Durex

Another quick and dirty post:



I cannot see why this advert was banned at all, a woman being rushed by thousands of man-sized sperm isn't at all the thing that nightmares (and no doubt a great deal of Japanese pornography) are made of.

In other news http://newgenn.co.uk is now up and running and looking fine (if I may say so myself). That's why I'm not posting. It's a perfectly valid excuse. Expect a guilt-laced longer post soon.

Some random german porn channel

Its been 3 weeks since my last post, I have no idea how I've managed to not post for so long. Busy I guess. Anyway, as is customary when I'm a bit busy (both work wise and recreationally this time- although the fruits of my labour can be seen here if you wish- see that leaf? I designed that.), I find something dirty and amusing to advertise something. Usually they're adverts that have been banned for poor taste in selling something not too risqué. This, however, is a fantastic innuendo-laden advert for a german porn channel.

Sorry for the lack of video, but this blog claims to handle print as well

Suntory

Another video from Japan. Utterly perplexing.



As a person likely to suffer from dangerously high blood pressure at some point- both parents and various members of the family have been afflicted in the past- I'm often looking out for handy applications for it in order to ensure that I put it to good use. As increasing the chance of strokes or heart attacks isn't really classified as a handy application, it would appear that I'm some way off finding a practical use for the condition that will likely affect me in the future. So step forward Japan, again thinking outside the box.

Watching this advert, I had absolutely no idea what they were selling, it had more twists and turns than the Cambridge one-way system. First of all I thought it was a PSA about forest fires, then I thought it was a PSA about workplace accidents (I have seen some workplace accident videos that are as convoluted and complex as the Final Destination films when it comes to dispatching employees). Eventually it transpired that it was for tea.

A World Cup Special

What with the World Cup still looming large in the national consciousness (albeit less so after England’s dramatic-yet-completely-unsurprising exit), I figured that I should write a proper post about advertising and the World Cup. Sadly, this is difficult because there are virtually no adverts associated with the World Cup at the moment…Ok, so football-based advertising reached saturation point some time in mid-May and has continued since then, until it’s got to a point where there are literally no links between the product and football.

So here are the Top 5 Most Tenuous Links To Football Adverts:

Joint 5/4^th: Mars Bars/Macdonalds

So attempting to place these products with a level of conviction that isn’t in keeping with the world cup, here are two candidates from the world of convenience foods; MacDonalds and Mars Bars. Both are foods that are at least partially responsible for the obesity crisis that is set to plague England in the coming years. By the time the 2030 World Cup comes around, the average England player will have to get tailor-made jerseys to accommodate their girth.

MacDonalds is an Official Sponsor of the World Cup, and therefore has likely paid $10m-25m a year between 2007 and now. And Mars has got John Barnes to feature on their advert, rehashing his performance for New Order’s “World In Motion”:

Despite changing their packaging and dredging up John Barnes’ (thankfully short) rapping career, I’m inclined to give MacDonalds the edge of the two, purely for spending so much money. And whilst their advert endeavours to show the variety of football fans that visit the MacDonalds through the course of a day, it could similarly feature a range of criminals- from benefit thieves to serial killers- and still include the poetry.

Surely after spending such an absurd amount of money on the right to use the South Africa 2010 logo in their adverts, they should at least get Peter Crouch in to kick about a happy meal box (assuming they didn’t clash with his Pringles obligations).

3^rd: Continental Tyres

Continental, like MacDonalds, is World Cup Official Sponsor, which means that the commercial breaks on ITV are currently plastered with ads for tyres. Sadly none of these seem to have appeared on youtube. However, this one- featuring a guy kicking a tyre along a road- has:

With the spectacularly smug tag line “Expert Corner Taker and World Class Stopper” trying it’s best to shoehorn some similarities between football and driving a car (and to be fair, prompting a moment of mirth from me in the process), I’d have to give them an 8/10 for effort to go with their 2/10 for relevance to football (the 2 is for things that appear to be the same shape from a 2D perspective).

2^nd: Carlsberg

Don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of the ads featured in Carlsberg’s long running “Probably the best Lager in the world” adverts. The slick, and incredibly cool “If Carlsberg Did Night Clubs” (featuring Dusty Springfield’s Spooky) is one of my favourite adverts ever.

Whilst being relevant for a post training session binge- Carlsberg already has footballers and beer, all they need is a Coke problem and allegations of a nightclub rape- it goes way beyond “inspiring” and into “gaudy” territory. Featuring a number of English sporting heroes and some wonderful English imagery (a lion, knights and, for some reason, Kasabian), this advert wears it’s patriotism very much on its sleeve. Which is all well and good. Until you realise that Carlsberg is based in Denmark.

1^st: We Buy Any Car (dot com)

Likely to appear at the top of many other lists (mostly for adverts that cause aneurisms through the sheer weight of their irritation) is the We Buy Any Car adverts. Recently they released a new advert featuring a newsreader dancing about and generally looking like a prize tosser (albeit a prize tosser with decent co-ordination). Following the “success” of that, they decided to keep it relevant by including a football.

