Please do let me know what you think of this. It’s an experiment so I’m willing to take criticism and comments on it to help me improve this nonsense.

That being said however, it’s always been a struggle to sell the ‘great taste of Pepsi Max’ when in reality it tastes like sucking sweetened chicken vomit through a cheese-cloth. That’s why they tend to go in more for adverts which appeal to the EXTREME element of calling a product MAX which will appeal to MEN! MEN LIKE EXTREME THINGS! It’s true. Guys, the next time you go to the supermarket take a look at the deodorants. Many will say EXTREME, ULTIMATE, UNBEATABLE, MAX. That’s because the manufacturers want you to feel invincible as result of using the product. I’m pretty certain that if they could put an image of a man surviving a nuclear holocaust, shielded by an eerie white shroud on the cans then they would. Much in the same way that if they could get off with making an EXTREME toothpaste that tasted like metal shavings, I’m quite sure they’d go for that too.

Surely this is the kind of thing that I should be looking into! Well, yes but given that it’s not an advert I’ve got to pick through that first which is why I’m eternally grateful to Mark Grainger for pointing out this piece of unrelenting cockery from the chicken-sick purveyors at PepsiCo which is either designed to amuse, offend or just irritate. I’m sure by the end of this piece we’ll have ascertained which.

In all honesty, I’ve no idea how this managed to escape my gaze for so long. It’s probably best to set up an overview of the advert in the minds of the advertising executive.

“The Asteroid campaign gave us the ability to show the consumer that people who drink Pepsi Max are go-getters who are willing to do absolutely anything it takes in order to get what they want be that in their professional life or their personal life.” - Fictional Pepsi Max Advertising Executive, 2010

Of course, what they’ve ended up with in reality are a group of people who don’t take no for an answer. I think the primary thing we have to realise here is that our friend or the ‘protagonist’ of this piece (if it’s correct to call him that in such a depressingly misogynist piece of advertising) is a desperately pathetic man who is so sure that he’s going to crash and burn with any woman that he meets in that bar that he’s enlisted a number of his friends using expensive television broadcast equipment (even if it’s only in the other room) to get a girl to sleep with him.

Sure, on the face of it the implication that women are stupid enough to fall for a ploy which was at least partially ‘masterminded’ by someone who was in American Pie Presents “The Naked Mile” is deeply offensive to anyone with even a modicum of humanity but maybe this poor loser is to be pitied. I mean for a start he’s friends with someone who was in American Pie Presents “The Naked Mile” who is now apparently so desperate for an acting gig that he’s willing to put “Conspiracy to Sexually Assault” on his CV.

Steve Talley "starring" as Dwight Stifler in American Pie: The Naked Mile

Second of all he’s running a risk giving this guy the ‘reporter’ gig in the first place. What if the girl or ‘target’ as I’m quite sure the protagonist of the advert would refer to her as had seen American Pie Presents “The Naked Mile” … actually. No. Fair enough. I see your point. She’s statistically more likely not to have seen it. Maybe that was all part of the plan.

Naturally this advert has been cleared by the ASA who, according to bitterwallet.com claimed that it was too fantastical a situation to offend. Of course it is but what if people begin to try it out, eh? What if young men everywhere are suddenly asking for expensive broadcasting equipment for their birthday and Christmas presents? Maybe this advert is part of the government’s cost-cutting plans. Surely it would be cheaper to keep a note of those buying expensive TV equipment and hiring Steve Talley than to actually keep an up-to-date sex offenders’ register?

The exploitative and offensive nature of this advert is what makes it so reprehensible and to see the three rapists (because that’s essentially what they are) congratulating each other on a rape well done is enough to make you sick to your stomach. While the ASA has said its piece on this advert, you can still make your voice heard by complaining about it here. If you want to of course, I imagine you’re probably busy trying to get hold of Steve Talley by now for your latest “project”.

This advert is in bad taste. Not only does it promote deception in pursuit of sexual intercourse the product also tastes really bad.

