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.