McDonalds? Nah, you’re alright
Some adverts go beyond being a bit shit or annoying, they're actually egregious. Offensive, even.
The notion that horrible burgers can mend bridges between families is not only ridiculous, it's also insulting and just wrong. Side-serving of emotional manipulation with your fries, sir?
As it goes I do have McDonalds in common with loads of people. Like millions of others - and for very good reasons indeed - I wouldn't be seen dead in one.
Sugar-flavoured empty-calorie gackburger? Nah, you're alright.
Garage Band Blues: Quickquid
Small companies have a bit of a problem - they don't have much money. If you're a Coca-Cola, Shell, Barclays or Sky (companies that essentially have gilt-edged licenses to print money) you simply chuck another bazillion dollars into your latest campaign, your agency buys The Beatles back catalogue and you get Orson Welles to front your new ad.
Those with shallower pockets can, however, make some economies such as hiring people who are terrible actors or were last famous 40 years ago (VanCompare) or so unfamous they barely qualify as celebrities at all (Safestyle).
There are other possibilities of course. You use video, image and sound banks that cost sweet FA. Think of the print ads you see that involve you phoning a call centre - there's generally an image of a smiling, attractive woman wearing a headset. But guess what, that's not actually an employee. Mental, eh?
The last few years has seen copyright-free music distributed with software such as a Apple's Garage Band. It's not complicated stuff, but it provides a useful soundbed for ads, stings and other commercials.
I'm most familiar with a load of Garage Band tunes from the Adam and Joe Show on BBC Radio 6Music, where they would provide a background for the duo's amusings on various subjects suggested by listeners.
This has the unfortunate consequence of fatally undermining the advert in question. I've noticed quite a few adverts using the same music as Adam And Joe Songwars tunes, so I'll be tracking them down where possible. Let me know if you've seen any others.
Adam Buxton's Holiday Blues
Quickquid's House Repossession Loan ***** Blues
RIP Michael Winner
This is, by any rational measure, an utterly hideous advert but I always liked Michael Winner in the same way that I like anyone's who's willing to make a complete arse of themselves for their own amusement - and that of others.
The Worst Adverts of 2012
For those of you who are regular readers, keep taking the medication. But thanks for coming back to the site after it was laid low by a malware attack that I eventually traced back to the servers of a shadowy cabal of ad execs who get together once a week to snort coke off the body of a dead hooker.
Anyway, all of that meant that I couldn't do my usual round-up of the year's worst adverts. Which was a shame, but also kinda appropriate. Because I don't think there was a single 'worst advert' last year. Why? Because the worst advert of 2012 wasn't an advert. It was an idea.
This whole site is based on a kinda overplayed hyperbole, which can be roughly - and I hope not entirely accurately - summed up as 'this advert makes me want to kill myself - and other people'. Of course they do no such thing, but many adverts do make me feel annoyed, irritable and a little bit helpless.
And this is the point of the new generation of adverts. Liking these new adverts is no good at all. Being amused by them or finding them cute isn't enough. Being able to ignore them is a disaster. Being angered; being physically affected by these spots isn't just a happy by-product, it's the very raison d'etre: the hot flush of annoyance, the raised heart rate, the merciless vomiting and the Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
Just think about that for a while. The point of adverts is to persuade you to do something you might not otherwise do. To part with your money in such a way that benefits someone else. On a personal level this sort of transaction might be represented by asking a friend or family member to loan you a few quid, after buttering them up with a few well-chosen words.
Or head to a job interview and lie about how great you are, all the time smiling, grinning, nodding at the endless bullshit spewing out of everyone's mouths and shaking hands while dying inside. And what if you want to convince your partner to do something they might not do otherwise? Needless to say, chances are you'll do a lot more than shake hands.
This is all part and parcel of the way we lead our lives, as human beings and as animals. It's a basic transaction in life. Heck, if my cat wants something he starts rubbing himself up against me. But imagine if all of these transactions were solicited in another fashion.
I don't buy my mate a pint before asking him if he can advance me £50, I punch him in the face. I don't praise a potential employer's workflow system, I piss in his amusing Simpsons mug. My missus kicks me in the knackers and my cat claws me in the eye.