PLEASE NOTE: It’s only fair to mention that Steve Talley also starred in the slightly less successful American Pie Presents “Beta House”. It was also shit.

So often, adverts do all of the hard work for me meaning that I can just sit back and have a little sob into my cup of tea. What am I crying about, you might be asking? Well, you’ve now seen the advert so if you’re still wondering what it takes to drive an advertising blogger to the edge of tears then you should probably go and have a little lie down and leave the reading of this article for the sensible kids, okay?

It often goes ignored when a company makes a total hash of their advertising campaigns by utterly misjudging the needs or desires of their customers. You’ve seen it before with advertisers using kids to advertise to adults and Strongbow rejecting the mere idea that women drink their products in favour of a nice big, blokey advert.

Although this one is something new to me. I’ve been sitting trying to rack my brains trying to work out what the hell the thinking behind this particular Zyklon B shower of an advert was. The premise, of course, is not lost on me. Catchy song and dance number jams the product in the very sub-conscious of the customer and they find themselves humming it while walking down the street (presumably a contributing factor to the alarmingly high suicide rate in the UK).

Of course, quite what possessed Toolstation to pick the hokey-cokey song, a song which, no matter what you read seems to have had something to do with Canadians and has been a staple of children’s parties ever since the mid-20th century to form the main thrust of their advertising campaign will doubtless go along with the Tutankhamun Curse as one of the great mysteries of our time.

Tim had real trouble with the concept of the Hokey Cokey

Not only the choice of the song but the tone with this jaunty, chummy, cockney-knees-up style of singing which would make Kate Nash cringe in her cardigan that makes you want to find the strength to tear your television in half so that you need never see a gaggle of over-enthusiastic dancers/singers getting all fizzy in the knickers over the Tradesman’s equivalent of Argos. Herein lies the real issue, clearly no-one did any market research and asked any tradesmen what they’d like a company that sells parts to them to represent.

By making this advert as bright and simplistic as possible, they’re insulting the intelligence of the people who will be using their service. Using Toolstation is like a party game. It should be fun for the simple little idiots who want to get their little tools for their little jobs and their little lives. This advert jauntily invokes an image of Tradesmen (not women, clearly) as mockney, blokey types who are liable to burst into a choreographed song and dance routine when the sheer excitement of being able to get tools from stock washes over them and causes them to black out from the ecstasy of the whole experience. Are these people simple? I doubt it but I wouldn’t be surprised if Toolstation’s advertising people are.

You see, if I was a tradesman as opposed to some know-it-all wanker with a superiority complex I’d be saying “this song-and-dance number is all very well but I wonder if they would be able to get me… X, Y and/or Z.” because they say there’s “always nothing they’re without” which, aside from being clumsy songwriting is more than likely utter bullshit.

“It’s no wonder we’re so popular!” Yes. It is a wonder you’re so popular with your irritating, patronising and horrendously badly written and thought-out advert which makes Hollyoaks look like The Wire. Given the choice between two companies, based solely on advertising, surely you’d go for the far more to-the-point, erudite and punchy advert from their rivals Screwfix Direct?

I know I would, even if I don’t understand the importance of having an 18 watt drill. By choosing to portray its staff and customers as Britannia High wannabe tosspots, this advert makes the entire name of the business seem strangely apt. Toolstation. Say no more.

Shop with us. We're all wankers.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before some cynical bastards (ie advertising executives) got hold of some little tykes for an advert aimed at adults. Naturally, this has happened before but never on a level which is quite this sickeningly awful. As usual with Fadvertising, it all looks fairly innocuous but let’s take a look at what the Morrison’s Kids advert is really trying to say.

Let’s start with the bloody Balamory bus that they ride in on. I know it’s not even close to being the focus of the shot, presumably left out in favour of Nick Hancock’s Sunday dinner clucking in the foreground but it’s clearly a nice little country school. Apparently a nice country school with three kids at it. This is David Cameron’s Big Society prophesised by a major grocer. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Oh wait! Hang on! There’s millions of them! There’s bound to be more than would actually fit on that little bus. Unless these children are part of the farming community. In that sense, I mean that they’re about to be taken out to slaughter and sold at the deli counter of a local supermarket.