Like a local shop adding a crude drawing of a football on the sales boards around its beer aisle, it is completely transparent. A company that buys cars is completely irrelevant to football. I don’t see how it can be anything more than a total waste of money. 


Honourable Mentions:

Barclaycard: A guy watches a goal on tv, then runs to Africa. Scores goal. I actually really liked this advert so don’t want to say anything mean about it. (EDIT: The wonderful Kate Hinksman has told me that this is in fact not Barclaycard, but is in fact VISA. Scratch one from my research skills, I got the wrong contactless technology. Anyway, the advert can be viewed here.)

Pringles: Pringles change their name to “Pringoals” and have Peter Crouch kicking an empty tube in a bin. Then doing the robot.

Toshiba/Currys: Offering the opportunity for idiots to gamble on England winning, Toshiba offered £10 for every goal England scored and Curry’s offered to refund the price of a TV if England won. Shrewd purchasers would have rushed out and bought a Toshiba television from Currys. Smart buyers would have bought a better tv somewhere cheaper.

You know when you've been Tango'd

Another quick and dirty (read banned) advert. Tango are currently airing an ad featuring an old lady pulling up her top (thankfully to reveal a t shirt underneath). It's created some discussion, but Tango would be hard pushed to top the controversy surrounding this advert:



Yes, I fondly remember the days when Tango singlehandedly invented happy slapping. Following the banning of this advert (for showing kids it's funny to slap people), they released another one featuring the same fat orange fellow kissing his target instead. This may or may not be the primary cause of the high rate of chlamydia in under 25s.

Pay Per Click advertising- The Morphsuit

Despite the fact that this blog claims to be about tv, print, and internet advertising, almost every post I've written has been about videos- mostly tv ads. Whilst some of these have been viral adverts, there aren't a great deal of them about. One of the more prevalent forms of advertising online is Pay Per Click, as it suggests, you pay everytime someone clicks on your advert. You see these adverts every time you type something into google (on the right side), or every time you're on facebook. Google uses your search term (amongst other, more clandestine factors) to figure out what adverts are shown on the right side of your screen. Facebook, on the other hand, uses the information you give it.
Usually it just takes demographic factors into account- age, gender etc.. But sometimes it takes your interests into account: for example, when I first set up a facebook account, in music and interests I'd written "Pink Floyd", so for a while, every time I refreshed my homepage or visited someone else's page, I was greeted with an advert for David Gilmour t-shirts.
All of which leads me to question why this advert has started appearing in my feed:

This is possibly a bit of rational thinking taken to quite an extreme. Currently my relationship status is set to "single", so facebook has taken this to mean that I am desperate enough to buy a full body suit with the intention of getting off with some floozy on a night out, and has written the advert accordingly. Complete with a testimonial.
Then again, it's very difficult to guess precisely what sort of segment a product such as The Morphsuit (I couldn't resist having a look at the website) is aimed at. So far the only practical suggestion I can see for its use is to buy a gold one for a fancy dress film night and go as an Oscar.

What's in a name? Microsoft Kinect

Currently I am going through the rather terrible process of attempting to rename the brand that I designed a logo for a couple of weeks ago. It's something of a sticky wicket, and despite various attempts at brainstorming, making lists of potential names, prefixes, suffixes and various other cheaper fixes (I consumed a large amount of alcohol this weekend- although not in a bid to pluck a name out of thin air), I still have not hit upon that perfect name yet.

Anyway, whilst on the subject of new names, Microsoft announced a name change of their project Natal. I was particularly attached to the Natal moniker, so I am a little disappointed with the fact they've changed it. I was quite looking forward to having a shiny box on my television with "Natal" emblazoned on its noble flank.Or something.
Still, looking at it from someone currently beset by a creative block regarding names, the new name is actually a fantastic one. Bearing in mind that the whole thing is based around movement (or kinetic activity), it is a fairly descriptive word. In addition to this, "Kinect" sounds a little like "Connect", albeit said in an Australian accent. It's the same slightly nauseaous thought process that Nintendo had behind the wii, but it has the notable advantage of not being homophonous with an unwanted bodily fluid.

I guess it is the product of a multi-million pound company paying ridiculous amounts of money to people to come up with a new name. Some wonderfully clever wordplay. If anyone has any suggestings for my stuff, feel free to comment in the, well, comments.

Zazoo

Another quick and dirty post this week (after all, who really wants to hear me bang on about something that is designed to be quite funny which actually manages to pull it off?). Anyway, in keeping with the quick and dirty theme, here is an advert that was allegedly banned, but nonetheless is on Youtube. With over 20 million views. Somewhat better than your average itv slot.



Sure, it may be directly going against the pope's wishes of everyone having daft numbers of kids (and Aids), but who are you going to follow? A guy with awesome John Bon Jovi hair or a guy who professes to have a hotline to an allegedly omniscient god who is still somehow unaware that Aids is a bad thing to have in a large percentage of a country's population?

Next week: Less anti-religious rhetoric.

