. Automatically you pay attention and what do you get as your reward? A bloke with a brolly who says: “I‘m More Than Freeman, thank you for listening.” They stole Morgan Freeman’s voice!? This has to be a first! Why did Morgan Freeman agree to this? Did he even agree to it? The unfortunate fact is that this is actually GOOD marketing! It’s memorable even if it is down-right horrifying! It’s a worse ending to an advert since Willem Dafoe decided not to kill everyone in that Fish Fingers ad.
It’s not all insurance and fish fingers though. The vanity industry is still churning out adverts left right and centre and it appears no one is safe! Usually it’s just women who have to put up with this nonsense. I hate so much about these adverts. One major gripe I have is why every single advert says something along the lines of “nine out of ten women agree this is the best product out there.” Clearly these women are just lying, it doesn’t add up! If there were two products that both said five out of ten women agree ours is the best, then yes I can accept that. But you can’t all claim that women all love your product apart from one who’s hair you burnt off. Nothing a few pentapeptides won’t fix.
That’s what they do, throw supposed facts and statistics at you. ‘Proven to visibly decrease wrinkles‘, ‘helps slow the signs of aging’, etcetera etcetera. Technically they’re not lying to you as they can say this all they like, it’s not illegal. I could head to the supermarket and buy three penny chews to 'help' boost the economy, sure I’m helping but I don’t think it’s going to make much difference!
According to the cosmetic industry you’re worthless if you look less than perfect. Whatever perfect actually is. So we constantly get subjected to the supposed perfect people in our society, the successful folk who mingle around our TV shows or walk up and down catwalks for a living. Take Cheryl Cole going on about her mojo in the L’Oreal advert. Apparently it can help you defeat Weak, Limp, Lifeless, Dull, Straw-like hair. You thought they were listing Cheryl’s personality traits didn’t you? Well no apparently the shampoo will ‘help’ rid your hair of these annoying features. If only you could use it on her. I think the best part of this advert is the small print towards the end revealing she’s wearing hair extensions.
Men of the world aren’t safe either. In recent years blokes have been bombarded by aftershave adverts, razors, moisturisers, revitalising gel (whatever the hell that is) and many more, it turns out men are worth it too. Well for the cosmetic industry at least. None really does it quite like Just For Men though. Take the recent ad, where a grey-haired man lounges around his apartment when a beautiful woman knocks on his door asking for milk. He promptly jumps out of his window and runs to the supermarket to get some cow juice, but wait he won’t get laid with grey hair! His solution? Just For Men of course! It works fast, it’ll have to if this random woman is going to be waiting outside his door. Man, I hate this advert. I love the small print in this one too ‘professional stunt - do not attempt’. Shows the demographic they’re after.
All of these adverts are bad, and very painful to watch of course, but none of them, not even if you put them all together can come close to being as excruciating as one particular advertisement. That advert is for Andrex toilet paper. It’s a sad, sad day when you have to watch something that used to be so great, die so horrifically right before your very eyes. What have they done? They’ve replaced the puppies with CGI versions. No longer are we subjected to the bounding joys of the golden Labrador pups as they gleefully play with a roll of toilet paper, now we have to watch lifeless humanised versions of them walk around and drive cars. Dogs do not walk on two legs! They don't use laptops! And they certainly don't wear watches! It's so depressing.
I will leave you to mourn.
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Cheryl's limp and lifeless mojo advert is below, along with the tear-jerking Andrex one.
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