ITV’s Ad of the Year 2011
ITV's Ad of the Year really is a quite remarkable conceit – a programme on a channel funded by advertising telling you how great advertising is. Interspersed with adverts.
It's fiendishly clever, in a way that the people responsible can only be baddies and must be machine-gunned to death by a 'double O' agent to make things right. That's probably unlikely to happen, so you'll have to settle for my efforts.
Ben Shepherd sells it like he's narrating a royal wedding; Lorraine Kelly does her level best to look like the stupidest person who ever existed; a parade of ad bods prove to be various shades of annoying.
The most interesting thing about all this is wondering how ITV comes up with these ads. Going through them I realised I've literally never seen about one in five of them.
I don't watch vast amounts of television, but you'd think if there were going to be adverts featured in a 'best adverts of the year' TV show, someone who blogs on adverts might have seen them.
Anyway, until we see ITV's working I think it's best if we all assume that there's some sort of financial bribery involved.
These are the top 20 best ads for 2011, according to a panel of ITV viewers. I'm with Sid Vicious when it comes to the man on the street.
The Sun - Football brought to life
Rotoscoping was invented by The Sun, apparently. Terry Venables dribbles a load of cliched footy waffle out.
"It was like an explosion but with the beauty of a dance," says Vegetables. What a load of shit.
It looks nice, but it's for vile hate-mongering filth-sheet The Sun, so it must be absolutely horrible. Go away.
Walls sausages dog thing
The dog who sounds like The Streets who apologises for useless men. Hated this from the outset.
'Behind the scenes' stuff in the ad included all sort of hideously banal details that would make you want to go out and nut a heron.
Dior - J'adore
Charlize Theron meets Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe etc. I have literally never seen this on television, so how did ITV viewers decide it was the 18th best ad of the year?
Bafflingly, the ad creators refuse to divulge how they shot the ad. Something involving time travel, presumably. I literally cannot think of any other way.
Lucozade
Like the concept; hate the execution. Horrible whiny-voiced band.
Kronenbourg 1664
Love these ads; don't care what anyone says. Music is great, ambiance wonderful; oddness intact, everyone love Suggs.
Weetabix
Kid dances with teddies. Another ad I've literally never seen before. What gives? Arlene Philips talks about the dancing teddies on the programme. Jesus.
Freeview
Corgis search for television. Literally never seen this. Lorraine Kelly think this ad 'very very good'. We get to listen to the owners of the dogs. For crying out loud.
Cadburys
Clothes dance. Literally never seen it. Arlene Philips lends vital – and I do mean vital – insight into what it's like to dance while dressed as a pair of trousers. The hair transplant man from a talent show was 'bowled over'.
Old Spice
This is a genuine classic. Razor-sharp lines that are totally on the button. Brilliant. Wonderfully pulled off. Mel Sykes basically reveals that she gets wet when this ad comes on.
Yell
The JR Hartley ad updated. Don't think this works. Not especially charming, though well done.
Heineken - the entrance
Despise this music, so can't like this advert. Yes, yes, well done.
People on the programme express amazement over the choreography. Pathetic.
Lynx - Sexy boy
Angels fall to Earth, remove halos in search of man who smells of gas. It's kinda the sort of thing that Lynx does. Whether you think that makes it brilliant probably depends on whether you read Nuts, or work in advertising. Smell is important, says Mel Sykes.
Hovis - Farmer's Race
Literally never seen this. Farmers run. Quite nice. 'Real farmers' were actually involved. Fuck me.
John Lewis - Through the ages
I genuinely don't get John Lewis adverts. They seem to work, but why? All they do is borrow good stuff from other people. Certainly there's a skill involved in picking music, but it's all such a shamelessly obvious tactic.
We're supposed to believe that everyone cries when they see these ads. Let's not overstate the case here – these are well-made ads but there's nothing novel about them.
"Brilliantly uses music," says Arlene Phillips. For the love of Christ.
Also, the ad ends with The Kooks, who are obviously fucking shit.
British Airways - The Aviators
Fuck right off. This is an absolute fucking disgrace. It's insulting. It's disingenuous. It's totally shameless. Despicable, awful, hideous. Dreadful. I'm not kidding. (Read my original post on this - the biggest wank ever wanked ).
Cancer Research UK
A powerful advert, no doubt. I like ads like this for charities that show you real lives – and show you the upside to charitable works.
Aldi Xmas adverts
Like these. Real people. In and out fast. Not too twee. Well done.
VW Darth Vader ads
Brilliant fun, really well done though I still struggle to connect the product with the ad. See if you can name the car. Bet you can't.
T-Mobile - Parking Ticket
Fake traffic wardens befriend motorists. The sort of thing that might raise a flicker of interest for four seconds during your lunch break. No doubt people in advertising will tell us how astonishingly clever this is.