Your friendly local butcher; selling kids to kids!

That’s a pretty disturbing image but I’m quite sure that there’s literally no other explanation other than that children are being killed and sold as veal. Joke. Honestly. Put the phone down. The lawyers don’t care. Of course, on their little trip down t’farm the kids get to meet the jolly ol’ farmer and… some fud from Morrisons? What’s he doing there? Where’s the teacher?! Have these children really been allowed to be taken on a school trip by the official representative of a major supermarket?

This is what I find really objectionable about this ad. Sure, it’s not as awful as seeing Richard “The Hamster” Hammond pushing a trolley across the English countryside when he could just as easily have picked one up OUTSIDE THE SHOP but it does prey on a different part of the psyche. Nostalgia.

We all remember primary school trips to museums, farms, whatever random attraction happened to be in or near your town but I really don’t remember there being a Sales Assistant from a supermarket there to interpret the words of my father like a cross between Joseph and Freud. I shudder to think what that would look like. So your precious childhood memories are now being warped into something which Morrisons are using to say “HEY! HEY, ADULTS! WE USE BRITISH THINGS! NO VARIANT CJD HERE! HONEST!”

Forgotten your childhood yet?!

Trust me when I tell you that this will open the floodgates and soon children will be being ‘educated’ by FTSE 250 companies instead of by schools. Their educational programming will have a magic floating pen with a light on which is incapable of spelling anything other than “Waitrose”.  The end is nigh, my friends. The supermarkets will be buying you soon. Hide the children! Hide them!

That’s nothing to do with the contents of today’s blog, you understand. Just thought you could maybe do with a pick-me-up before the inevitable grind of a Monday gets its filthy talons into your soul and rend at the mythical ectopl… sorry.

Perhaps it’s just me being, well, me but I found this advert to be extremely childish:

You see, my dear friends. No matter what you may think, regardless of how much over the odds you pay- every single Toyota in the world belongs to Jarno, Justin, Bridie (who unfortunately doesn’t look like a pastry-snack and therefore all jokes are void), Kazuhiro, Emilie, Mike and Carly. In all honesty, most Toyota owners probably didn’t know this but as usual this is an issue of people not reading the small-print.

In actual fact, all Toyotas are actually owned by this small conglomerate of Toyota employees due to an administrative error first discovered in 1994. I think it’s time people knew. Toyota owners! Stand up and unite against the conglomerate. From the smug bastard in a Prius to the equally smug bastard in a Rav 4, undoing all of smug bastard #1′s good work for the environment I urge you to take them down.

The fight begins here. I won’t be joining you though, I drive a Ford. Have fun though.

]]> http://fadvertising.net/2010/07/18/childish-advertising/feed/ 0 Michael Park http://fadvertising.net/2010/07/13/wow-thats-a-disturbed-human-being/ http://fadvertising.net/2010/07/13/wow-thats-a-disturbed-human-being/#comments Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:31:21 +0000 Michael Park http://fadvertising.net/?p=294 ]]> Sometimes I get sent things after I beg on Twitter and I’m delighted to say that ‘Our Man In Havana’ Dan Verg came up with this advert which enforces American stereotypes and also forces you to question the competency of the staff of said shop. I’ve decided that due to the fact they have branches in the UK and the fact that I’m a fucking maverick.

Americans are loud. Americans are brash. Americans walk into shops and are so surprised by the fact that a product is competitively priced that they SHOUT ACROSS THE WHOLE SHOP TO GET THEIR POINT ACROSS! That’s why we all love Americans, right? Essentially they’re better than watching that little bald twat on daytime television pointing out a good deal.

WOW. THAT'S A SHINY HEAD!

