Badvertising likes nothing better than seeing the breakdown of an advertising executive portrayed through their adverts. It heartens us to see people so devoid of creative talent making adverts which are actually supposed to be designed to sell a service but leave the target audience feeling more bemused than Lindsay Lohan’s gynaecologist. The world needs more confused, off-message advertising but it won’t get it. Why, you ask? Oh… you didn’t…
The advertising world is filled with people so nefariously clever that they can make you suddenly decide that you need something you’ve previously never even considered, just by the power of suggestion through a stupid combination of words and moving images.
Sometimes it won’t hit you for weeks or even months but rest assured that it will hit you. One minute you’re in the queue at the post office and BANG! Next minute, you’ve bought a Saab and have no recollection of how you got to the showroom or paid for the thing.
On the whole, it’s the same deal with comparison websites and hotel services.
You won’t think you’re being coerced due to the fact that you’re not parting with any money but thinking about Money Supermarket or any of these things has been placed in your mind.
You didn’t pluck that out of nowhere. Google rankings? Advertising. SEO? Advertising. It’s all there and it’s all designed to get your money or your clicks- whichever the business deals in.
Hotel finders are much the same animal only looking at this, you’ll wish they weren’t.
This is Hotel Derek from Hotels Direct. We’ll deal with the elephant in the room first, shall we? Hotel Derek is so-called because it sounds a little bit like Hotels Direct. If we hadn’t dealt with that one first, we might all have missed the point of the advert. Hotel Derek is a superhero; something which should be abundantly clear from his catchy superhero name and penchant for wanton acts of criminal damage.
The couple in the advert are going to London. They’re from the North so this is clearly the closest that they’re ever going to get to leaving the country and seeing some culture. Going from a world of smoke-stacks and lung disease to the greener pastures of ‘That London’ must be so exciting that they decided to mention the fact that they’re going to London every time they speak to one another.
You see, these people don’t seem to be able to afford to go on many trips. Hence her asking if they can afford a certain hotel so why would she feel the need to mention London every time. Is it because the script demanded it in order to shoehorn the idea of their ‘big trip’ into a 30 second advertisement. Probably. Either way, it’s still more annoying that waking up to find a choking coal miner in your bed.
The guy doesn’t care. Guys in adverts never do. A woman is speaking, why should he listen?
That is until Hotel Derek, the latest in a long line of humiliated failed actors comes bursting through the wall. Quite literally through the wall. Despite there being a door just to his left- he bursts through the wall. Criminal damage. Phone the police? No. He’s dressed up as a lime green superhero complete with nut-hugging spandex. He’s bound to actually be a hotel-touting superhero as opposed to just a nutjob in a cape, right?
Wrong, apparently.
After zipping around the furniture, speaking to them as though they’re floating detritus that he picked off his boot the last time he was shooting up in a sewer, Hotel Derek decides to launch them into the air towards London. Aside from being impossible, it’s also assault and, assuming they don’t live in a house with no ceilings or roof, yet more criminal damage. They’re saving a bundle on their holiday but the cost of fixing their house is going to be astronomical.
Dialogue again and of course, Hotel Derek does it Hotels Direct. So confused and ill-thought out is this advert that the writer clearly felt the need to have him say it twice in a 7 second period just in case people didn’t quite understand what the advert was about or why an Eton-educated superhero would be firing people into hotels, completely avoiding the check-in process.
It beggars belief. Of course not all adverts miss their message quite so spectacularly but when they do, the results make the brand and the advertising company look so idiotic that they might as well have done the advert themselves dressed up like Jabba the Hutt on a unicycle while crying.
Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!