People think Confused.com is now a dating site
I've already detailed how much I hate the new Confused.com advert, and how muddled and, well, confusing, it is.
As if to prove it, AdTurds' Google Analytics account is filled with keyword queries from people who now think the price-comparison site is a dating agency, thanks to its barmy new Somebody To Love advert.
Among the queries are the following, which probably run to around three figures in terms of volumes, which go to show how baffled punters are by the new advert:
• confused.com dating
• confused .com dating
• confused dating site
• confused.com dating site
• confused. com dating
• "confused.com" dating
• confused. com dating website
• confused.com looks dating
• dating sites love confused
• dating site confuse.com
• thought confused.com advert was dating
• somebody to love dating ad
There are still plenty of people of who simply appear to dislike the advert, and plenty more that just seem to be – I hate to keep saying it – confused by the whole thing. That should come as no surprise, this is Confused.com's fourth or fifth attempt at finding some sort of brand identity.
There's something else that's puzzling readers on AdTurds too, and it's puzzling me too. Here are the queries in question:
• confused.com pulls microphone from vagina
• confused.com advert woman getting mic stand out of minge
New Go Compare advert
The latest Go Compare advert - featuring our fat insurance-comparing Italian tenor running amok in a Keystone Cops-style silent film car chase - is perhaps the least annoying yet.
That's because while the 'Go Compare' jingle is still in place, it's missing Gio Compario's witless refrain, a noise with all the attendant insistence and pain of a dental drill.
For that reason it may not have the same effect - either on the nerves of the viewing population or the memories of price-comparison customers. Although that hardly seems to matter now. Gio's singing or not the brand seems unstoppable now, like a giant radioactive asteroid heading for New York.
Cadburys: surfing inside a chocolate tube
I find adverts featuring this sort of claymation decidedly creepy, and not at all endearing. I also find bastardisations of songs I love particularly annoying.
But they pale into insignificance in this ad, one of the Cadbury's 'chocolate world' series from earlier this decade; particularly this one, which features a surfer.
The idea of the ads is that the world would be a much better place if only everything were made of chocolate. I beg to differ, but let's run with it.
Wouldn't it be nice if the world was Cadbury?
asks the ad. Well, we've covered that already. What's next up?
You could surf inside a chocolate tube...
WHAT?! 'Surf inside a chocolate tube?' If someone told me they'd enjoyed the previous evening surfing inside a chocolate tube, I would infer that they had been enjoying a pursuit that couldn't be much further away from ingesting cocoa mass, and had coined an elaborate euphemism to convey that information.
If you're not sure exactly what I'm talking about, then the ad is likely to disabuse you of that ignorance soon after, where a shark approaches our chocolate surfer with a grin on its face. Unperturbed, our animated chum simply wiggles his arse in the air and returns an encouraging grin.
And if a shark came up and tried to bite you
You could say 'I'm chocolate - I invite you'
He is, quite simply, offering his arse out to rent. So, there you have it. Two totally blatant references to anal sex. Bet you don't fancy that finger of fudge anymore eh?
Wouldn't it be nice?
No, no it wouldn't.
H/T Dick Mandrake
Iceland 2010 Christmas adverts
I'm sure there was a time when Iceland wasn't the cheapest shop on the block. By cheapest I don't necessarily mean least expensive; just the tackiest, the least classy.
What makes it even more bizarre is that Iceland blazed a trail in its sourcing of organic veg and progressive stances on GM foods, additives and the like.
Arguably, Iceland took its eye off what its customers wanted at this point, but the volte-face has seen Iceland adopting the kind of stack-em-high approach of bargain basement stores - and them some.
This about-turn was heralded with an overhaul in its branding, unapologetically going downmarket and trumpeting 'value' (viz. cheapness) above all, with a parade of celebs best described as easy to relate to. Think Kerry Katona, one of the Nolans, Christopher Biggins and, finally, Jason Donovan.
Iceland's 2010 Christmas offering sees a calvacade of its bizarre party food – think king prawn spoons, mini Yorkshire pudding with roast beef that look obscene, a fucking Baileys dome gateau – with can-canning Mums and Jason Donovan as a sado-masochistic master of ceremonies.
