I have to say this one went under my radar for some time. However, it is a particularly annoying advert because it is so stupid and pointless. Whoever came up with the concept failed on every single level. Picture a domestic scene where an urban woman, geeky husband and some other random fellow that has just popped in for a cup of coffee, are preparing a meal.
They have a large, modern designer kitchen so it stands to reason they choose to make packet rice in the microwave. The geeky husband goes to take the rice out of the microwave (even though it hasn’t pinged). The microwave door is stuck. The women says in a matter-of-fact voice, “Oh, It won’t come out unless you tell it it has no artificial colours or preservatives.”
There are so many things wrong about the reasoning behind this statement, both philosophical and causal that make it clear that her grasp of reality is very tenuous. Are you fucking crazy? It is rice. It is inanimate. Leaving aside the point that it is the microwave door that is stuck and how rice can summon the power to keep it shut. What the fuck has this got to do with rice anyway? If it has no artificial colours or preservatives, then just fucking say so. What sort of a moron would you have to be not to be able to cook ordinary rice anyway?
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.
Filed under: Advertising Idiots — Terry Vision @ 10:02 pm January 4, 2010
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.
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. (more…)
Filed under: Advertising Idiots — Terry Vision @ 10:15 pm October 31, 2009
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. (more…)
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. (more…)
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.
What is Jenny Eclair, respected rude comedienne doing this government agency advert for salt in food? In this ad, she looks like a strict headmistress as she nags us about salt in food. Too much salt is bad and this advert is supposed to highlight this fact. It reveals the startling fact that there is a lot of salt in processed food. In fact it is ‘full of it’ as the annoying jingle hammers home. How you can find out if there is too much salt in your food? Look at the label. Thank goodness for the Food Standards Agency. I would never have figured that out.
By the same token, too much salt is also pretty bad for supermarket trolleys apparently, especially when they are falling from a great height in slow motion. This advert is ‘full of it’ and it isn’t salt.
This is a particularly annoying advert. Everyone is watching their cash as the economic crisis bites. Inevitably this hits the poorest the hardest. With more people looking for work, even poorly paid jobs are sought after.
Brighthouse are tempting people with the possibility of owning new household items like flat screen television, sofas, washing machines. No credit check, nothing. But all this comes at a cost namely 29.9% APR just 0.01% short of 30%. Ask who are the people that are most likely to take up an offer like this? Thrifty people, those with money to spend or people that are depressed, on a low income but don’t have the willpower to save up money.
This is just making excessive profit from people who are the least able to afford it. It is all rather unsavoury.
Filed under: Advertising Idiots — Terry Vision @ 8:43 pm September 10, 2009
We are starting to see the re-emergence of magazines that are not so much about the published content but are all about building something by collecting parts each week. Usually they involve building an impressive looking model. This time we have a model of a Lancaster bomber. It does look quite impressive. I were ruled by my heart I might decide to build this, but fortunately, I am rational man and inveterate reader of the small print. They might lure you by having the first edition at £1.99 but 125 editions at £4.99 makes this a very expensive model at £620,75. And this assumes the ability to build it correctly but does not include the tools or additional materials required such as paints. A lot of the work must be in the finishing. I wonder how many will be built? Better off buying a plastic Airfix model.
