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Taste. It’s not about how much money you spend making your advert. It’s not even about the field that you get your well-paid celebrity to stand in. It’s not about the chef, and how much money he’s making off the advert. It’s not even about the fact that the sausages appear to be deep-fried and left alone (albeit in a well-ventilated field) to cook while a chef ponces around in wellies talking about taste. It’s not even about the fact that the chef’s mouth is made of 75% asbestos and it’s definitely not even about the fact that there’s nothing eloquent about the analogy of a sausage being about everything that a supermarket stands for.

It’s a matter of taste and these sausages are fucking tasty.

Hello, lovelies. I must admit to feeling a little lethargic and distractable today and as such I’m going to do something that’s so easy to take the piss out of that you may all think that I’ve lost my touch completely. I’m talking of course about the Coke Zero advert that came out at the launch of the product in 2006. Yes, that’s four years ago but I never tried to lay claim to this being some kind of current affairs advertising blog, did I? No. Of course I didn’t.

So here’s how this is going to work. Due to the simplicity of premise in this advert ie. “smug twat walks around Madrid enticing other smug twats into his sticky web of smuggery” I’m just going to quote everything these guys say. Easy, yeah? But I do want to start with these two vending machines that he’s bought his great-tasting beverage from. Where are they? Why are they seemingly in the middle of a road? What are they plugged into? WHAT HAPPENS IF IT RAINS?! Coke are clearly trying to end the Coke-loving population by utilising poorly positioned vending machines.

Right, so our blonde hero’s got his drink, takes a sip and wow! Suddenly I feel compelled to talk to the camera!

“Great Coke taste… zero sugar?“

Zero sugar? He says almost as if it’s a question. I like to think that this is the way that Newton was really inspired, or Archimedes sitting in his bath had a really brilliant idea when someone lobbed in a Lush bath-bomb. He’s off! He’s gone. Ideas are rushing through his head like Tom Cruise running from something in all those films where he runs away from things that aren’t specifically after him.

“So why can’t all the good things in life come without downsides?”

This is a direct implication that the drinking of Coke Zero has no downsides. Y’know… except the cancer. But yeah, no downsides at all. There’s nothing that could be seen as a downside to the great taste of Coke Zero. That is, of course, unless you note that it tastes like crap. That doesn’t deter our friend who’s off for a stroll around the city to see if the lessons that the gurus at Coke Zero have taught us could be spread to other things.

“Like girlfriends without the five year plan.”

Yeah. Women, eh? Women and their plans. They’re desperate to tie you into things that us, as MEN, don’t want. It’s such a downside when you get into a relationship with a girl and for some insane reason they think it’s going to ‘go somewhere’. Christ on a bike, women are such idiots. I don’t know why we put up with their nonsense. Maybe it’d be better if we just all loved one another, eh lads? Oh, you don’t like that either? Fair play.

But hark! Where has this suited berk come from? Presumably he’s just seen this guy having the time of his life and abseiled down the side of the building to have a chat with him. Bloody marvellous display of camaraderie there.

“Or work-mates, without the work.”

Well, I don’t know about you readers but I’ve had jobs where I’d rather work than speak to the other dead-behind-the-eyes inhabitants of my working environment. Work-mates without the work (if you’re keeping score) is ‘mates’. I have plenty of mates. It’s just a sad fact of this guy’s life that the only human interaction he gets aside from weeping into a crusty tissue comes when he puts on that suit and goes into work the next day, ready to regail all of his ‘work-mates’ with tales of how awesome his life is.

The twat express is gathering pace now, people are jumping aboard at every possible junction to put forward some downsides from their utterly pathetic life. What about bras? They’re irritating things that women have.

“Like bras without the fumbling.”

It’s. Not. That. Fucking. Hard. To. Get. A. Bra. Off. Two little clips, pinch your fingers together and off they pop. I would write a guide for this guy but I’d imagine that the reason he’s having such a problem is that it is a bit harder to take off a bra when the woman’s struggling and trying to beat you off her with a handbag.

“Or like holidays without having to come home.”

This guy gets what he deserves when even a static lamp-post is so sick of listening to him that it smacks him across the face. I will just note though that if you don’t come home from a holiday, you live there and then you’ll need to go somewhere else for a holiday. It’s not really a complicated thought but I just want to cover all the bases.

The phalanx of twat-dom stops at a junction to let a woman cross the road. They hate them, but damn do they respect them. Wait, is that a chicken? No. It’s someone’s hilarious ringtone.

“Like mobile phones, without the dodgy ringtones.”

Unfortunately it’s this guy’s parole officer wondering where he is. Another simple note. Shut up, you can change ringtones. They’ve reached the end of the line and every twat in this city is standing basking in front of an unfurling Coke Zero banner. This would be about the time where I’d have lifted a large, red, bakelite phone and uttered the words “You are go.”

At which point one solitary plane would fly overhead dropping a bomb onto the plaza where these people stood. That way, not only would we not have to drink Coke Zero but traffic would never again be held up by columns of twats blindly following a blonde guy shouting about the things that women do that annoy them.

Problem solved.

Ladies & Gentlemen,