The other night I watched an ad break that had four or five variations of this Iceland ad, sandwiched between adverts for other brands. It was vaguely nightmarish.
This is classic all-out assault advertising – noisy, colourful, fast, bizarre – with two familiar songs, the latter of which, rather obnoxiously is stone-cold classic 20th Century Boy.
But there's something more than that. I find this advert oddly sinister; there's a weird undercurrent to it all, perhaps because of the overall violence of the thing.
It's easy to imagine the whole thing speeding up and speeding up; the dancing and singing becoming more frantic and twisted. The camera pulling back to reveal Donovan, dancing in slow motion, naked from the waist down and nursing a stiffy.
A slaughterhouse staffed by can-can-ing Iceland staff, frantically butchering hundreds of chickens in an attempt to keep the Iceland freezers stocked up with cheap food.
But, wait, what's this? These aren't pickled onions... they're eyes. Human eyes. The chicken balls are screaming. And these prawns are still alive, sliding around on a silver platter, proffered by a tarty housewife with dead eyes.
A David Lynch nightmare on an ITV budget. A thousand squawking 'Mums', a production line of animals being turned into tasteless boxed foodstuffs and Donovan - mouth smeared with chocolate and breadcrumbs and mayo just laughing and laughing and laughing...
NB. Iceland's adverts were brilliantly lampooned by Vic and Bob in Shooting Stars in the Coldland skit earlier this year.
The worst adverts of 2010
It's been a fruitful year for the AdTurds, with much more material that could be covered in the end. The Suggest an AdTurd feature is brimming like one of those huge tanks in the American midwest that's full of boiling, gaseous pig shit.
Go Compare ran away with this one in 2009 and like Cliff Richard, he's a very good bet for this year's gong too, despite stiff competition from Confused.com, WeBuyAnyCar, BT and Halifax.
There are dark horses too. Who saw the VanCompare advert coming? Or Bing's heroic attempt to take on Google with some monkey noises? Or the total horror of Jamie and Louise Rednkapp 'laaaahvin iiii...'?
And what about Spotify? That came from nowhere eh? But how many people who heard Jack Davenport's infuriating Alfa Romeo MiTo advert will ever forget it?
What has emerged is the likelihood that a genuinely hated ad is likely to find its way back on your box again and again. If people dislike it, they probably remember it; if the remember it, it's probably on the screens all the time; if it's on the screens all the time it's probably disliked. Hence your most hated ad is back on the telly again and again. QED.
That's unfortunate if you're driven to twitching fury by such adverts, but it seems increasingly clear that it's how ad agencies work. Bad adverts are, if you like, a necessary evil. But this is concentrated evil. One drop of that could turn you all into hermit crabs.
Read on! Weep! Vote! Smash yourself in the face with an iron! Watch again! It's the most annoying, most shit, most terrible adverts of 2010!
Halifax adverts
Effortlessly the worst series of adverts since, well, the last lot of Halifax adverts. While truly appalling, these adverts don't quite make me fear for the human race. They're like the Mumford and Sons, Tesco or Microsoft of bad adverts. Always there, always disliked, always shit (or mediocre at any rate).
But there are, to my mind, worse evils in the world. AdTurds readers seem to disagree, so expect this to go straight in at number one in the poll below.
Full disclosure: AdTurds has a bit of a thing for the blonde in the Lucky You advert.
Read the original entry: new Halifax adverts and Isa Isa Baby adverts.
Confused.com - Somebody to Love
After several failed attempt, Confused.com finally hit upon a character of its own designed to annoy the shit out of people everywhere. Only this isn't just annoying, it's also inept. A confused (ahem) message only serves to leave a bemused WTF rattling off the walls.
Imagine Confused.com's squiggly drawing thing being rather indelicately spitroasted by Gio Compario and Aleksandr Orlov and you have a pretty good metaphor for how their respective campaigns have panned out.
Read the original entry: Confused.com Somebody to Love
Marks & Spencer's Xmas Turd
Hard to believe now, but there was once something vaguely canny about these M&S adverts, before they fell in love with themselves so massively it's a surprise they don't simply have the cast frotting themselves on cashmere jumpers and gift packs of bubble bath.
