If there's one thing that annoys me (Well, ok, there's lots of things that annoy me!) it's television adverts. In no particular order are the ones that are particularly bugging me at the moment:
“Are you a home owner who could benefit from an Oceania Finance loan?†Now, let me stop you right there, if I may. Lets be honest here, you’re a dreadful actor and no-one is going to believe you for a second. And you start walking just after the advert starts, so it’s got a really jerky beginning – can’t anyone edit these damned things properly? And just look at the ‘office’ he’s in. It’s in pristine condition. All the carpets are new, the Hessian screens are new and what’s more, they’re blank. No-one has stuck up those lethal crayon pictures of a total mess produced by their darling infants with ‘mummy’ written underneath. What in God’s name would possess anyone to display these things in the first place? My dog could paint something better if you tied a paintbrush to his tail, and he’s dead. So – crap actor, pathetic attempt at creating an office – doesn’t bode well does it? However, it gets worse, as we get into the spiel about how they can help with your debt problems, and we then cut to some of their clients. Dear God in heaven, where did they drag them from? I’ve never seen such a bunch of freaks in my entire life! And this must surely be the best that they’ve got. They all look weird to begin with, they’re all sat on brand new sofas that they’ve obviously been given by Oceania Finance (but I bet they get whisked away again immediately after filming ceases), and only one of the couple speaks. It’s usually the woman, while the man sits there being all manly, and nodding now and then as Mrs Claptrap whitters on about how their lives have been saved, and how they love Oceania Finance, and how wonderful that they’ve been treated as real human beings. Quite frankly I’m not surprised – they can’t be used to that at all – if I saw one of them on the street I’d be inclined to go up to them and say ‘Excuse me, I was just wondering – are you actually human, or the result of an experiment?’ But besides this – why are they surprised that Oceania Finance is treating them nicely? They’re going to make thousands of pounds out of Mr and Mrs Muppet. Finance companies don’t do things out of the goodness of their hearts – they make money for Christ’s sake! What I’d really like to see is an advert with some poor homeless bastard sitting in a cardboard box saying ‘Yes, I took out a loan with Oceania Finance, and I couldn’t pay back them back, so they repossessed my house, sold my children into slavery, shot my dog and tossed me out onto the street’. Oceania Finance helping you? Give me strength!
Car adverts. There are way too many of these things, and they’re all crap. The one that really has me frothing at the mouth is the one with the two small boys, supposedly being the adults in the household. Father returns from a shopping trip and takes out of his huge overblown 4x4 (and who needs an off road car anyway? When are you going to go off road when you live in bloody suburbia?) an exercise bike. One small boy says to the other ‘Another 5 minute wonder’ and shakes his head. Look you vile little tyke, you’re a kid. A small boy, no more than 7 years old. Get back upstairs into your room and read the Beano, or whatever else it is that small boys do these days. It’s not cute, it’s not funny and it’s NOT going to encourage me to buy the poxy car ok? Oh yes.. while we’re on the subject – what is it with the Megan car with the hunchback? Why I am about to start shaking my arse around when I see the damn thing on the road, eh? It’s got to be one of the most badly designed, ugly looking heaps of junk I’ve ever seen. It’s even worse than those small abortions of cars that only have two seats in them. The only thing that I’m going to shake when I see one of those is my head, feeling sorry for the witless little moron that has been stupid enough to buy one of these damn things in the first place. You’re the one that needs to get off road moron boy, preferably into a ditch out of my way!
Children on the loo. There are a couple of these doing the rounds at the moment. One of these is promoting a spray for the bathroom. Now, as is clear, I’m not particular enamoured of children, in fact I don’t like them at all. Not even on toast. So I don’t actually have any sort of requirement to see one of the little animals sitting on the loo, yapping on about how much everything stinks, and how some vile perfume thing is supposed to make everything smell nice again. Actually, and I’m sorry to have to say this, it doesn’t make things smell nice at all.. it just overlays one smell with another one. My mother has one of these perfume thingies and I pressed it once out of curiosity. Bastard perfume shoots out like a bullet out of a gun, and where does it go? I’ll bloody tell you where it goes – right up your nose, that’s where. No wonder you can’t smell the odour any longer – your nose has just been beaten into submission, and you can’t smell anything except this vile chemical rose smell for the next two and three quarter hours. Then there’s the other commercial about the child who is ‘King of the loo’ – you know the one that I mean. Wet loo paper is all well and good, but there is no way that I’m going to buy this stuff just because it means that some incompetent child doesn’t leave skid marks on his underwear. And no, I’m not a parent, and no, it’s not aimed at me, but I still have to watch the damn thing. It’s the parents that I blame for this one actually – if they could actually be bothered to teach their vile offspring how to use a loo properly we wouldn’t have to put up with this rubbish! The only value of this stuff is to use as a deterrent – if a child doesn’t clean up after itself shove one of these into its mouth – ideally the tropical flavour one (tropical flavour – what’s that all about? They’re not for eating for God’s sake!) until it learns its lesson.