VolksWagen

Just a quick and dirty post here, as I have been quite busy the last couple of weeks, most recently due to designing leaf logos for NewGenn, the people who have been kind enough to employ me for the next few weeks. Expect to see the fruits of my labours (or at least the leaves) when I've finalised the design. Because I'm nice like that. Or hideously self-promoting. Depends on your view point.

Anyway, with the intention of this being a quick and dirty post, it's apt that I post an advert that is not safe for television (but you might be able to get away with it at work):



It's kind of sweet in its own way, and also demonstrates how the internet has- to a certain degree- freed marketers from organisations such as the ASA, in order to make adverts that feature small kids saying "Bollocks".


Or something like that.

Bird's Eye and Travelodge

Soft toys are brilliant, aren't they? They never need feeding, walking, or putting down after they’ve been hit by a car. They’re always there when you’re watching a scary film and need something to hide behind. However, whilst we’ve been letting these cute and furry inanimate objects surreptitiously slip into our homes, a couple of adverts doing the rounds currently have revealed their true nature.
In the first post I ever wrote about advertising, I commented on Bird’s Eye’s attempt to sex up fish fingers, which resulted in an advert that I would find uncomfortable to watch with my parents (which, I have to concede, suggests that it worked). In their most recent advert, they’ve gone back to more childish themes with this advert, depicting a polar bear in a freezer:



Ok, so maybe not entirely childish themes. Judging by this polar bear’s accent and general demeanour, he is in fact, in one of the higher positions in some sort of kitchen-based crime syndicate. His last words “I’m watching you” are more heavily laced with menace than every line that Hannibal Lecter has uttered. Combined.
To be honest, I’m quite surprised that there isn’t a corpse somewhere else in the freezer. Although I get the impression that he’s far to good at getting his goons to do the dirty work for him. Expect a director’s cut soon.

In fact, you barely have to wait, as Travelodge has already produced an advert illustrating the grittier side of the soft toy underworld:



Yes, here is Mr Sleep and the Zzz Squad dispensing mob justice to bed-based paraphernalia (and apparently a bear). And sure, whilst it may appear that they’re only removing the bad things which could inhibit a night’s sleep, how long until they start dipping into less legitimate activities? Tomorrow you lose a cushion you quite liked, the next day, it could be a finger.

Sleep tight.

Music In Adverts: Part 2

So a couple of days ago I was talking about good music in adverts, about how adverts sometimes perfectly capture the tone of a song, and present wonderful (or in the above case, amusingly anachronistic) imagery to go along with it. On other occasions, however, they completely debase the original meaning of the song, and enrage me in the process.

Having spent a while talking about Nina Simone in the last post, it seems fitting to use her as the prime example in this one. Anyone who’s watched television in the UK in the last couple of years will have heard the remix of her singing “Ain’t got no/ I’ve got life” on the Muller corner adverts. It’s a good song, and the remix is even more upbeat.
Recently, however, Muller has been getting a little too creative with it, changing the lyrics:



Here is a list, according to the song, of the things that Nina Simone had: Hair on her head, brains, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, smile, tongue, chin, neck, boobies, heart, soul, back, sex, arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet, toes, liver, blood, life, headaches, due dates and bad times too.
There is no mention of berry, cherry or anything else they claim to own in the most recent advert. They've taken a song about remaining positive- even when you're down and out- and turned it into a song about things you can eat with yoghurt.
Not only are the lyrics changed, but it’s also being bleated in an out of tune fashion by someone who couldn’t carry a tune if it came with handles.

In the same vein, here is what may happen if Muller is allowed to keep using their bastardised version of the song:



I can no longer sing along to Daydream Believer without accidentally slipping in lyrics about the farcical state of my lawn.

Music In Adverts

A few weeks ago I talked about the John Lewis commercial currently doing the rounds, part of what makes this advert so good is the music in it (Billy Joel’s “Always A Woman”, performed by Fyfe Dangerfield), which got me thinking about music in adverts.

I owe a shameful amount of my musical tastes to advertisers and the music they've chosen to put in adverts. Some stuff I’d likely have discovered anyway- such as Hendrix’s “All Along The Watchtower”, which was used on a car advert a few years ago or Nina Simone, who’s song “Sinnerman” featured in the Renault Clio Adverts slightly more recently (along with the utterly gorgeous Annelise Hesme).



And then there are other songs that I probably would never have heard had they not been put in an advert, such as The Flaming Lips’ “Silver Trembling Hands” recently featured on a Nokia advert or Martin Grech’s “Open Heart Zoo”, featured on a Lexus advert years ago- I bought his album purely on the strength of the 30 seconds of the song appeared in the advert.



Part of the reason I love the songs mentioned above is because of the associations I have already formed because of the adverts- Open Heart Zoo, several years later, still makes me think of abandoned streets- and I typically listen to it when I’m walking home after a night out, and Silver Trembling Hands puts me in the mindset of being at a crowded gig with a really good atmosphere, so usually goes on before I go out drinking and clubbing. Sinnerman just makes me want to argue about Britain being better than France with a stunningly attractive French lady.