We wouldn't put up with any of these interactions, let along smilingly hand over our cash, job or bacon rind. Yet that's what we do every day when these 30-second adverts are beamed into our minds with the explicit intention of upsetting us. Where does this end? Unskipabble Confused.com adverts on the start of DVDs? Gio Compario popping up on cinema screens? Rickrolling by Barry Scott?
I don't know, but I do know this. Efforts to piss you off will only increase. And all the technical weapons that are available will be deployed. Email, mobile, behavioural targeting, contextual ads and whatever the current conglomeration of web/streaming/TV and on-demand turns into.
The reason for this is that there are now adverts whose only point is to make you aware of a service. Not like it, not appreciate the quality of it, not have any loyalty towards it – simply know of its existence. It doesn't matter if you hate it; in fact, it's better if you hate it.
This is why the likes of Confused.com can launch stupefyingly bad adverts at us that are both horribly annoying and objectively shite without it making a shred of difference. It's why Go Compare is inflicting some smugly reflexive adverts about its own awfulness on us. And why the meerkat and its spin-offs are everywhere - even breaking out into the real world in the shape of dolls and - for the love of everything that is good - books.
Along with MoneySupermarket, these services are identical. They do exactly the same things, with literally nothing to differentiate on from the other. Coke and Pepsi; Sky and Virgin, Ford and Vauxhall. All of them emphasise why they're different and better than the other. The comparison services do not care about such things. Awareness is the only factor.
This nascent tactic is gaining ground among betting websites, where there is similarly nothing meaningful to separate most companies. PaddyPower has ditched its amusing adverts promoting money-back bets and opted for a dog-whistling adverts that skirt the borders of animal cruelty and various unpleasant bigotries. The Ladbrokes one with the idiotic Chris Kamara (LOL! Legend!) just has a bloke screaming at the TV for most of its duration.
This is because these companies want to be at the forefront of your mind when you make some soul-crushingly banal life decision such as "I'm going to start betting on the internet" - the sort of decision that indicates that you've probably given up on life and settled for a warm, unthreatening existence of DVD box-sets, football, pizzas, wanking on the sofa and worrying about immigration.
Need car insurance? Write down what initially comes into your head. Blocked sink? Inexplicable desire to place a bet on the Stoke / Sunderland game? What did you write? I bet, to your surprise or horror, that you were able to immediately jot down a few brand names you didn't even know were swimming around in your grey matter. Your own personal spam software isn't working anymore - you turned it off without even knowing it.
Advertisers will do anything to get in your head. And your slavery to the television opens the door to them. When idiots complain about the licence fee and profess that the other channels are 'free' just think about this spirit-killing exchange we make in order to get our 'free television'. This is where our witless defence of the right to choose has led us – a cowed acceptance of brainwashing; complicity in our own alienation, exploitation and subjugation. The tyranny of choice has never been so clear.
If the current state of affairs has taught us anything, it's that we can't be trusted to make our own decisions. If you want a vision of the future imagine a stupefied man drowning in pizza boxes, coke cans and Pringles tubes, the reflection of a Confused.com advert dancing in his eyes, forever.
This is the future we've chosen; it's the one we deserve. Happy New Year.
Um Bongo versus Kia Ora
I loved both of these brightly-coloured drinks when I was a nipper - and remember the accompanying adverts with great fondness.
Looking at them these days induces a bit of a cringe, however, They're frankly packed with all sorts of dubious racial stereotypes; add in a cowardly Jewish vulture who's always trying to steal the carton-ed drinks and you'd be laughing.
However, I'm not going to attempt some retcon of our racial attitudes from way-back-when. Clearly, by our standards, these ads might make us a little uncomfortable, but they're clearly not malicious. Chalk that one down to things-that-used-to-be-a-bit-dodgy then.
Now that we've got that unpleasantness out of the way, let's have a look at them. Ads like this are, natch, aided by a hefty nostalgia whack, so we're naturally inclined to look on them favourably. While that does invite the horrifying thought that tomorrow's thirtysomethings will go all misty-eyed at the sight of Cara Confused or Gio Compario, it's a fairly undeniable mechanism in stuff like this.