I do like the actors in it though.
Cravendale - Cats with thumbs
Walking cats. Meh.
Last year I described this as drowning in warm bovril while Lorraine Kelly and Ben Shepherd coo in your ear. This year, more like a load of boardroom suits patting your fevered brow while relieving you of your wallet.
June keywords: The man who invented Cadburys Wispas has cried
Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up.
I used to think this about advertisers - now I think it about my readers. Because if keyword queries are anything to go by I am indeed Travis Bickle, gazing out into the world at large and disgusted by what he sees. Sex. Shit. Sex and shit. Sex and shit adverts. Cheryl Baker's breasts.
Have I created a monster? Well, perhaps, but at least blogging gives them a lightning rod with which to work out their frustrations.
This month's keywords were saved, for me, by some amusing ones, mostly beginning with 'why?'. Why is Paul Merton so smug? Why is Gary Rhodes so weird? Why is Peter Kay rubbish? And - most importantly - why does the laughing cow drink her own milk? Valuable questions we need answers to.
My favourite one was the one in the title. Was it supposed to be 'died' instead of 'cried'? Has the man who invented the Wispa died? Or cried? Would either instance have been reported anywhere? It seems unlikely, but my interest's piqued.
Is there a man who works for Cadbury's whose job it is to devise new chocolate bars? Is the Wispa just a rip-off of the Aero? What would make such a chocolate inventor weep?
We're at the very limits of what even search engines can tell us here. As with the amount of queries that seem to start with a desperate 'why?'. We can never know, nor understand why. But, for the record, Shaun Williamson has had a hair transplant; Cheryl Baker hasn't been depressed;and Shane Richie denies that he's wearing a wig.
June AdTurds keywords
jacamo is for fat bastards - 26 instances
natwest helpful banking fuck off - 11 instances
giant rotating negroid head - 6 instances
confused microphone minge
women stalking the camera en masse — post-feminist zombies lusting after a scarf - this is one of mine
"barclays adverts"cunt
"cock comparison"
"i like old movies" advert shit
"you wouldn't steal a" "fuck you, i would if i could"
advert with bad neck
advert with balloons all over the place
adverts for cancer
adverts on itv about cars and cats
andrew castle shit
anyone else hate the confused adverts
are the two women on the halifax advert lesbians and fancy each other? - certainly, to my mind
arsehole from hair advert
asda advert long haired guy talking about quiche
asian girl halifax advert yeah
bad features of the cadbury eyebrow
barry eastenders hair sean williamson transplant
bouncing pendulous boobs
bouncing tits cunts
boycott gocompare and confused.com cos of their adverts
can you buy creme eggs in december in england?
can you say shit in ads
carey mulligan pussy
cheryl baker boobs
cheryl baker getting fucked
cheryl baker milf
cheryl baker tits
confused.com ymca what the fuck cunts
cream egg pussy filler
davina mccall squeezing ass
dildo on the woman and then facking a women driver car insurance
do you see breasts in barclaycard rollercoaster advert - I feel sure it was someone's responsibility to airbrush out any offending nipples in this ad
fucked under the table secretly wife is there
garnier ultralift advert behind the scenes
go compare adverts compare these two fingers fatty
god only knows ruined by volkswagen
god only knows ruined by vw vans advert
has cheryl baker been depressed?
has shane ritchie got a wig?
has the voice of the panda of fox biscuit adverts changed
here comes the girls adverts horrible patronising
how is gender constructed in the cadbury milk tray advertisement
hsbc advert what the fuck is he cooking
i've been fucked by bray leino
ian wright carpetright advert - why would anyone want to see such a thing?
is brian big brother and cadbury monkey ad racist
is it true that the guy in the barlays was seen on a railway station and picked for the advert?
is that paul whitehouse real face
jacamo is for obese people
jack davenport big penis
jenny craig causing weird poop
lesbian halifax advert
mumford oirish
ocean finance tv why does it exist
peter jones appears in advertisements suck dick
pillsbury dougboy jizzes all over
safe use smoked sausage dildo
sean pertwee i want you
semen everywhere
sex and the erosion of shit
sex keywords used on twitter
the biggest pile of a girl 1 kg turds
the man who invented cadburys wispas has cried
twat in a ford ka
up your bingo fat bitches
website compares tits people vote on them - an opening for Confused.com?
what do you think of the jammy doger? i think it's a very arrogant biscuit - I'd love to hear the reasoning on this
whose is that bouncing tits in all the adverts
why is gary rhodes so weird?
why is paul merton such a smug knob?
why is peter kay so shit these days?
why would the laughing cow eat her own milk?
wonga idiots
wow, pretty girl is shitting? surely pretty turd
yahoo caramel girls fucked roughly
halifax ad punch myself in the face
i hate that fucking creepy birdseye bear
Recurring keywords
Annoying - 121 - Spotify a runaway here; Barclays, Direct Line Line and 118 118 running up
Shit - 154 - All the usual suspects
Fuck - 71 - Natwest and Halifax
Hate - 40 - Louise Rednknapp, Betty Crocker, Confiused.com, GoCompare, Halifax, Barclays getting it here
Cunt - 25 - Jacamo ran away with this one
Cadbury’s in trouble again for ‘racist’ advert
Cadbury's has apologised and withdrawn an advert that compared a chocolate bar to Naomi Campbell, referencing her stroppy, prima-donna-ish behaviour.
