Still no approach from The Guardian to be their Voice of Popular Culture. I may have missed their job offer email in-between the 87 spam emails I received through the blog this week. I’m almost tempted to set up a Spam Training School: send me “sdhjkdsdfsafiudsahjk” in an email and I’m unlikely to click your link; try something like “Your blog is great. I am the Guardian Editor and I would like you to have the following job. Click here” and we’re sounding much more realistic.
So, in my quest to demonstrate my diversity as a blogger, today I expand beyond music and reality TV with a post on my Top Ten Most Hated TV Adverts. Commercials count as popular culture, right? Oh, by the way Literary Agent Housemate, I’ve had a brilliant vision of how my blog could be turned into a book. I see a compendium of popular culture with a range of top ten lists in it (like The Top Ten Worst lyrics, The Top 10 Most Depressing Songs, etc) filling stockings around the country for Christmas 2010. Thoughts? Onto the list:
1. Yoghurt Adverts
I was shocked to discover recently that you can only buy yoghurt if you’re a woman. It is also highly likely that, as a woman, you experience a terrible affliction known as bloating. Bloating can strike at any time but is most likely to occur when you’re in a nice dress in a bar. It will completely ruin your evening. Eating a yoghurt will cure this because it contains something called Biffidis Regularis, which is in no way a made up name. The yoghurt will not only cure all your digestive complaints, but also, as it now contains a special scientific “hunger fighting formula”, you’ll never feel hunger again after consuming just one small pot of dairy liquid.
Martine McCutcheon’s sums up everything that is rubbish about a yoghurt advert here. In it, Martine still seems to believe she is in Love Actually. She’s on a mission and has a beret. And as she marches through Britain she tells us that eating yoghurt will make us happy, on the outside. She is so happy through eating yoghurt that she has put on some fireworks to celebrate life. Her friends are so happy they scream in her face. Martine McCutcheon even takes a yoghurt and small spoon to these celebrations, which is definitely normal/natural.
In the US, however, yoghurt adverts are even worse: check this out. No one likes yoghurts that much, surely? And as this funny spoof video points out, no one eats yoghurts at a wedding.
Don’t get me started on how pointless Petit Filous is.
In the way that you can only eat yoghurt if you’re female, you can only buy a nice Dreams bed if you’re a pretty heterosexual couple. That is all.
3. Silentnight Beds
Whereas, Silentnight Beds welcome all kinds of diverse relationships. They advertise through a hippo and a duck who seem to be in a functional, romantic relationship. They certainly share a bed. One advert even shows them tucking their children into bed, which implies they’ve interbred. Once the hippo moon-walked to the bed. I’m not sure why.
What kind of crazy brainstorm came up with this?
Cash For Gold adverts suddenly took over daytime TV approximately six months ago. What I ask is, if you did happen to have lots of gold lying about the house would you really send it through the post in the hope that this very orange man, who has put together a TV advert using PowerPoint, might send you a fiver back? Especially as the videos of them melting the gold in a factory looks like something from Encarta.
5. Eye Roll-On (Enriched With Caffeine)
This is what looks like roll-on deodorant, which you rub around your eyes. As if that’s not weird enough, they also tell us it’s enriched with caffeine. Scientifically can this be true? Rubbing caffeine onto your skin has an impact? If I wash my face in coffee will I look more awake? If I dip my finger in a cup of tea will it look younger?
6. Please Teach. (Please).
A 15 year old manages to correctly identify that he is being shown a picture of a prisoner in class. The most patronising teacher ever almost explodes with excitement and exclaims “a prisoner! GOOOOD” like he’s five. The most scripted child ever says he feels bad as he’s taking for granted the things he’s got. “I love your honesty” exclaims the most patronising teacher ever.
School was never like this.
7. Room Fragrances
Last year, when I watched the X Factor on ITV Player they used to show the same one advert in each of the nine advert breaks. This advert was invariably advertising room air freshener. In it, a woman buys a Plug In that releases fragrance whenever she walks by. She’s so excited that she invites her friend round to see it, who cannot believe her eyes. “It’s clever!” she screams. No it’s not! It has no brain! It’s motion sensored.
Also worthy of note is the “Poo at Paul’s advert”, although I actually think that has a small element of genius about it.