No doubt if Russell Howard was a bit younger he'd walk on stage to one of these songs - the fucking twat - and you can bet your bottom dollar some dopey radio DJs with overly shiny teeth, a fondness for 15-year-old girls and a raging coke habit play them ironically during their drivetime slots.
The best example of one of these songs coming up is in Spaced, where Simon Pegg has an awkward chat at the urinal with a young urchin who doesn't know what he's one about when he quotes the 'just for me and my dog' line and follows it up with a squawked 'it's too orangey for crows'. Which rather encapsulates the whole childhood nostalgia thing perfectly.
They've both held up pretty well, aesthetically speaking. It's all a bit Cosgrove Hall - fast, knockabout and charming - and the ability to craft memorable songs in adverts that don't drive you to a terrible howling rage is evident here.
From the languid dancehall of the Kia Ora ad to the tribal rhythms of Um Bongo - in fact this was really the first black music most people in Cheshire ever heard.
I don't remember which drink I liked best, perhaps Um Bongo. But which ad is best? I can't decide - it would be like picking one of my kids over the other. What do you think?
Good Adverts: BHF Ad Saves 28 Lives
I always thought this advert featuring Vinnie Jones resuscitating someone to the tune of the Bee Gees' Staying Alive was an absolute cracker - and said so at the time.
However there were quite a few people who seemed to disagree, on the basis that amateurs shouldn't try CPR in case they somehow made a situation that involved someone dying of a cardiac arrest even worse.
So I'm chuffed to see a new set of ads that show the results of the original ad. Apparently at least 28 lives have been saved as a direct result of people following the instructions on the advert - and several of them are telling their stories in this latest spot.
It's genuinely touching to hear how strangers, mates, colleagues, family members and partners saved lives by applying something they'd heard on advert.
I don't have much more to add, apart from reaffirming just how good I think these ads are in communicating a simple message memorably - I can see 'doing a Vinnie' entering modern parlance at this rate.
The results? 28 people walking around who wouldn't be otherwise. Job done.#
Find out more about hands-only CPR
# Not quite actually. Here's Mini Vinnie teaching kids about hands-only CPR, cos it isn't taught in all schools. While the concept of these ads is great, the execution really matches it - this lad looks like he should be starring in the remake of Scum or something. Excellent work.
Best And Worst Xmas Ads 2012
Have you ever noticed how few black people there are in Christmas adverts? Or Oriental or Asian?
I'm guessing that different racial demographics are a lot less valuable to the Christmas Cash Climax that this time of the years represents, with WASPs more likely to actually indulge in this celebration of the market economy, but once you've noticed it, it's hard to un-notice.
For all that the media is reasonably heterogeneous these days it's as if everyone closes ranks at Christmas. Look at the smiling white extended-family faces. You don't see many people in wheelchairs, fellas kissing one another, black families pulling crackers or Muslims, well, doing whatever it is that Muslims do on Christmas Day.
Myleene - one of only three celebs in evidence this year
Not that this is a call for a token black face amid the sea of caucasians all over the airwaves - that would be almost as insulting. But a Christmas advert featuring only a black family seems unthinkable. As does the cold hard reality of what Christmas is for a lot of people - and sorry to be such a miserable fucker at this point - a lonely time.
Here's one that would take some real fucking balls - and guarantee my loyalty for many years to come. Instead of jizzing all of that cash on some hungry celebrities I'm calling out the supermarkets: Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Morrisons, Marksies. The lot of 'em.
Here's what you do with that cash. You take over a nice hotel in 30 towns and cities around the country. You use your own produce - the nice stuff, the free-range stuff, the expensive stuff - and cook a Christmas dinner for the local Salvation Army patrons. Homeless types, kids on the street, care home people, the elderly, George Entwistle; people like that. Roast turkey, some live entertainment, loads of booze, some crakcers, a few gifts and transport there and back.
What's the cost of that? Even if it were thirty grand a pop you're still quids in. And imagine all that lovely publicity. That's 2013's advert sorted - and a smile on the faces of thousands of people who might not have much reason to crack a grin. And, perhaps more to the point, we don't have suffer your annual smugathons that are as hard to digest as a three-day turkey-and-stuffing sarnie.