This festive effort swith Peter Kay, Twiggy, Danni Minogue and some other people too dreary to mention is so smug that Piers Morgan thinks it's a bit much.
Read the original entry: Marks & Spencer Christmas advert
Thomas Cook Redknapp horror intersection
AdTurds has some inside information on this effort from Thomas Cook that suggests that it was responsible for more complaints than anything else the travel company has ever done.
That may or may not be true, but what is true is that Thomas Cook has a huge effigy of the gruesome Redknapps (who seem to exist purely in advertising these days) in its reception, no doubt now defaced by people driven to violence by Louise and Jamie's vile, whiny estuary voices.
Read the original entry: Redknapp Thomas Cook adverts
Bing clutch bags
Tasked with apparent no-win scenario of designing an ad campaign to humble Google, ad agency JWT struck a canny line with the 'information overload' line but went on to present it in the most annoying way possible.
I always thought it would have been better to have the information overload people spouting a load of gibberish about hot Asian babes too.
It's also problematic because the Bing engine isn't any better in displaying relevant information that Google, Yahoo, Ask or any other search engine in the entire world.
Read the original entry: Bing adverts
Dell treats Lollipop
On the face of there was nothing too annoying about this advert for Dell's laptops first off. But the sheer carpet-bombing ubiquity of the first few bars of the Chordettes track - particularly when it invaded Spotify - rendered it simply unbearable; and almost certainly used as a torture device in Guantanamo Bay.
Lollipop Lollipop Oh Lolli Lolli Lolli Lollipop....
Read the original entry: Dell treats advert
Josh T-Mobile
Pity poor Josh. Basically used and abused by a massive multinational in their doomed marketing campaign like a Thai ladyboy by a second-hand car salesman from Romford on his annual sex holiday.
Awful music, crap idea, poor chinless Josh. A powerful mixture of pity and contempt.
Read the original entry: John T-Mobile advert
Citroen DS3 John Lennon
The Citroen DS3 might have been the most enjoyable car AdTurds thrashed this year, but this ad featuring Lennon pondering the shitness of nostalgia and retro - in an advert that was all about nostalgia and retro for a car that was all about nostalgia and retro - was one of the least enjoyable ads.
Bonus turds for the affected out-of-synch footage too.
Read the original entry: John Lennon Citroen DS3 advert
VanCompare advert
The post that provoked nothing less than death threats, legal action threats and the infinite wrath of seemingly every Sweet fan on the face of the Earth.
All of that ended in a détente with the actual chairman of VanCompare and a message of good wishes to Andy Scott, believe it or not.
Still, this is possibly the most inept advert every to grace a television. Sweeeeet!
Read the original entry: VanCompare advert
BT family adverts
Perhaps the most unloved TV couple since Sam Fox and Mick Fleetwood, Adam and Jane seemed to reach a climax this year in the 'is she or isn't she?' interactive campaign. Sadly the options didn't involve death or divorce, but whether Jane was pregnant or not (AdTurds readers suggested their own ending).
In the most stultifying spot of television ever, the answer was revealed as yes and somewhere in Scotland came the noise of John Logie Baird and Alexander Graham Bell softly weeping.
Read the original entry: BT advert - what happens next?
Go Compare adverts
AdTurds can't really find it in his granite heart to hate Go Compare. Annoying, yes, but no more than any Little & Large sketch from the 1987.
To complain of the rampant repetition; the sheer inescapability of Go Compare ads would be to complain about the ubiquity of grass, water, why the very air itself.
Still, a guaranteed big hitter in this year's poll - and maybe they'll finish it off with Gio exploding in gas, fat and hair after one 'whaffer thin mint' too many.
Read the original entry: Go Compare advert
Ladbrokes World Cup ads
Two of the most annoying people on television gibbering and gurning like idiots; an appalling campaign; distasteful subject matter; a soundtrack used in at least two different ads over the last couple of years.
Without Wright and Kamara is would be awful. With the charmless pundits it enters a new circle of Hell.
Read the original entry: Ladbrokes World Cup adverts
We Buy Any Car advert
Few adverts are genuinely hateful, but We Buy Any Car managed it this year with the advertising equivalent of having Fern Cotton blast an air horn into your face for 60 seconds several times a day.
