Muller yoghurt and black civil rights
This ad from Mueller plays on one of the most irritating things known to exist – someone singing stupid songs, badly.
Tuneless wailing is pretty bad at the best of times, pair it to something inane and it's unbearable.
The woman who sings "I've got my berry, got my cherry" – perhaps the stupidest couplet ever committed to the page – has the worst voice I've ever heard. Cowell would throttle her.
Then it gets worse. The sound of children singing is always a cheap shot in advertising, and as far as I'm concerned it never sounds any better than nails being dragged down a blackboard.
The coupe de grace is a vaguely gospel, dare I say it negro spiritual quality to the 'we've got creamy yoghurt' refrain.
Of course, what makes this all the more egregious is that this ditty was originally sung by Nina Simone, widely assumed to be about slavery.
It's a defiantly upbeat song, lest we forget, from a black woman that was released at a time when the black civil rights movement was exploding into life across America in response to widespread segregation, persecution and racism.
Fucking yoghurt.
Kris Marshall and the BT family
Kris Marshall is probably a nice bloke. It's just that nearly every role he's played has involved him looking like a total cock. My Family, that programme with Amanda Donohoe, that role in Love, Actually.
The icing on the cake is the BT family adverts, which feature Marshall solving every single problem in his bizarre step-family life through the magic of a BT Home Hub, whatever the fuck that is.
Anyone who has ever had any dealings with BT will know how utterly absurd this is, as they're by far the worst of all duff post-privatisation utilities.
The only pleasure in the ads has been trying to work out if I fancy the MILFy mother figure in these adverts but, joy-upon-joy, there have recently been signs that the series of ads is coming to an end.
After taking his dream job – another fucking shit sitcom I expect – Adam is back on the scene, apparently with some big news.
It's not explained what this news is, but as it is conveyed by dozens of people hearing it down the phone looking deliriously happy I can only assume that Adam has been struck down with some terminal illness, or has decided to take his own life.
It's the only thing I can think that explains the sheer relief and unalloyed joy on the faces of those who know him.
• Curiously hardly any of the BT ads are available on Youtube, so I haven't been able to find this latest ad. If I didn't know better I'd suspect BT slaps a copyright infringement claim on them when they crop up. But I'll find one, mark my words, I'll find one.
Honda Insight Let it Shine advert
Honda normally nails it with its adverts. In support of this statement I offer you Cog, Impossible Dream, Choir, Grr, Asimo and Problem Playground. All really good ads, if a little smug.
Honda's latest advert is for its Insight hybrid, a car that looks and acts exactly like the Toyota Prius, and probably drives that way too.
Hybrids use electric motors to supplement power from engines, meaning that less fuel is expended in driving them.
The potential benefits of hybrids are indisputable, although the real-world results aren't necessarily superior to modern diesel engines. The likelihood is, in the next couple of years, fully electric vehicles will overtake hybrids as the green car of choice.
That hasn't stopped Toyota pretending that it's saving the world in adverts for the Prius. Honda hasn't gone that far, and has gone with a clever ad featuring hundreds of Insights playing out a pattern on their headlights.
If there's a subtext I've not got it, but it's clever and visually impressive.
Alongside the lack of Garrison Keillor's lugubrious tones, the music is the most saccharine, Yankified, harmonised Pop Idol-style wailing I've ever heard. It makes the advert unwatchable.