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| Jerry's review of TV ads in 2000,
Advertising |
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| Media,
Jerry Carpenter,
15 January 2001 |
Rating: F5
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Of course, all advertising is EVIL. Adverts don’t really do you any good, they’re there to psyche you into buying something you DON’T WANT. These ads are created by EVIL, HOLLOW SCUM, people who are paid fifty times what you get from your shit job, just to sit around a board room SNORTING COKE. What a moral pity then that so many television adverts are so GREAT! Here’s my vacuous, foggily recalled list of this years best and worst. Apologies for the fact so many of them are only from September onwards, as they do tend to slip in one eye and out the other.
Reasons to get a remote control for the kettle
Reebok ‘Belly’ ad – This totally ROCKS! And why the song didn’t go top ten this Christmas is a mystery. And I really want to find out if it was an athletic midget in the giant belly suit or not. You know it’s a good ad when you’ll actually get out of the bath to go see it. And I wouldn’t do that even for my gran.
‘AA’ (I think, possibly RAC) Couple arguing over insurance – Ad boys are always trying to stitch together a realistic picture of modern life to appeal to Joe Pub, and because their own lives are so far removed from it they pretty much always fail. Or they watch Ken Loach films to nick some character types. But this one worked for me, mainly because it featured some ace lazy bickering action between the principles.
Sexy girl ads – Of course every year in ads, there’s LOADS of bird on the box, and fair old bit of bloke too. But special mentions go to the brunette bobbed girl in the gray vest prancing round her bathroom using one certain washing powder, and the cutie in the brightly coloured shirts which wouldn’t ever crease (even on an airplane!) using another. Further back we get the girl who uses a special water filter so her tea tastes nicer. Now she’s a cracker, and part of a growing breed of sexy-in-a-down-to-earth-way ad girls whose ad husbands are a bit on the homely side. Hey are they trying to appeal to ugly people like me? – those BASTARDS!
PS2 adverts – good old-fashioned cod-surrealism, thought it had gone out of fashion amongst all this irony? Never! And to prove it, Sony draft in Dave Lynch to rip off his back catalogue for a hefty many-thousands paycheque. Talking duck – big deal, but just look at that wacky mummy guy with the bloody head! Nice. Still won’t buy one though, sorry Dave.
Reasons to gun down employees in an ad agency – naturally there’s more of these!
The Wanker’s Sainsburys ads – Not had enough of the guy who gives morons a bad name? – well, he managed to sweep up more screen time still in these ‘wacky’ slice o’ life ads featuring his mates/mum/wife/gran/dog/nieces and nephews. I won’t sit through these till they have one where he has to make a bree and grape sandwich for his hideously deformed half sister in the attic, who hates it so much she forces it brutally up his FAT ARSE!!! My mum loves him, though.
Prune juice adverts – you only see them in the afternoon and late at night, and they feature a cartoon spaceman with a prune pinching machine, and they’re REALLY SCARY! I wouldn’t drink prune juice at the best of times, but now I can’t even go into the aisle in the supermarket where they
wait
for
me. Shudder.
Denise Richards famous artist-kissed hair – It’s a shampoo ad, where the queen of the frozen smile sits dressed as the Mona Lisa. ‘If I was Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, then the smile on MY face would be because of him kissing my HAIR’, says our Denise,grinning. Many heroes of the world of art spin silently in their graves, and the giant comet that will destroy our world drifts
closer.
Scary Xmas kiddy Gap ads – I thought they pushed it too far with the soulless Depeche Mode tune ad for their rubbish leather jackets, but this time they’ve gone a step further. To hear these tots doing a scary/sexy cover of ‘I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus’ from the other room is a reason to reach for the baseball bat/pair of scissors in fear. Like if the two girls with no eyes from ‘The Shining’ were advertising khakis.
Most Internet ADS – These all SUCK. Either because they go for the whole ‘world-bought-together-through-the-power-of-the-net’ sch-bang, with the obligatory shots of crumbly faced Chinese peasants using laptops. Or they go for the super-cool-hip-proactive-NOW! Thing, with lots of SURFING, and INFOGRAPHICS! Or MOODY KIDS! Or THAT SILLY BITCH FROM AOL! ARGHHH! CONNIE! I LOVE YOU BUT I MUST KILL YOU!!!
Persil Soap Tablets - Moany-faced ‘real people’ giving posh interviewers cheeky backtalk, all punch-lined by a rock guitar riff. It’s time to start bombing the council estates as well as the ad agencies then.
Wax head (possibly for the Post Office) – Woman walks past necklace every day, never sure whether to buy it or not. Shop owner sensibly decides to stalk her, capture her image on film and create a wax likeness of her head to hang the necklace around. On seeing her own wax head the woman buys the necklace. BLOODY HELL! – and this conveys good customer/business relations?!!? Does this mean that old lady behind the record counter at WH Smiths is working on the magic eye painting of ME watching a ‘Blake’s 7’ video? BLOODY HELL! Madness. Oh shit, maybe this should be in the ‘Best’ section!
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