In the first of this hideous series of adverts, Ant and Dec are interviewed in a no way scripted or awkward manner about how much they love the Wii. We learn that they mostly play the Wii at Ant’s house but that Dec plays the DS more and loves taking it on aeroplanes. They cannot wait to get out and meet real people who play the Wii/DS, just like them! So they travel the country interviewing people, who live in all-white lounges, about how much fun the Wii is/how it’s changed their lives/brought their broken family back together.
Jason Donavon and Colleen Nolan singing about “swell” frozen nibbles makes a small part of me die inside. Jason, you’re successful in Priscilla, surely you don’t need to do this? They also have to invent the word “Swellegant” to rhyme with “elegant”, which is unforgiveable.
However, the chocolate covered strawberries do look quite compelling.
There is so much that is wrong about the “They’re Gonna Taste Great!” advert, which appeared and then rapidly vanished from our screens in 2006. Here are just five awful things:
1. The song.
2. The desperate list of people who love Frosties who have to rhyme with “great”. Why resort to “a man in a crate”? Why would a man be in a crate?
3. The line about personalised-number-o-plates.
4. Why at the end is the child punching his arms at us in an increasingly frenzied way whilst levitating?
5. The song. Which I now have in my head again.
Well, I feel much better having unleashed all that. As always, please suggest your own ideas. To end things on a high, take a look at Comic Relief’s hilarious advertising sketch below. In it, the Red Nose Day team have hired the greatest minds in advertising to come up with the best ad in British television history. Starring Monkey, Honey Monster, Captain Birdseye and many more.
Contents
February 7, 2010 - 6:44 pm
A few points:
1. It takes quite some chutzpah to suggest one of my own ideas back at me. Top Ten Lists, eh? Genius.
2. I don’t think we can blame Jason or the Nolan woman for ‘swellegant’ as it’s part of the original Cole Porter lyric. Blame him, he’s dead.
3. What children do the hippo and duck have together? Are they crazy half-feathered half-smooth hybrids?
4. I forgive you for No. 1 because in your discussion of yoghurt advert travesties, you gallantly avoided mention of this beautifully-narrated piece of advertising: http://www.visit4info.com/advert/Deflate-the-bloated-feeling-with-Activia-Danone-Bio-Activia-Range/73717
5. Rachel Berry is a Goddess.
February 7, 2010 - 6:55 pm
“I want to do a poo at Paul’s house!”….haha, love that ad!
What about ANY of the Halifax adverts……Howard is well buggin!
ps. Back off the Petit Filous.
February 7, 2010 - 6:56 pm
pps. I can’t believe you’ve bought the Frosties ad back into our lives.
February 7, 2010 - 8:32 pm
Louise – at work, we’re taught a great sales technique, which is subtly getting the person you’re selling to to think that it was their idea all along to do what you want. I think I might have done the opposite here; or, even, that you have done this process to me?
The children were either a duck or a hippo: they seem to breed one or the other but not a mixture of the two. The genetics behind this advert are very confusing.
Becky – I knew you’d love the poo at Paul’s advert. You’re right about Howard, he should have been included. Especially that one where he pretends to surf.
February 7, 2010 - 9:30 pm
Mark, this one is genius. Please know that across the Med, Bear and I were snorting at the Silent Night Beds (though first I had to explain the advert to him.) Then he had to explain the roll on deodorant caffeine thing to me (what?) Apparently they have it in NY.
But here’s the real point – across the Med we don’t yet have roll-on caffeine face deodorant, meaning your blog is Cultural Cath Up for Ex Pats Abroad (CCUEPA) This is ground breaking.
February 8, 2010 - 8:05 am
hate avec le passione de le thousand suns that I want to do a poo at pauls advert… so hideous. It makes the adverts that they make on The Apprentice look brilliant (though I did sort of want to smooch pants man bloke this year. Sidebar your honour – you should totally cover the apprentice. And Britain’s Got Talent).
Anyway, martine in the Love for Yoghurt Actually advert! Everytime I see it I shout out “where the fuck is my fucking coat”. Which is sometimes bad as the last time it was on I was looking at digi-boxes in a packed with hideous children Comet. Oh dear.
February 13, 2010 - 8:52 pm
Oh my, this is hilarious. It’s important to point out the educational values of posts like this. With your help, I will soon be able to talk confidently aout the telly in any social situation. Hurrah!
Why IS the man in a crate?!