OI! FATTY! IT’S JANUARY SO YOU’D BEST GET ON THE TREADMILL! Is what I’d be shouting at you if I wasn’t one of you; a Festive over-indulger that left a world of salad and steak for one populated almost exclusively by Toblerone and Terry’s Chocolate Oranges. We’ve all been there and now you’re probably sitting clutching your list of New Year’s Resolutions desperately trying to convince yourself that you’ll achieve all of the things on it.

You won’t.

Why should you? You’re your own person and you don’t need a list of goals to tell you that you should probably crack open a bag of cress every now and then before you start to resemble Michelle MacManus & Rik Waller’s illicit love-child. You don’t even need a list of goals to tell you that it might be time to get yourself on a dating website and meet someone new before you fall into the arms of an ex-lover because you’re horribly lonely.

None of that matters though because there’s always something better than a list and in this case adverts are willing to take on the role of your conscience and the New Year ad schedule is packed with sanctimonious bullshit designed to get you out there into the world looking svelte and feeling amazing thanks to some pro-biotic yogurt.

That’s the thing about adverts, isn’t it? They play up to an accepted norm about the society that you live in. Take the hideous Morrisons advert in which two middle-aged children discuss the recession and the need for people to ‘tighten their belts’ in January. You think this is fine because they’re Northern but they’re actually creating a sickening dystopian vision of a world where children are no longer free to be children and have to think about food vouchers and Freddie Flintoff’s bath of gold doubloons. Of course, Morrisons are trying to add an innocent expression onto something that responsible adults seem to talk about all the time whereas some ad campaigns are just cynical.

Take a moment, shut your eyes and imagine a meeting room where six people are sitting. None of them are wearing suits or any kind of formal business attire and one is wearing a pair of tattered brogues with no socks. One man fiddles nervously with his spectacles as he examines the stoney faces around the room. They’ve been given the ultimate contract; a weight loss brand that needs a change of direction.

One woman in the group suddenly rolls back in her ergonomic back-supporting office chair and makes a loud exclamation of joy. “I’ve got it,” she shouts, “why don’t we show overweight people that if they follow the Weight Watchers plan, it’ll make them thin?!”

There is a stunned silence in the meeting room and the glass walls begin to de-mist as their collective breath is held. Everyone looks to the man wearing a rugby shirt at the head of the table. He nods sagely and the room erupts in applause. The creatives have done it again! Fat people can be thin and they will show them the light!

“Wait though!” Cries the man with no socks. “How can we convince our target audience of saturated fatties that they want to be thin and beautiful?” The room falls silent again: all that can be heard is the nervous tapping of pens on the table.

“What about writing a song and getting a pop star to sing it?” The quietest woman suggests. “We could make the lyrics really motivational so that they really speak to our target market?”

There is some muted discussion in the room. It’s too quiet for us to hear but we all know that they’re discussing who to have sing it. Rik Waller and Michelle MacManus are busy making babies and Craig Colton from last year’s X Factor is far too shit. They need someone that people can aspire to be like. Someone sassy and respectable that will quite literally sell their soul for money.

If only there was someone that fitted the bill. They have a long conversation and seem to come up with nothing. They’re standing up to leave, presumably off to think about it over some champagne and oysters when a Britain’s Got Talent judge walks into their office, looking for scraps.

“Hark!” They cry in unison as this fictional account becomes alarmingly Dickensian. They’ve found their woman. A sassy, respectable woman with a big, idiotic face who would quite literally sell her soul for money. They don’t even need to negotiate with her. Alesha’s shaking hands with them all before they even name a figure. Her only stipulation is that she doesn’t have to touch any of the fatties and that she doesn’t have to rap. She’s moving in a new direction.

Now you know how the Play Weight Watchers campaign came into being, aren’t you a little more open to its message and its 3 minutes and 14 seconds of bad miming, worse dancing and sanctimonious ‘body positive’ thrust? Doesn’t the sight of these people who, you’ve got to hand it to them, look great inspire you to go out there and go to meetings, living by a strict ‘point controlled’ system which requires you to lose weight by emptying your wallet?

Or does it still make you want to tear your own eyes out and stuff them into your ears so that you don’t have to see or hear this abomination ever again? What’s it going to be, fatso?

It’s christmas. Woopdeedoo and loop de loop and all that. Yes, that’s right, since you all asked so fucking nicely, we didn’t bother to do a video this week as it’s the festive season and is therefore all about building up your hopes in order to dash them.

In fact, we’re so set on driving you all to distraction that we’re going to have Christmas specials every week now because that’s exactly what christmas is all about. Incessant disappointment until you eat so much chocolate and drink so much cheap sherry that you may as well check into Dignitas on Boxing Day.

Still, euthanasia aside, it’s always best to start the Christmas period as early as possible because that’s where you make the most money and since all of you dribbling gits out there in internet land believe that the Christmas period can only officially begin when the Coca Cola advert has tugged its way around your heartstrings, we decided to start as soon as they do.

Really early.

Christmas adverts take a few very set, very distinct and very dull paths. They either play to your sentimental side like Coca Cola or John Lewis, they play it for laughs like DFS (no, they really are) or they traipse out some washed-up celebrities in order to point at them and shout, “LOOK! THESE CELEBRITIES ENJOY CHRISTMAS AND THAT MEANS IT’S OKAY FOR YOU TO HAVE A NICE TIME AS WELL!”