Go on, British supermarkets, do it. I challenge you. I dare you.
OK, on that bombshell I'm going to round up this Xmas ads from this year. If last year's Xmas ads are anything to go by it won't be pretty...
Argos
Alien sperms continue to swim around our television screens, like the smeary laptop screen of a man who knows the names of all his favourite porn stars and sends them a picture of his cock in the post every Yuletide.
I don't know why Argos is continuing to plough this furrow - to justify the hefty wodges of cash that have been already sunk into the concept presumably - but this seems to be a stinker on all levels.
It's annoying, it's bemusing, I don't see how it connects with the brand (perhaps, once, there was an idea that aliens would take to the 'wrong-way-round' Argos shopping experience, or something) and it feels well past its sell-by-date.
But, more to the point, it's trying to make a virtue of something that isn't particularly helpful. Surely the whole attraction of shopping online is that it's then delivered to your door at no extra cost? If you have to order online, not necessarily easy in the first place, and then physically go to an Argos store anyway what's the sodding point?
What's more, Argos' thing is that you have to look through a catalogue to find what you want, fill out a little form and then take it to the desk. It's that classic thing of making a virtue out of something that, on the face of it, is actually harder than the usual system (see also: Salt And Shake crisps).
But the Argos online shopping app removes that whole exchange. So not only is the online shopping thing not especially helpful, it also invalidates the whole point of Argos.
With this ad, Argos has just ejaculated in its own face.
Times worse than my charitable Christmas advert idea: 30
Tesco
So far all I can find online is this effort from Tesco, which involved a Furbie and Lionel Richie (and doesn't that sound like a great internet rumour?).
I have seen a few other Tesco ads that end with a little Christmas hat perched jauntily on the Tesco logo, so I guess this is part of a multi-ad approach that eschews any big central campaign and will offer little snippets of deals, particular products and the like.
As such it doesn't give me a lot to get my teeth into, but I like the fact that the whole campaign isn't resting on some cash-splashing jamboree. But it's not especially memorable either, despite the nifty visual gag.
Tesco calls this advert 'Christmas 2012 Clubcard Exchange advert'. Yeah, and a Happy New BOGOF to you too.
Times worse than my charitable Christmas advert idea: 3
Iceland
Iceland went a bit off the rails the last two years in its Christmas advertising: in 2010 suggesting some sort of chavvy David Lynch horror festival; last year assaulting us with Stacey Solomon's ginormous face.
I think Iceland has a problem - people think it's cheap: the food is cheap, the people who go there are poor; the brand is toxic. Just yesterday someone told me that they would 'never go into Iceland'. They've only got themselves to blame - for several years the brand has aligned itself with people who scream 'low-rent' - and thus its brand has acquired the same image.
As someone who writes about cars for a living I can tell you at length why being thought of as cheap is dangerous. To be thought of as offering good value, on the other hand, is very different. It's a subtle difference - ultimately a meaningless one - but one that brands get wrong time and again.
However - and this is a big however - this new ad from Iceland might just go some way to changing all that. This Xmas ad looks lovely, it puts product right at the heart of the ad and it's got one of the most calming, sentimentally satisfying noises ever accompanying it.
Pretty much a home-run. And not a hideous celebrity in sight. If there had been one this year my money was on Tulisa - as someone who's probably been seen by many slapping a cock across her own face she probably wouldn't have been the worst celeb Iceland had employed.
Times worse than my charitable Christmas advert idea: 1.1
Debenhams
A new entry - I don't remember seeing any Debenhams ads for a long time. As a new effort it's not bad, but it's very much a greatest hits of successful Xmas ad tropes. A nice train, snow, a glamourous lady running hither and thither and being delighted by what she sees...
At one point it threatens to go a bit Boots, with three women stalking rather jarringly - look at the costumes! - down a flight of stairs and the big John Lewis-style 'awwww' moment at the end.
Inoffensive - and a bit hard to remember who it's for. Which is fairly appropriate as I'd struggle to tell you what sets Debenhams apart from any other department store.