Ok, so that last case may not be true, but the first two are, and it is a testament to the skill of the advert’s producers that they’ve managed to pick up the overall tone of the song well enough to place imagery with it that isn’t too dissonant, whilst still selling their product.

To illustrate this point, check out the John Lewis video mentioned above, with a subtly altered soundtrack

Check back later this week, for when adverts in music goes catastropically wrong, and I'm not just talking about Calgon and that infernal jingle of theirs.

Epuron

Just a very quick post, as I’ve been relatively busy over the last week or so, it might take a while to get what the advert actually was for (I got it from the hair tussling).

I thought it was quite a creative approach to attempting to change attitudes on wind power- the lack of hippies and men in white lab coats threatening us with imminent drowning probably made it slightly more accessible.

That’s all for now, as some spam in my inbox today might have said: expect something longer, soon.

A Price Comparison Website Special

Hello, and welcome an Advertising Waste special. Prepare to be dazzled, astounded and probably rather irritated by “The All Time Top Five Most Annoying Price Comparison Site Adverts So Far”. I’m Jonathan Crouch, and I’ll be guiding you through the evening’s proceedings. So keep calm, be prepared to quietly count to ten in your head, and I’ll see you on the other side. As for now…

Number 5:



Go Compare- Admittedly I liked the first advert, it was daft and slightly annoying, but contained some rather amusing bits of imagery, and a pun that, despite not really being particularly funny, had me in stitches the first time I saw it.
Sadly comedy is a tough thing to maintain. Keeping and identical tone and similar jokes soon gets old and boring (for example, Little Britain), and whilst they moved the venue the guy was singing in, it remained much the same. Which meant it just became an irritant, rather than funny.

Number 4:



Confused.com- This was one of the first price comparison websites to advertise on television. It was a low budget affair- cardboard cut outs of pints were used in one of them- and spent a lot of time on Digital TV channels, where it costs significantly less to show an advert.
This particular advert sees a chinless man attempting to empathise with the viewer by doing puppy dog eyes in their direction. Sadly this look that may have prompted an equally plain-yet-infinitely-charitable woman to sleep with him at university comes across as more than a little pathetic on his middle-aged, contour-free face.

Number 3:



Money Supermarket- In this ad the famous rich person Peter Jones tells us that we all need to be saving money (whilst self consciously scooting around on what I can only assume is the holodeck of his gigantic mansion). By the end of the advert he tells us through a decidedly forced looking grin “I’m in, shouldn’t you be?” a comment that is presumably meant to be funny because usually he says that he’s out. There’s not a lot I can say about it. Other than it’s annoying. Still, at least it hasn’t ruined my teenage memories. Not like…

Number 2:



Money Supermarket- When I first saw this advert, featuring the superb comedian Omid Djalili, I laughed, and actually enjoyed it.
Sadly the regular repeating of it and with the subsequent adverts’ distinctly similar brand of humour has meant it’s gone stale quite quickly. And has somewhat ruined my estimation of Omid Djalili.

Number 1:

In a shock result, Number 1 isn’t the meerkats from Compare The Market. I love those furry little fellas, and the fact that comparethemeerkat.com is an actual website containing links to Compare The Market, claiming to redirect those who have got confused is a creative way of increasing traffic to their website (it got me on Compare The Market's site and I don't even have a car, although it may not be a good thing to be attracting the wrong demographics- such as those with nothing to insure). But I digress, the most annoying price comparison website advert ever (so far) is this:



Confused.com- Yes, the original annoying price comparison website advert creators have continued to produce work of aggravating standards, this time resorting to what Charlie Brooker once described as "Loser Generated Content". Whilst I understand the importance of testimonials from the public about sites, do they really have to take them from such irritants? First of all, we’re treated to a guy playing guitar, because Confused.com is chummy like that, then we’re met with some black hair dyed git self consciously saying “Oh its recording” before barely stifling a laugh, because he's so happy to be doing this! Before long the advert plunges headlong into various people saying how friendly the site seems to be. This chummy music continues with all the happy people spouting compliments on the ease of use, before the camera cuts back to dyed hair youth drawing a crude smiley face on his hand because confused.com is your bloody friend see?!
Personally I am fed up of businesses (particularly ones which automate as many of their services as Confused.com presumably do) desperately attempting to be friends with the users of their products. Plus I don’t want to be sold stuff by members of the public who have already been fooled into believing this company sees them as more than a large human pound sign. Particularly ones who think drawing a smiley face on their hand is the height of style.

So this is the Top Five as it currently stands. If you think I've missed something, or just want to have a go at me for leaving out those get in touch. And I'll tell you that you're wrong. Simples.

John Lewis

This evening I saw this on television. I think it’s lovely. Admittedly the warm fuzzy feelings I get from this advert don’t go hand in hand with the white goods and overpriced toys that John Lewis typically deals in.



