Nothing epitimises the cynical attitude of the advertising toward children more than the Mega GoGos. For those that have not seen the advert it is a basically a collecting scam aimed at children. It has no purpose other than to be a money maker for the company that invented it. It follow the lines of a magazine and a toy. The advert exclaims in a truly unjustifiably excited voice:

“Every week collect & build an all-new mega metropolis with head swapping mega GoGos, mystery mini GoGos & cool pods to display. ”

Which translates as:

“Every week collect a cheap plastic toy, that would make the plastic crap in Christmas crackers look as though they had bought and giftwraped in Hamleys, for a very long time and we’ll sell you some other crappy piece of plastic shit to keep them in but you won’t be able to stop buying them because your  children will be left out and possibly bullied if this takes off.”

It is just so lazy. Right down to the name. Mega–this, mega-that. It must have taken about five minutes to come up with this. It is not useful, it isn’t even fun and it is not educational. This product has zero value. I hope that even children are too savvy to fall for this. It is mega-shit.

Sometimes I feel as though certain ads are just taunting me to write a post slagging them off. This time it’s the Go Compare Advert. I have just had enough. Just because the Compare the Market advert was so successful with its adorable Russian oligarch Meerkat, the Go Compare people had to try and come up with a comic character which everyone is going to talk about.

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You’ve used Windows 7, right? It’s Microsoft’s new operating system that is going to replace Windows XP. The previous operating system, Windows Vista was so terrible that users were willing to pay extra to have Windows XP installed on their computer rather than have the bloated, nanny operating system.
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In the aftermath of the banking crisis it is interesting to see how banks are using advertising to make us believe that they are fluffy, caring and not greedy, grasping, ruthless businesses run for their shareholders.
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A lot of advertising is about creating a brand. I just saw a really pretentious advert. Can you guess what it is for? Men were moving the landscape, pulling the grass like a rug, pinging back fir trees, etc. It was about strength. Whenever you see an advert with remote, monumental epic landscapes, untouched by the modern world, austere with extremely expensive award winning photography and cinematic production values you know it has to be for that gloopy black alcoholic drink beloved by the Irish. That’s right Guinness. I didn’t know, but I just thought, this advert is a load of pseudo, arty wank. It must be for Guinness and I was right. Gustave Flaubert wrote, ‘Language is a cracked kettle on which we bang our tunes to make bears dance, when what we long for is to move the stars to pity. The advertisers at Guinness will the stars to pity when they have a cracked kettle. It is another triumph of style over substance. I guess advertising works.

Oh no! It has just dawned on me that the Christmas adverts are starting. Only a few more days and every advert will be for a crappy compilation CD or Argos advert with bloody Noddy Holder shouting “It’s Chrrristmmassss!”
It is definitely the worst time of year for television advertising.
A few year’s ago I was fortunate enough to escape the commercial hell by going to Goa over the Christmas period.
Although they have meld of religious beliefs, there is a strong Catholic community and so they also follow Christmas but all was quite (except for the barking dogs) until the actual day.

We are exposed to a tremendous amount of advertising and we think that it just washes over us but there are times when it astounds me how powerful it can be.
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The story behind this advert is a typical scene of advertising stereotypes. A mother and her teenage son are out on a shopping trip to buy the weekly groceries. The son is an advert-safe teenager, who thinks that he is really cool, a bit of a rebel. But let’s face it, comes across as a bit of a curly haired, annoying twat.
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This advert has simple concept. Take someone that uses your product and get them to talk about it, then people will go out and buy it. Well it is seems like a good idea but it backfires if you choose someone that is clinically insane. Seriously, this woman takes enthusiasm to a whole new level.

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There is a thought in advertising that the more annoying the advert, the more it will stick in the mind and therefore the more it will influence people into buying your product. This is complete tosh as exemplified by the We Buy Any Car Advert.
They must have spent all their money buying cars because there was only about 5p left to make this crappy advert.
It looks like it was made by a six year old child with a donated PC from the late 90s and the earliest edition of Adobe Flash. Cut out car shapes like you used to find in Fuzzy Felt move along a motorway not making it to the other end of the screen before being transformed into a sold sign. (If you watch the advert closely, they don’t buy every car. There are several cars that get away without being bought.)

The sound track is equally naff. It sound like a variation of the Mc Mental Chav dance and also doubles as sensory torture for use by the American government at Guantanamo Bay, as it is the just the continual repetition of the phrase “We buy any car” with a vocoded “.com” tacked onto the end of the sentence.