Choose February’s Worst Advert

nationwide advert sisters

Did you miss me? I’ve had to take something of a sabbatical from the adverts. In fact I’ve been receiving daily blood transfusions in an effort to rid me of the concentrated evil that’s built up in my body from almost a decade of watching pure, unfiltered adverts. It’s 1000 times purer and stronger than the stuff you get in your living room and when they opened me up there was the unmistakable sound of that tinkly piano riff from the Tui advert and a pulsating tumour with the face of Gio Compario.

As a result I’m still on a long road back to full fitness and can only subject myself to tiny doses of advertising. So I’m going to let you choose the current worst advert of the month, based on intel received from Facebook, Twitter and the good (meaning bad) people of the Suggest An AdTurd community.

But be careful. Only experts should watch more than a few advert in one go. Overdo it and you risk devolving into a bubbling, stinking mess of the proteins than probably go in chicken Mcnuggets.

Apple iPad Pro advert

You might question why anyone would ever think that a hateful, precocious child in your advert is going to connect with people. Then you realise that everyone who made and signed off this advert works in advertising or tech. Although I was given pause for thought when I recognised various bits of Brooklyn from my honeymoon there, which I guess makes me a big twat too. Ho hum.

Voices Nationwide Flo and Joan advert

People are literally begging me to make this advert stop, like when you see women in films who are so desperate to save their children they offer their bodies to Nazi soldiers or evil supervillains. Flo and Joan are probably lovely people and in the right place – a Radio 4 comedy programme in that slot where I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue and Just A Minute usually reside – or some godawful hipster cafe I never have to visit – I have no problem with them.

But stick anything on television again and again – even Salma Hayek pouting or Tom Baker laughing or the Blake’s 7 theme tune and it’s going to become hateful very quickly. And if your song about a house that’s so twee it makes people pull the same face as when they bite on a lime segment then expect hatred so strong it rivals Piers Morgan’s utter hatred of himself for being a snivelling little cunt.

Go Compare Monster Bill advert

In search of new ways to annoy you, Go Compare has decided to mine the ‘deliberately awful acting’ seam to good effect here. Over 2 million people have watched this on Youtube. Two million. That’s one in thirty people who have been taken over by lookalikes that hatched from a pod. And it is your duty to destroy them.

Also, is it just me or is the ‘random people turning up in your house at the same time’ thing suggestive of a porn film set-up? Looks like Gio is going to be comparing more than just home insurance prices with these two lovelies…

First Choice advert – The Turners Go Mahoosive

Who still says mahoosive? Even provincial commercial breakfast radio DJs are too embarrassed to say that shit these days. And as for the Turners’ rap – how many free holidays did they get for it to be worth all this? And what an incredible way to absolutely trash your own brand. Could this look any more cheap?

Right, look. I’m going to say something now and you need to bear with me. This mixed-race couple thing. I’m a bit uncomfortable with it. Hang on, hear me out. Mixed-race couples are everywhere where I live – and that’s not a good or a bad thing, it’s simply a thing as far as I’m concerned. I can’t think of a friend of mine who is not white who is not in a mixed-race partnership. Great.

If you have a problem with that you’re a racist, basically and I want no part of it. And if you think it’s ‘political correctness gone mad’, well I don’t agree with that either. What’s ‘mad’ about showing people behaving exactly as they do in the real world?

But on this First Choice it’s like you can see the workings out, the base code behind it. You need a family rapping, but an all-white family rapping? Bit awkward. An all-black family rapping? Nice spot of cultural stereotyping. Like Goldilocks, someone has found this racial mix – and I don’t believe for a second its a coincidence – juuuuust right. And the thought of that level of racial card-shuffling makes me cringe.

But, one a much more basic level, this is simply a crashingly devastating advert of awfulness.

Fiftylife Over 50s Life Insurance

It’s hard to pinpoint what’s the cause of the final product here, which is so hilariously bad you’re constantly waiting for the punchline. Is the script, direction or acting most at fault here? I’m not sure but I’d challenge anyone to successfully pivot from a cheery ‘Mum loved it here’ to a solemn ‘her death was such a shock’.

This actress clearly thinks so as she hasn’t really bothered to change her delivery at all between the two lines. Her reading of that latter line suggests this was as shocking and emotionally devastating as the milkman delivering two pints instead of one last Tuesday.

Luckily Dad joins in with a reading of ‘it hasn’t been easy’ suggesting he’s bringing to mind a particularly tricky spot of grouting he’s been tied up with. And is there a right way to broach the cost of your own mother’s funeral? Perhaps, but reserving the manner you’d normally adopt for feigning interest in someone boasting about their double glazing probably isn’t ideal.

The following discussion of the financial intricacies of life insurance makes it clear no-one intends to make any further effort to make this ad in any way naturalistic, a sense only heightened by a shot of the not-grieving father and daughter standing about an inch away from one another.

Oh, Fiftylife advert people. Your ad makes Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s Australian dog immigration apology look like Schindler’s List.

• There are two versions for some reason. Why not see if you can figure out which is worse.

Vote for your most hated advert

But choose wisely, for you can only choose one. And no you can’t choose another one!

Go Compare Advert Proves Advertising Doesn’t Work

go compare advert

Yes it’s another Go Compare advert. I thought a long time ago I had nothing left to say about them and, indeed, there’s not much new to this latest effort featuring Gio Compario wingwalking over English landmarks with some musicians because blah.

Astonishingly and worryingly this advert has been on Youtube at the time of writing – and it has 2.5 million views. Two-and-a-half million people – 2.49m more than vote in local elections – have decided that they wanted to spend a minute of their time watching the latest Go Compare advert. I mean I know people actually voted for Brexit and Trump but this is on a whole different level.

“Ah but you watch the adverts!” someone usually claims in response to these missives, as if they’ve discovered the Ark of the Covenant and solved Fermat’s Last Theorem in one fell swoop. Well yes, I have. Twice in fact. But I suffer for the good of humanity, like those people who sting themselves so they can research the effects of your arm turning into rotting offal and sliding off your body like a fried egg hitting a window.

go compare advert £2bn

Anyway, something did catch my eye that I thought was interesting. This advert is about the amount of money there is out there being wasted because people don’t switch. They don’t switch energy suppliers, home insurance, car insurance… and £2bn a year goes into the pockets of utilities companies who, as we all know, barely have a pot to piss in.

Four out of five don’t bother – in the knowledge that it could save them around £100 a year. Imagine that. Someone says ‘if you fill in a couple of forms on the internet I’ll give you a ton’ and they shrug and go and watch Love Island on catch-up.

Why is this significant? Because it throws into doubt the efficacy of all sorts of things: privatisation of utilities being better for consumers, the invisible hand of the market, advertising…

So there you have it. You were good for something Gio – proving your own uselessness. Now fuck off.