I just thought that this too pleasant not to pass on. I’m not even going to be cynical and grumpy about it. Something nice and gentle for Sunday evening/Monday morning.

Samsung and Viral Videos

The Internet. It’s great, isn’t it? It allows us to communicate with friends and relatives on the other side of the world for virtually nothing, it allows businesses to conduct their affairs with unprecedented speed, we can experience other cultures from the comfort of our own home, and- possibly most importantly- we can view videos of cats on youtube.



But youtube isn’t just great for videos of cats, businesses can also use it to advertise their products. And if a video is funny, or clever, or just flat out good enough for people to want to pass it on to their friends (or write about it in their blog for that matter), who then decide to pass it on to their friends, after a certain point it becomes a “viral”, although unlike an actual virus, it is generally considered a good thing. Samsung are probably the best-known large company that produces adverts with an intention of them going viral. A while back they produced this viral featuring sheep, to illustrate their LED TVs:



This has gained 11 million hits on the official video alone, and has been posted and reposted in many places. This year, with the first 3D television soon hitting the market, Samsung has released another advert that seems likely to go viral (I first saw it on the b3ta website, where a lot of things like that tend to appear). Whilst there is no guarantee that the company’s ad will be as popular as the above sheep one, this one did cause me to laugh out loud for most of the duration. Enjoy.

Carling: You Know Who Your Mates Are

After the last post, which featured Berocca and their ever-so-slightly-stolen idea of using multiple treadmills to great comedic effect, I feel obliged to write about one of my favourite sets of adverts ever. The Carling “You know who your mates are” adverts, the most recent being this:

This one features a group of friends stranded on a desert island, until a boat appears, but one of the group is missing. Not wanting to leave the hapless fellow stranded, the group of friends elects to wait for the next one. If you’re below the age of 30 and have a penchant for the occasional alcoholic beverage with friends, this will sound familiar as a regular fixture on a Friday or Saturday night. Usually at the end.

As my use of the phrase “sets of adverts” in the first paragraph implies, this isn’t the first time that Carling has made an advert that lampoons a typical night out. Not only have they been on a desert island, but also in the wild west:

and to one of the poles:

even in space:

Each one illustrates an aspect of a night out with good friends; gathering everyone together, the moments where a night hangs in the balance, and the inevitable rejection from a club because someone doesn’t have formal shoes. They have yet to air one involving a dodgy takeaway and the subsequent day spent by the toilet. Maybe they’ll show that next time. In a volcano.

This is a smart group of commercials, intelligently parodying both big-budget feature films and comparatively mundane nights out. It also succeeds in making me want to go out drinking with friends (which may include Carling, I suppose), which possibly says more about my time spent as a student than the efficacy of the adverts. 

Berocca

Advertising types can sometimes be wonderfully creative- see last week’s post on Magners for an example of this (although I guess that the Calbee advert was also inventive, in a shocking Japanese film-noir kind of way). On other occasions they just blatantly steal an idea from one of the creative souls that populate the Internet. Take Berocca’s treadmill advert:



Now if you spent much time on the internet a couple of years ago- during the early days of Youtube- you will no doubt have seen OK Go’s video for “Here It Goes Again” (sorry I can’t embed it, but apparently EMI doesn’t appreciate a bit of free publicity) featuring treadmills, being used in a creative and humorous way. A good, creative, reasonably inexpensive music video.
This Berocca ad on the other hand, steals the initial idea of (mis)using several treadmills placed alongside each other, and then places it in a grey concrete square, with some people who seem to lack any kind of charisma. Although props to the guy in the suit for trying, he gives the impression that he wears a novelty tie to work as a replacement for his personality.

Or maybe that’s just what the advert is trying to say: If you lack originality, cover it up with someone else’s idiosyncratic designs.

Calbee- A Japanese Brand of Crisp, apparently

Usually when I look at adverts, I can see the ideas that underpin them. Even with the Mercedes adverts a couple of weeks ago, where they didn’t relate to the car, it was obviously building a brand more than anything else. However, there is an entire genre of adverts (adverts can have genres right?) that I can’t begin to understand. In what is going to no doubt become a regular part of this blog, here is a post about an advert from Japan:



If for some reason, you cannot see what is going on in the advert, I’ll attempt to explain what is going on:

0:01-0:05 Ah ok, I see a child walking home from school, judging from the comic book-esque thought bubble, he’s unhappy about something. And there’s a dog too. Although there’s something not right about it.

0:06-0:07 Apparently the dog has stopped the child. By putting his paw on his shoulder. From a standing position.

0:08-0:09 What the hell is going on? Why does that dog have a disembodied ear? He appears to have a message written on some paper, my ability to read Japanese is a little shaky, but I can’t see any way that couldn’t be a threat. Judging by the kid’s grave expression, I think its safe to assume that that ear has been taken from one of his parents. We could well have a hostage situation here.

0:10-0:12 Ok, I didn’t think it was possible, but this advert has got even more odd. The dog now has the head of a doll. Still holding the message, in addition to some sort of racket? The kid has taken this remarkably in his stride, still stoically mourning the loss of his parents.