Pretty much the nearest thing to a sonic weapon - a non-lethal weapon designed to disable victims by provoking vomiting or 'uncontrolled' defecation - that you'll ever see on television.
Read the original entry: WeBuyAnyCar advert
Alfa Romeo Spotify advert
Sadly, or fortunately, I've been unable to track down the audio of this bad, bad ad. Suffice it to say that this advert on Spotfiy was generating hundreds of tweets a day on Twitter, and none were positive.
Actually drove me to a Spotify Premium account. I've yet to work out whether this is sheer genius on the part of Spotify; sheer idiocy on the part of Alfa Romeo; a combination of both; or simple ineptitude. Either way it's abysmal.
Read the original entry: Alfa Romeo Spotify advert
Iceland 201 Christmas adverts
It was an oversight of massive proportions that Iceland's 2010 Christmas adverts, featuring Jason Donovan, were not originally included in this list, but an ad break that featured four or five versions of this ad recently convinced me of the error.
There's something genuinely unsettling about all of this. The insistence of it, the repetition and noise and the fact that the food all looks so horrible.
This isn't just an annoying advert. It;s an advert to give you nightmares.
• Read the original entry: Iceland 2010 Christmas advert
Vote for the worst advert of 2010!
Vote for your most hated ad of 2010 and we'll go an pelt the ad agency who wins with rotten fruit. And very hard stones.
Using a smashed-up pensioner’s face to sell your vulgar watches
What better way of advertising your flashy watch that showing a picture of a pensioner's battered face on your print adverts? Benetton must be kicking themselves they didn't think of this 20 years ago.
F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone apparently lobbied Swiss watchmakers Hublot to use a picture of his swollen, badly-bruised face in their new adverts, subtitled 'See what people will do for a Hublot'.
The watchmaker's chief executive Jean-Claude Biver said: "He told us, 'Please use it to make an advertising campaign because I want to show that I'm courageous.'
"I thought, 'Wow, this guy really wants a free watch has some guts.'
'Some guts', or 'no sense or class', depending on your point of view.
"It is also a protestation against violence that we are all afraid of today," claimed Biver, feebly.
Protestation my arse. This ad's existence is a kind of touchstone for the rather vulgar merry-go-round universe that the super-rich - of which Ecclestone is one of the more obvious examples - inhabit, where cash allows to people to do whatever the hell they want for the own gratification and amusement.
If you squint really hard, you might see some words at the bottom of the advert that say 'violence is bad, m'kay?' or something equally self-serving.
In fact, it's hard to imagine anything further from the truth. I'd love to see even the most seasoned PR explaining how using a picture of a battered pensioner's face to sell an expensive watch is somehow raising awareness of violence; rather than the truth, which is that it represents a grotesque ego trip for an equally grotesque little man who's so far removed from reality that he thinks than getting his face smashed off a pavement is only an excuse to further his own naff and unpleasantly-high profile.
How to improve the Galaxy advert
This advert for Galaxy is not especially poor, particularly in relation to the putrefying drivel that populates this site, but it is smug and overblown.
The over-annunciation in the voiceover is particularly silly, but it seems to be a formula that has served Galaxy well over the years.
To improve your enjoyment of the advert, why not imagine that the wondrous bounty the girl is searching for is, instead, an enormous, black, double-pronged dildo - or at least a Mattesons smoke pork sausage horseshoe.
Sky’s sickly Christmas schedule promo
Taken on their own, the elements in the promo for Sky's festive offerings wouldn't really irritate me. But the sheer frequency of it across Sky's various channels has made it extremely maddening.
Helena Bonham-Carter's annoying face; George Clooney's American Fantastic Mr Fox; Alec Baldwin's fat, sweaty, naked body; the stupid voiceover guy's ridiculous voice...
But most of all is the horrible soundtrack; a song so monumentally twee that it makes Mariah Carey sound like Burial. It's a vile three minutes by feckless hippified outfit Orba Squara that sounds like it's been put together by a committee of focus group wonks; dredged through Sunny Delight and covered with hundreds and thousands by Justin Bieber.
Sickly, and sickening.