Times worse than my charitable Christmas advert idea: 2
Waitrose
Christmas adverts go austerity. This year we've spent all our cash on a donation to charity, says a voiceover. As if the mink-and-ermined Waitrose customers give a stuff.
I also have a feeling that there's something a bit disingenuous about all this - how much did it cost to buy up all the ad space to tell us you're not spending any cash on a fancy Xmas ad, eh, Waitrose?
Still, one in the eye for all the others who've spunked up a load of cash on celebs and a frankly insane amount of Christmassy milieu. And it's not far off my idea for 2013 - but this doesn't mean you're off the hook, Waitrose. Oh, no...
Times worse than my charitable Christmas advert idea: 2.5
Very
Cheap. Shit.
Times worse than my charitable Christmas advert idea: ∞
Asda
There are certain groups you can't possibly criticise these days. The Armed Forces, for example - rebranded as 'Heroes' in our modern parlance, seem to be utterly beyond reproach. I've got a lot of time for people whose chosen career paths have taken them into the army, navy or airforce, but I don't think it especially good for society that anyone is untouchable.
But woebetide anyone who has a pop at Mums. This previously-unknown phenomenon in society - actual people who you might pass in the street or live next door to, who have little people inside them and then 'give birth' to those tiny creatures - is now the most exalted in every facet of life.
See how they use their reproductive organs to conceive and then gestate foetuses who grow inside them for nine months before emerging in a bloody, slimey curtain to the spontaneous applause of everyone within a mile's radius.
The ability to fulfill one's sexual facilities seems to be on a par with parting the red sea these days. But there's more. Once they've had these wailing mucal balls extracted from them, these women actually return to work and even go shopping.
If I had my way, we would not rest until every photo posted to Facebook was of a unfocussed child frowning vaguely in the direction of a camera. Everyone who has ever brought a child into the world must be given an OBE. I demand a new Minister for Motherhood and that we replace Nelson atop his tower with a 40-tonne tribute to MumsNet.
Or we could just watch this fucking Christmassy Asda advert. For fuck's sake.
Times worse than my charitable Christmas advert idea: 23
Toys R Us
I can't tell if the people who do the adverts for Toys R Us are secretly setting us up for some sort of glorious return to the days of a smiling giraffe pointing at Connect 4, or whether they're just complete imbeciles.
Because this sexed-up ad for Toys R Us is like asking Dappy to give the New Year's Day message instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
A happy-slapping in advert form. Get rid of it, for the love of Geoffrey.
Times worse than my charitable Christmas advert idea: 42
John Lewis
We all know the form by now. An effort that is fairly explicitly trying to make you cry. A precision-guided Cupid's Arrow aiming to shatter your emotional aorta and cause a blockage of sludgey mawk in your left ventricle. A psychological heart attack in advert form.
In this one a snowman - bereft of a comedic genital carrot and possibly related to the Weeping Angels as no-one ever seems to see it move - fetches some gloves for his missus (also a snowperson, but with no snowtits in evidence), requiring a massive trek across, apparently, a bit of England that resembles the Alps.
Next year will be Barber's Adagio For Strings as a series of rostrum-camera'd sepia photos of beloved personalities who have passed away (Tommy Cooper, Eric Morecambe, the Dad's Army cast etc) ticks over in a starlit sky above a donkey sanctuary.
Times worse than my charitable Christmas advert idea: 8
Marks & Spencer
Blergh. Back to middle-class women dancing around like people who are so smug even Ian Hislop thinks it's a bit much. The 'stalking-towards-the-camera' meme, the dicking-about-in-jim-jams stuff, the endless smiling...
There's a half-hearted effort to make it a bit less Surrey-Commuter-Belt-ABC1s with some INXS in there, but really this is Marks and Spencer by the numbers. And those numbers are £39.99 for a scarf you know your Mam secretly dislikes.
Times worse than my charitable Christmas advert idea: 9
Boots
I suppose we should be grateful we're not getting the rat-a-tat-tat of Here Come the Fucking Girls again, but Boot's mission to align Christmas and your feelings for your loved ones with hairdryers strikes me as a tough sell.