0:13-0:16 Jesus Christ the dog is mobile: Doing some sort of curious dance, then walking on its hands, mysteriously donning a pair of shorts to do a handstand in (I think by this point its safe to accept that it is in fact a man in a fairly unconvincing dog suit).

0:17-0:20 Er, a doggy fan dance, and not a particularly good one, as it’s doing a very poor job of covering up its pubic region. Thank god it’s been neutered.

0:21 I see the kid has obviously forgotten the sorry matter of this dog taking his parents hostage (probably), choosing instead to chase a bit of tail.

0:22-0:23 Oh no, the dog’s back in an intense shot that lingers a little uncomfortably. He looks mad. I think those poor children are next. Is nothing sacred?

0:24-0:30 My mistake, apparently he has a peace offering. Something in a packet (damn my poor grasp of Japanese), apparently crisps. Yeah, that’ll bring back his parents. And canine star jumps. Nothing about this advert makes any sense.

As far as I can tell, the message behind this advert is “Hi kids, eat Calbee potato chips or a guy dressed as dog will take your parents hostage and perform clumsy burlesque in your garden”. Perhaps this is a cultural in-joke that I don’t understand.

Magners

Just a quick one this week… in honour of the decision not to increase tax on cider by 10%, here is an advert for Magners. Which apparently isn’t even cider.




As mentioned in a previous post, alcohol advertising is difficult because it is more strictly controlled by the Advertising Standards Authority, who say that you’re not allowed to show the effects of alcohol- presumably the increased confidence and the improved ability to dance (or is that just me?) rather than throwing up and ending up with profanities written on your face and penis.
One way that alcoholic drink companies get around this is by making adverts about their brand, or by going into some detail about the production process. Although I doubt that Magners is entirely telling the truth here.



Why do they even bother rebuilding that wall?

Despite all of the ways in which the ASA restricts the activities of marketers (expect a post on awesome banned adverts at some point in the future), I think that in the case of alcohol advertising, it necessitates a more creative approach, which can only be a good thing, right?

Mercedes Benz, Dove and Match.com

So, welcome to the first real post of Advertising Waste: now with 20% More Presence.

Have you ever noticed how luxury car adverts rarely promote the car?




Looking at the recent history of Mercedes Benz adverts, they read a lot like the motivational posters that were popular a while back. Here is one for Attraction:



And the ad currently doing the rounds, on Presence…



Having watched that a couple of times, I can’t tell you a thing about a specific Mercedes Benz car. I can’t tell you how big its engine is. I can’t even tell you how much it is- although I can guarantee it’s expensive.
I can, however, tell you about Josh Brolin’s views on “Presence”, or at least the views he’s been paid to promote. According to Mercedes “[presence is] not about ostentatious adolescent display, it should be effortless”. Because nothing says effortless like buying a £70,000+ luxury brand car.
Whilst I can see the relevance of aspiration and attraction in regards to a Mercedes Benz- who wouldn’t want an attractive car to show that they’ve really made it- to say that owning one is not ostentatious is daft; if you don’t want to show off about the fact that you’ve got money, buy a second hand Vectra.

Promoting skincare products for men has never seemed to be particularly easy, a lot of the adverts seem a little confused, apparently attempting to appeal as much to girlfriends and wives as much as the men who need moisturiser. Dove, however, has stepped away from the traditional man-in-front-of-a-mirror advert to give us this:



Starting off right at the beginning, with the very moment of conception, it goes on to show the growth and fulfilling of aspirations throughout a man’s life, to the William Tell Overture. It has some moments some caused me to laugh (mostly at the ‘kid’ on the right 15 seconds in- also visible on the preview). It then shows him lying on the grass, relaxed and at ease, just as the voiceover says “You’re a man”. And I can practically hear an entire gender answering “…who won’t moisturise”.
Still, it’s nice to see a bit of humour being applied to marketing men’s grooming products, for a few years men who use them (and I count myself in this number) have almost exclusively been portrayed as narcissistic preening gits (I don’t count myself in this number) in front of the mirror- the only exception being Lynx and their feminist-baiting advertising.

Finally this week, match.com, with their “Duet” Ad:



Much like the Dove and Mercedes Benz adverts, this doesn’t really promote the site, so much as an abstract concept. However, instead of selling the idea of being a man (who is comfortable enough in your own skin to cover it in moisturising shower gel), or the idea that a new Mercedes Benz isn’t an ostentatious show of wealth but really more like a quiet poker player, sitting on a great hand. Match.com are selling the abstract concept of love.
The advert features an impromptu duet between a man and a woman in a music shop, singing about stuff they like. It is a genuinely lovely advert and having seen it a number of times, I can safely say that I would very much like to meet a woman in this way. It’s definitely preferable to idly searching a group of pictures online to pick out a girl from her face, because you're incapable of striking up a conversation with a girl in public, let alone strike up a song.
I can also say that having spent a lot of time in music shops, they seldom contain women, and even if they did, it is rare to be able to hear the quiet strum of an acoustic guitar and gently uttered vocals over a 14-year-old playing Smells Like Teen Spirit with enough distortion to make Kurt Cobain cover his ears. Despite the notable hindrance of being dead.
It may be advertising a love story lifted straight out of the film “Once”, and it may not manage to actually make me want to go online to find a spouse. But at least it beats match.com bleating that they’ve run out of men/women.