La Campbell and some silly pressure groups have been shrilly announcing their displeasure at this advert, which is an insult to blacks everywhere and is basically the same as if everyone who works for Cadbury had dressed up as Klan members and set fire to a burning cross outside her house:
"I am shocked. It's upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me, but for all black women and black people. I do not find any humour in this. It is insulting and hurtful."
Now, this was a silly thing to do from Cadbury's, especially as they got into trouble not so long ago for another misjudged advert featuring a 'giant, rotating negroid head', but how exactly is this racist? Chocolate is brown; Naomi Campbell is black so is comparing one to the other in an entirely different context indicative or racism?
Hardly, but in an age where virtually every act committed by anyone in the world has to result in a public apology it's hardly surprising and someone should have foreseen this.
What's disappointing is that a number of people beyond the ghastly Campbell appear to be jumping on a rather ramshackle bandwagon. Three people in the country complained about this, as is their right. They may have felt that the ad was naive and misjudged, but it's all so depressing whenever people cry racism with the slightest prompting.
Does anyone genuinely believe that a massive multinational would okay an ad that compared chocolate to a black woman on the basis of her racial make-up?
Personally I don't, but by the same token I wouldn't have believed that Cadbury's would, twice in rapid succession, release adverts that could be attacked on the grounds of mocking black people.
Anyway, here's a strapline for that ad that might have been racist:
"Like Naomi Campbell, it's brown"
March 2011 Adturds keywords – angry, angry people
It's that time again when we learn what the great British population really thinks of adverts. Well, the things they type into search engines that amuse me, anyway.
The usual cast of awful ads that enrage people, bubbling, boiling hatred, bafflement and sexual perversity. Just your typical day at the AdTurds office, really.
"here come the girls" fuck off - 50 whole queries!
what does the guy say at the end of the cadbury cream eggs advert? - 11 visits!
paul whitehouse dead
here come the sodding girls
i hate louise redknapp
confused.com advert breasts
louise redknapp stupid
neville wanless
confused.com lady microphone vagina
did confuse . com used to be a comparison website
jacamo fat cunt
lick the chocolate off the patula
louise redknapp thick
who is the fat little cunt in moneysupermarket?
"isa isa baby my fucking arse"
adverts about masturbation
adverts involving masturbation
adverts with metrosexuals
annoying fat bastard in jacamo advert
asparagus cocks
barclays ads voice over 2011 cunt
barclays ads, annoying twat
barclays adverts is absolutely the worst i have ever seen
bmw adverts are not owned by people who can afford it
boobs confused.com chain reaction
boots here come the girls flu shit
bouncing breasts on confused.com advert
bt + tell them to fuck off about thier adverts
bt jane bitch
bt jane nipple slip
bukkake creme egg
creme egg ejaculation
creme egg cum
creme egg jizz
carey mulligan masturbates
confused pulling things from her fanny
confused.com taking flowers out of pussy
creme egg explosion advert
creme egg orgasm
creme eggs cum
do isa isa baby up the arse
eastender hair transplant
funny dog rape advert 2010
get this shit off my screen, confused.com
halifax advert cunts
having to shit in a leotard
how to be a twat wine critic
i hate adverts with children in them
i want to smash louise redknapp
isa isa baby actress death threats
little chinese girl with a talking cake advert
looks like cream egg ejaculating
marco pierre white bernard matthews idiot
men in ties fucking men
milfs who want shagging halifax uk
sane men to murderous havoc
sausage as dildo
shane richie hair piece
twazmuppet
we buy any car for fuck all
what are the words to the spam up advert?
what does chris jacob think on ford fiesta?
what's the advert about when the woman pulls the microphone from her bottom?
why armpits make women look hot
why do they always make dads look stupid in commercials
chupa chups ants assessed
Cadbury’s Creme Eggs jizzing all over the place
I quite like these adverts for Cadbury's Creme Eggs that go under the Goo Dares Wins banner. And I quite like Cadbury's Creme Eggs (I'm always banging on about Cadbury's adverts - what do I have to do to get some freebies here?).