I’ll admit that most of this advert was just an excuse to let me shoehorn in a picture of Dominic Littlewood so that I could have a little paragraph talking about what he’d do if he went into Staples would be to try and negotiate a discount by dazzling the bemused staff member unlucky enough to have to deal with him using a combination of the sheen on his head and that ‘cheeky chappy’ mockney accent that he puts on to badger a five percent discount out of people. My rage, as a retail worker, is that Littlewood doesn’t actually do any good. He gets discount because producers and researchers agree it in advance and then the bleating, idiotic public who try it on us are left disappointed by the fact that we could take or leave their custom. Sad fact. The man’s a twat.

Still, back to the issue at hand, eh? This poor-man’s Andy Dick (and when I say poor-man’s Andy Dick you know that that’s an impoverished human being) is delighted at the low, low prices on show at Staples. He can buy things for money. The thing that worries me about the staff is that instead of being genuinely concerned for this man’s mental wellbeing (as they should be), they take it upon themselves to try and sell half the stock of the shop to him. I’m sorry, folks but this guy has some serious mental problems and probably a fucking poor credit rating. I doubt he can even afford all of that stuff.

And then who’s the loser in the end? The staff. The ones who have to put it all back. There’s a lesson here for people who work in shops. If you see a customer shouting at the stock as if they expect it to answer back in a cute, Disney voice then just smile and move along. Maybe even knock the basket out of their hands. Don’t get them a trolley. Idiots.

I recently noticed something odd when I was watching television (because I’ve moved house and I now actually get television). It seems that advertisers have now resorted to just editing old adverts as the recession bites the budget of the big companies. Yes, I mentioned the recession. Aside from sheer laziness, I can’t really think of another reason for it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM3oh0pCGtE]

This isn’t the version of the advert with the edit, unfortunately. I think it’s been so trivial that no-one (except me) has bothered to mention it. Right… you see. IT’S THE SAME ADVERT as the one embedded here, which was originally from 2008 but it would seem that they’re so lazy that they’d rather use CGI to insert a different line of chocolate into the advert.

It beggars belief. What you’re seeing her eat in the new one isn’t chocolate, it’s an edited square of pixels and you’re falling for it?! What’s wrong with you people?! Galaxy, if you think you’re product’s worth advertising then at least show the actual product in your adverts. Pricks.

Only the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate tastes like chocolate’s never tasted before are the immortal words oft’ used to advertise Cadbury’s Flake. It told you what it was. It was a new taste experience in chocolate because of the way that it was constructed. It would flake (hence the name) and melt quicker when you put it in your mouth. Cadburys said ‘let there be melty chocolate’ and there was melty chocolate; and it was good.

Of course, now everything that Cadbury does has to either be a ‘watercooler moment’ in which people with nothing better to do discuss how hilarious it is to watch some airport vehicles drive around while Queen plays in the background or a nonsensical, pretentious bag of manure with less personality than a hessian sack full of clones of Adrian Chiles. This advert, in case you haven’t guessed, is the latter.

Somewhat cleverly they’ve moved away from overtly telling you that the product is a taste sensation into implying it using imagery and a piano. The road they’ve gone down moves towards perfume advertising where the advertisers are never going to say “it smells a bit like an alcoholic apple” but would rather make you buy it by pushing an aspiration and a desire on you instead which is basically what you want, I mean why would you want to have any idea what something’s like before you buy it? Where’s the mystery in that?

Well... it uhh... sort of tastes like a golden jellyfish...

So in this one they’ve gone for what resembles a cross between deepsea coral and a net curtain hung in a windowless house in Orkney to subtly suggest the way that Flake melts in your mouth. Of course, if the woman in this dress is wearing that while eating a Flake which is, by definition, a bit flaky she’s going to have a monumental dry cleaning bill. Not to mention the fact that you’d probably have to unstitch the purple smoke machine which is inside it to even have it dry cleaned. Headache!

I suppose the fact is that Cadburys have taken a theme of their Flake advertising (the girl) and taken a massive, pretense-ridden, Chris Martin style dump on said theme before setting it on fire and leaving it in the doorway of the Bourneville factory for traumatised workers to find the next morning. Now that is the power of advertising.