6 Lessons learned from advertising

Hello, and welcome to my new blog. Currently acting under the moniker "Advertising Waste", until I go through a needless and unecessarily expensive rebranding strategy somewhere about the 6th post, it is a blog about the best and worst of advertising in print, tv and the internet.

Just to ease in regular readers of my blog 6 Lessons (a status which is no mean feat considering the irregularity of my posts) here is a remastered director's cut of my 6 Lessons Learned From Advertising post, dated 21st September 2009. Expect something new soon.

"One of my final year modules for my degree was “Behavioural aspects of Marketing”. This was, without doubt, my favourite module in my entire degree. It provided an interesting insight into the minds of consumers- and more often than not a rather more disturbing insight into the minds of advertisers- and basically revolved around using psychology to make people buy your stuff.

Usually, you can see the thought processes of the marketers at work in adverts, you can see how they use attractive models- whom you wish to associate with- eating a KFC or other equally unattractive meal, and it makes you want to buy it. In theory.

However, some of the adverts seem to be making a fairly concerted effort to dissuade you from purchasing their product, by clearly aiming their advert at the wrong audience, or just by being so odd or useless that you sort of forget what the advert is actually for. There are some absolute classics from the past (The Flintstone’s flogging cigarettes anyone?) but I’m going to attempt to write only about adverts you’re likely to see in an ad break this evening.

6 Lessons learned from advertising (recent edition)…

1: The Lesson: People can’t tell the difference between an actual sporting hero and a terrible 128-bit rendering of them

Learned From: Gillette Fusion

There isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with this advert. I think Gillette’s strength of branding- and frequent use of Tiger Woods, Thierry Henry and Roger Federer- is good enough to overcome this utterly bizarre change of direction.

The previous Gillette adverts featuring the sports equivalent of the super friends (assuming that the super friends was based around Superman and company mildly inconveniencing people until they ditched their old razors) were not bad. They showed a particularly mercenary side of Woods, Henry and Federer as, in the pay of the Gillette corporation, they used their not inconsiderable collective sporting talents to force one poor bloke into ditching his razor- completely ignoring the risks of hitting balls at a guy with a razor sharp, er, razor to his face. But, after their initial success getting this man to adopt the Fusion (having confronted him in a public restroom), something odd happened.

Perhaps it was a member of the Wilkinson Sword faction enacting some devious plan (straight out of a terrible comic book from the mid-60s), but all of a sudden Tiger Woods and Roger Federer were both replaced with what appears to be Playstation 2 generated doppelgangers. And there seems to be a bitter rivalry in the place of the co-operative (albeit slightly malicious) spirit of the former advert.

As I said at the beginning, there is nothing wrong with this advert; it’s just that it makes absolutely no sense considering the previous advert. And in the English version (it’s the American ad featured above) they aren’t even shown jumping out of the television, so there is no clear reason why two of the best loved sporting heroes of this generation are suddenly rendered in awful 128-bit shadows of their former selves.

2: The Lesson: Clearasil: May cause confidence, also rape.

Learned From: Clearasil

Ok, admittedly this sounds like an extreme and irrational conclusion to make- largely because it is. In this advert, having used his daily cleansing solution, this teenager has come over all ‘confident’ and ‘capable of talking to women’. It’s sickening to see.

In order to show off his newfound confidence and his lack of spots he approaches a girl putting on lipstick before going into the cinema and asks if he can borrow some. Being a generous and kind hearted soul, she obliges, albeit whilst wearing a quizzical expression.

But as she hands the lipstick to him he lunges towards her, in an attempt to place his lips upon hers. Now I’m not a fancy big city lawyer (nor am I above quoting the Simpsons), but I’m fairly certain that there is a law against forcing yourself upon someone without their prior consent. I was genuinely hoping to see him dragged off her by cinema security and delivered to a police station.

Then, as the scene cuts to a judge, he is sentenced to a couple of years in juvenile detention. And then 2 months into his 2-year sentence, covered in spots having been cut off from his precious supply of Clearasil. Then being shivved by a 12-year old arsonist for taking the last of the Apricot Munch Bunch. Fade to black. Admittedly this probably wouldn’t have sold any more Clearasil, but at least it would have been gritty and realistic.

Hell, even disregarding the sexual assault, it’s not even a very good line.

3: The Lesson: The internet is a good place to find romance.

Learned From: eHarmony, Match.com

Good news! eHarmony, the website responsible for setting up 2% of marriages in America is coming to the UK! eHarmony is a business (I find that it sounds much more romantic if you put it that way) responsible for matching people together using some sort of complicated algorithm which compares their interests and beliefs and stuff like that.