There are some non-white faces here portrayed in a way that feels natural, so bonus points for that, but there are also a few odd things going on here.
Is the Mum who's in bed at first suffering from some debilitating ailment - is there a suggestion of a disease in remission here? And is the girl who suggests checking into a hotel naked? I'm genuinely not sure. If so, why? If not, then why does it look like they are?
All told, though, I think this is the Christmas advert I dislike the least.
Times worse than my charitable Christmas advert idea: 1.08
Matalan
With a voiceover so earnest, it makes Kevin Whately talking about African children dying of dysentery sound like a Top 40 chart rundown, this Matalan ad is going for broke in pretending that it gives a fig about its customers' enjoyment of Christmas.
Frankly, I don't believe these massive multi-million quid corporations telling me they love me - and neither should you. So the whole ad is undermined by the transparency of the exchange between customer and vendor.
Matalan, you want my money, not my approval. Don't pretend otherwise - we'll get together a lot better. As it is, you're unlikely to earn neither this festive season.
Times worse than my charitable Christmas advert idea: 11
Littlewoods
First things first. Having attempted to do away with Santa in its ad last year, suggesting that a 'lovely muvva' was responsible for all the Christmas shopping, the very first shot is of Saint Nick pulling up on a sleigh this year.
A wise move, I'd suggest, not because I really give a toss about whether children believe in a mythical being or not (see how easy it would be to include a smug Dawkins-esque rant here?) but because the naked commercialisation of young kids was one of the most egregious things I'd ever seen.
Still, Littlewoods is at it again here. Is that a mobile phone that some kids have bought AJ's Mum? Yes it is. How fucking lovely. A phone. I know this is a judgement call, but I don't find anything cute about shoehorning little kids into ads; I find it obnoxious.
What's more, Myleene Klass (it's worth pointing out that she's one of only three identifiable front-of-camera slebs on this year's lot), who I have no particular beef with, seems to have acquired that skeletal hawkish look that 30-something celebs on fad diets assume with the passage of time. To be quite honest, I think it makes her look a bit frightening. Have a few goose-fat-roasted-spuds this Xmas, Myleene.
An attempt to rein in the hideousness of last year's effort then. But there's still something a bit grasping about the whole thing; as if the very thing veneer over the it that could be peeled back to see a call-centre, a distribution depot, a foreign factory...
Times worse than my charitable Christmas advert idea: 9
Morrisons
Woah, and you thought the Asda advert was bad. It would be easy to start crying sexism at this ad - and I don't doubt that many have already. Whether this is patronising to women or men, or whether you see this as a fairly realistic portrayal of what it is to be a woman at this time of year probably depends on your point of view.
I'm going to steer clear of all that stuff - I can see both sides - but I do think this is a bad advert. For fully 86 seconds of the 90 this Morrisons advert consists of, it's slating Christmas. Does the pay-off haul it back over the line? I'm not that sure it does, you know.
So, then, Christmas. An utter ballache, with a side-serving of chauvinism. Sheesh, where's that eggnog?
Times worse than my charitable Christmas advert idea: 5
That’s why swimming pools are a little like Facebook
Swimming pools are filled with people.
Some you know. Some you don’t. And every once in a while you see something that maybe you shouldn’t. And every now and then you see a large turd swimming towards you. And the swimming pool sells all your personal data to some awful internet marketeers. And you secretly ogle people you'd like to fuck.
That’s why swimming pools are a little like Facebook.
Greggs zombies: Say what?
This is quite a nice little thing - the zombies are quite good and it's all quite engaging. I thought it was heading towards them going into Greggs and demanding a new Halloween-themed pasty called Spooky Beef or something.
But then they go into a shop and the Greggs functionary says something like 'we only serve humans in here'. Eh?
I don't get it. And isn't the zombie thing a bit of an awkward angle for a food outlet? Especially one that makes a heck of a lot of use of reconstituted and rather cheap meat? You know with the whole zombies-eat-humans, rotting flesh and feasting on brains thing?
I'd take it all back if the latest special-edition Greggs pasty was made with calf brains. Now that would be a hit out of the park.