Loo adverts generally. Toilet paper is toilet paper. There’s nothing special about it. I’m not interested in super soft paper that some cartoon bear is trying to sell to me. And I don’t think it’s cute to see the little creations waving the stuff in the air and trying to pretend that it’s anything other than what it is. Besides, when was the last time you saw a bear using toilet paper? Actually, when was the last time you saw a bear anyway? Sorry Mr and Mrs Advertising Executive, you can take your bears and shove ‘em up your arse; at least that way you won’t need to use the stuff, problem solved.
Sanitary towel adverts. I don't have a problem with the product being advertised at all, but what really does get to me is the way that they're pretending they're advertising something else. All these references to 'liquid' and having it in blue. Look - we know what they are, and what they're for - stop pretending that they're some sort of product used for mopping up spills!
Voice overs. A proper voice over is ok, as long as you don’t realise it. However, I have yet to see an advert that does it properly. Or even close to properly. They’re badly synched nonsense and what’s worse – the voice over isn’t even saying the same words; it’s an entirely different line. Do these executives really think we’re that stupid? I can lip read, I can watch the screen and listen to the sound at the same time and I KNOW it’s not the same lines! Just put the ad on with the yankee voice and let me make up my own mind. Better yet, have some slight interest in your potential market and film a new advert! It might actually tempt me to think about buying the product if I knew that you had the slightest interest in me and my purchasing pounds. As it is, I’m not going to buy it, whatever it is.
These ‘quote me happy’ adverts. Will someone please tell me what ‘quote me happy’ is supposed to mean, in simple English? It’s a meaningless statement read out by poor desperate actors and written by more ad executives. Do they really think that I’m going to have an orgasm just because I’ve got an extra tenner off my car insurance? The most I’m going to do is say ‘oh, I am NOT going to dance around the room laughing and squealing like I’ve won the lottery – I actually have something called a life, which is clearly more than can be said for the executive that thought the campaign up in the first place.
Michael Fucking Winner, and that stupid bloody ‘Look mum, I’m on telly’ woman. Look Winner – you make films, and not very good ones at that. You do the advert because you’re paid to do it. You’re not some insurance saviour whose mission in life is to save me lots of money. You don’t give a damn about car insurance – you’re doing a job (badly I might add – stay the other side of the camera, at least I don’t have to look at you then), and I don’t actually care about how wonderful this insurance company is supposed to be. And just leave me alone with ‘Look mum I’m on telly’ for ten minutes. No – five minutes will do. Just pan the camera over to the wall for a moment… then when you focus back on the stupid bitch let her try and say it again with one arm rammed down her throat and the other one shoved up her backside.
Cleaning products. All of ‘em, from Mr Muscles who does the jobs you really can’t be bothered to do, through to the woman who smiles gently at her tosser of a husband or irritating child who walks mud into the house to the guy who used to be a vaguely ok actor cleaning the house in two seconds with the magical flash stuff. Actually, I don’t need to buy all this stuff in the first place because I pretty much tidy up straight away. Besides, pans are supposed to have food cooked onto them into several layers of black stuff, it makes the food taste better, doesn’t it? And do you really, I mean REALLY think I’m going to believe that your crappy dishwashing product is going to get all the layers of grease off that grubby glass dish? You’ve just thrown the filthy one away and got a new one out of it’s wrapping! Do me a favour!
Crisp adverts. Crisps are thin slices of potatoes deep fried in fat. They’ve got more calories than a MacDonalds super king sized lump of greasy fat covered with floppy cucumber that was picked about three years ago and covered in mustard which is the most startling yellow that I’ve ever seen. Crisps are not a nutritious snack; and they are vastly overpriced… open up one of those large packets and there’s two crumbs in the bottom – I think they must have a special instrument in the factory designed to puff up the size of the bag to make you think you’re actually getting some food in there. And Gary Linaker – you were a good footballer – but when it comes to selling crisps, you blow goats. It’s not funny, it’s not cute it’s just embarrassing. Stick to telling Hanson and the other bloke with a caterpillar on his top lip that they’re wonderful, it’s what you’re really good at.
Cap’n Birdseye. Is it just me, or is there something very suspicious about this elderly bloke spending his time with a bunch of kids in some sort of bizarre holiday camp? And he has the gall and impudence to try and tell us that they produce good food for children, and in the next breath says that you can find these pre-packaged lumps of rubbish in the chill cabinet with the other ‘ready meals’. Listen pal, if it’s a ‘ready meal’ it’s gonna be crap, because they all are, so sod off back into your cabin and wank off over your Mothercare catalogue – you know you want to. Either that or shack up with the elderly bloke trying to shove old fashioned toffee down his grandchild’s throat, you’ve both got a lot in common.
Nope, I can’t be doing with adverts. Those that are not dire are just bad. They’re full of stereotypes trying to sell us stuff that we don’t want, can’t afford and wouldn’t use even if we did buy them. They’re not funny, interesting or likely to tempt me to buy the lousy product. Personally I’d like to get them all into the same room and let them all get on with it and stop bothering me. And don’t get me started on Labrador puppies, soap that can talk, toothpaste that will make me smile like an American presidential candidate or deodorant that will have women flocking after me.
Ohhhh, I needed that!
P.