Admittedly, if I were the sort of person who would be tempted by some sort of online dating service- which I’m really definitely not- I would probably appreciate the use of “science” (or at least someone’s ability to match up favourite films or books) to find someone a match.

I’m still quite tempted to sign up on there posing as a staunch and active anti-Semite whose favourite film is Bambi, and who passionately loves Belle and Sebastian. Also enjoys weekends away on his 42-ft yaught. Loves dogs. Go on eHarmony, find a woman with flexible enough morals for this fictitious man.

Also worth a mention is match.com, with their brilliant(ly lazy) approach to tv advertisements. Every few weeks they flip between having too many men, and having too many women. To be fair, this probably is the case; after all, if there are more fish in the sea and less anglers attempting to catch them, you have a better chance of hooking a really hot fish even if your rod is useless. So there will be more people going out attempting to be fishermen. 

Crumbling metaphors aside, I just think this is a fairly lame approach to marketing, surely match.com wants to be showing off the vibrancy of its clientele? Focusing on how wonderful they are, rather than just repeating an identical advert every 4-6 weeks and drawing attention to the fact that they’re not particularly discerning when it comes to screening. I wonder if they’d happily accept the profile of a neo-nazi.

Perhaps in both of these cases I’m just being rather petty because I’m fundamentally opposed to dating websites. I actually enjoy getting to know someone though conversation, and if every minutia of someone’s interests and beliefs is clearly spelled out in their profile, then that experience is lost. Nevertheless, it seems to be an increasing trend in America, where 1 in 8 marriages are between people who met online (and 4 in 8 marriages result in divorce), so the UK will no doubt be close behind.

4: The Lesson: ED is the most uncomfortable thing on television

Learned From: 40over40.com

Whilst on the subject of uncomfortable social situations involving love, let’s talk about erectile dysfunction in over 40s. Sure, it may be a prevalent problem, but if you’re wishing to show someone being a formerly-impotent-person-who-suddenly-has-a-new-lease-of-life, surely it would be better to have someone more, well, attractive.

If 40over40 had come to me to design this advert, I would have got George Clooney in (sure he can impregnate a woman just be exhaling within 30 feet of her, but that doesn’t matter), doing some sort of car chase- driving into a tunnel, diving into some water, fill it full of rich, disgusting imagery. Perhaps have Julia Roberts in there somewhere in a bikini. Just basically condense the 3 ‘Oceans’ films into a 30 second spot.

As it is, there is still some sort of imagery- only in this event it involves some unattractive 40-something bloke shuffling around uncomfortably with his wife in a manner akin to dancing, whilst bolero plays in the background.

Actually thinking about it, I think this advert is brilliant. So many people are going to be permanently turned off by it, sales of whatever they’re selling will rocket.

5: The Lesson: Actually…

Learned From: Bird’s eye salmon fingers

First of all I’d like to doff my cap to Birdseye for trying to make fish fingers sexy. Secondly I would like to severely chastise Birdseye for trying to make fish fingers sexy.

I first saw this advert a couple of weeks ago, whilst my parents were in the room. It was so laced with innuendo that I found it very difficult not to burst out with laughter at how plain horrible it was. About fish fingers. Being sexy.

It was frequently touched upon in the marketing units of my degree that humour is a good way to convince people to buy things. Typically with things like chocolate bars, or alcohol (where strict guidelines mean that they can’t actually sell the beer on its own merit as encourages alcoholism, so they have to focus on the brand) this works well.

I’d say this doesn’t work so well with fish fingers, to be honest I was mainly disturbed by the fact that they were a) animate and b) possessing some sort of libido. I used to prefer the days when Captain Birdseye would roam around his little boat, looking like John Peel after a few years at sea.

6: The Lesson: It sounds scientific, it looks scientific, so it must be scientific.

Learned From: Any cosmetic product

Cosmetics adverts are possibly the most transparent of all advertisements when it comes to using psychology to make people buy things. They use celebrities on the grounds that people want to emulate them and have hair just like Davina, or a face just like Andie MacDowell’s when they’re 50 (although its probably easier to look prettier when you’re 50 if you’re a famously attractive person who used to earn millions for her film roles). Then they make up science.

This is possibly the best known of all of the sneaky tricks that businesses use to sell products, they use long words which the average layman won’t understand, then they show diagrams of blue dots melting into the hair follicles and making them stand up, or showing little white orbs filling up gaping crevices in an elderly woman’s face.

Then they bring in studies that have shown (usually quite inconclusively if you read the small white text, using a very small sample group) that 82% of people agree that their wrinkles ‘appear’ to have been reduced. This rather ambiguous language allows them to get away with boasts which otherwise wouldn’t be allowed through the Advertising Standards Authority.

All of this gives a façade of the product being good (according to science, no less), despite the fact that typically it’s not hugely different from the regular Tesco shampoo or conditioner. Except, of course, for the price tag.

Still, I can’t complain too much about cosmetics products. Were it not for Pantene, there wouldn’t be this advert:

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