I think they're cheeky and funny and different. The adverts that is. Creme Eggs themselves are the most sickly foodstuff imaginable. They're like little sugar bombs wrapped in chocolate and, I dunno, filth.
But, y'know what, there's a bit of a problem with them really. Because there's a bit of a naughty meme at work here. The eggs work themselves up into frenzies of excitement upon seeing things on screen that excite them, such as men having their chests roughly waxed.
And then, and there's no delicate way of putting this, they ejaculate. All over the place. They jizz absolutely everywhere, like a pornstar after lent. All over themselves, all over each other, all over the camera. They spunk all over the shop. At the end of this advert there's Cadbury's Creme Egg cum dripping everywhere.
This has been, um, coming for a while. For years Creme Eggs have taken an orgasmic pleasure in splattering themselves all over the screen in suicidal money shots.
Go back a few years and Creme Egg advertising was a tad more innocent. There's still a definite frisson to "How do you eat yours?" but it's hardly the same as spraying semen everywhere is it?
Back to the current campaign, somehow connected to the London 2012 Olympics, and the Creme Eggs can even be encouraged to perform their climactic self-immolation by your unlikely dares, to which the eggs will duly commit spermy seppuku on their latest advert. The Youtube channel is called GooTube.
Here's ad director Michael Patrick Jann explaining - possibly without a straight face - the thinking behind the Goo Dares Wins campaign:
“These Creme Eggs are great comic characters. They’re anarchic, adorable little morsels of yummy goo; chocolaty rascals sporting no self-preservation instincts whatsoever. In my mind, they feed off watching these dares they commission. It’s borders on mania for them. It fuels them like some weird narcotic, and deep down in their candied yolks they know it will ultimately lead to their destruction. Yet still, they seek it out. They simply can’t help themselves. Theirs is a hilarious adventure of ecstatic pleasure leading to the ultimate act of . . . Gooing themselves “
You could sum up this campaign with three words: creme egg bukkake.
Goo Dares Wins adverts
Loving slow-motion cremeshot
Need I say more?
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
Cadbury’s Crunchie Rocks advert
'That Friday Feeling' is a phrase that's passed into the vernacular - transcending the advertising medium to make the leap into the everyday.
Crunchie, despite being sickly-sweet and horribly sticky, is synonymous with the sensation of fun that only an oncoming weekend can truly bring - or at least the saying is. 'Thank Crunchie it's Friday', we used to say.
Think of those great 80s Crunchie ads, that still get an airing from time-to-time. They are, in a way, timeless and now bring with them a healthy dose of pleasant nostalgia.
It shouldn't be too difficult to update that meme, to make it relevant for new age. But how to communicate that sense of helpless excitement that a Friday Feeling should truly inspire?
Ad agency Fallon, which recently won the Crunchie brief, think that this is best done by a bloke doing some of that shit, ironic karaoke that's currently fashionable to the tune of Tina Turner's We Don't Need Another Hero. It's funny, see?
Is it actually bad? I dunno, but I can't even summon up the energy to have at it; it's simply so boring. It's a kind of been-there-done-that ad that's so tried-and-tested it summons up nothing more than the ennui of a Sunday afternoon, hungover and mindlessly watching shit TV on Channel 4, waiting for Monday to inevitably roll around.
And, frankly, I kinda doubt that's the kind of vibe that Cadbury's was aiming for.
Crunchie Rocks advert
• Compare and contrast with this delirious 30 seconds of animated brilliance from two decades ago.
Classic Cadbury's Crunchie advert
Cadbury’s adverts retrospective
A sad day, no doubt for British industry. Cadbury's is off to get decimated and absorbed by Kraft; who will rationalise the Cadbury's bunny, downsize the British Curly Wurley and smash the face of the Phil Collins Gorilla in.
While few are likely to be aware of the economic and social history of the company, most will make an emotional connection with company through its advertising and products. It's often difficult to separate the two.
And while I've compiled a list of some of those most famous adverts below, I've included a paragraph by a friend on the passing of the company as we know it.
And that's it. The last of the great philanthropic British companies - such as Rowntree's, Terry's, Dorman Long, Lever Brothers and the Great Western Railway - which helped to ameliorate the worst excesses of capitalism in this country and raised the living standards of the working and lower middle classes, has gone.
This is a genuinely sad day, and not just for those who like chocolate which tastes like chocolate.
So, there you go. Another British institution off to the great chocolate factory in the sky, not via a glass elevator but the rough and tumble of globalised industrial markets.
At least we'll always have that fit bird in the Flake ad.
Cadbury's flake advert
Cadbury's Wispa advert
Featuring the wonderful Ruth Madoc and Simon Cadell.
Cadbury's Fudge advert
Inspiring rude take-offs in playgrounds since the 80s