That is unless you’re a child, in which case the advertising is still shouting at you but it’s more likely to be saying, “YOU WILL FORCE YOUR USELESS PEON PARENTS TO BANKRUPT THEMSELVES BUYING THIS TOY THAT YOU WILL PLAY WITH A MAXIMUM OF FIVE TIMES BEFORE IT BREAKS AND IS FORGOTTEN ABOUT IN A BOX! THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS! BUY OUR PRODUCTS!” It’s a tough lesson but it’s one that children should learn from an early age.

Some adverts actually go out of their way to combine all these elements into 30 second mini-dramas with a narrative and a heart and real, genuine drama. Step forward, Very.co.uk.

Drama. It opens with a Sergio Leone/Ennio Morricone duel close-up. The forlorn strings of a guitar warble out in the distance. The slightly odd sight of two television presenters going up against the Il Duce of Christmas himself is completely offset by the sudden sense of tension…

…oh, what’s that hyper-irritating version of ‘Anything You Can Do…’ doing there?

In an effort to explain the sudden appearance of this jaunty brainworm, spokesmorons and celebrity bum-chums Holly & Fearne are quickly shown beating Santa at his own game of counter-intuitive housebreaking. Where Santa seems to fail is that he can’t just wander through someone’s front door at 8 in the evening.

Why?

He’s not bloody famous, that’s why.

Besides Fearne thinking she can ‘bring back’ a hairstyle that looks like a ploughed field, they’re showing him up by interacting with a family. It’s cosy, it’s sentimental. That’s where TV presenters and Santa Claus differ you see, Santa Claus isn’t a self-praising narcissist. If they really wanted to do Santa’s job better than him then they could do worse than to disappear from existence in a puff of smoke, becoming a lie that parents tell their kids so that they don’t grow up to be self-involved twat baskets.

Look at that family mocking santa claus. “He’s not even real!” they mockingly cry as the poor old bastard tries to stuff a wooden train under their smart-price christmas tree. Holly and Fearne look on with derision. Humour. Sick, sick humour. How can he ever hope to gain the thanks of millions of children all over the world with his paltry offerings of wooden toys, handmade with love and affection by tiny little people than Ricky Gervais thinks are hilarious? None of these things are a Nintendo 3DS (CHILDREN! YOU WANT A 3DS!)

Dirty tactics! That’s what it is. Holding back the poor, decrepit old man who just wants to finish his annual paper route without being held back by two tarts with a glorified catalogue. Sure they might have more presents than ol’ Sanity Clause himself but do they have the magical powers to skoot round the earth delivering presents like they’ve just inhaled a kilo of amphetamines and broken the face of Bernard’s watch?

Of course they don’t. They’re bloody TV presenters! TV presenters can just smile and read from an autocue. They can’t even drive that van. They had to get the cameraman to move slightly to the left because Fearne Cotton just sat staring at the pedals like a brain-damaged horse. There’s no magic there.

So what’s the outcome? Have the spokesmorons actually managed to upset the balance of Christmas forever? Will the festive season ever be the same again? Does their defeat of Santa mean that Fearne Cotton & Holly Willoughby will become an ethereal, fictional presence that children make macaroni images of in primary schools?

FIND OUT IN PART TWO!

Chocolate! It’s a wonderful invention. Not only did it get thousands of American soldiers laid during the second world war, it’s also a tasty treat that you can give your kids. Your kids who will die of a fatty liver by the time they’re 25. Not only that, it’s an indulgent treat for you to force down your gullet at every available second while telling yourself that it’s just a little slip-up.

It might not surprise you to learn that there are loads of ways to advertise chocolate because it’s such a universally beloved product. The big question is that of the target market. If there isn’t an established target market for product then we end up with mad-eyed children, planting ideas about milk chocolate in your head through a hypnotic eyebrow dance.

That kind of confusion might spark ‘water-cooler’ conversation but it doesn’t make anyone want to eat a bar of Dairy Milk, no matter what anyone claims.

That hardly matters though. Especially when there’s women around to advertise to. Remember how we tell you, almost every week, that advertising companies think that everyone fits into two or three snug categories that they can tailor their advertising to?

Yes? Good.

Well, aside from playing up the notion that women love chocolate and that some are cold-blooded thieves, it seems that advertisers have now resorted to editing old adverts as the recession bites the advertising budget of the big companies and forces them into revisiting successful adverts from the past.

This isn’t the version of the advert with the edit, unfortunately. It’s probably seen as being so trivial by the pedants of youtube that no-one has even bothered to upload a version, clumsily shot on a camera phone. This means that our creative faculties will be put to the test as we try to point out the subtle change.

IT’S THE CHOCOLATE! The next time the ad comes on television, remember this moment. Keep in mind everything we’re about to tell you:

THE CHOCOLATE BAR IS CGI! LOOK AT IT! IT’S NOT REAL CHOCOLATE! IT’S FAKE!

Right, we’re off to accuse Editor Mof of eating our bar of Galaxy. Unfortunately, we’re not smart enough to keep one hidden away so we’ll just beat him to death and consume him instead. Cannibalism is much better than badly edited chocolate.

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Every week, Badvertising takes a look into the murky backwaters of advertising as we call out the idiotic decisions of committees and advertising companies who thrust their intellectual vomit down our throats. This week is slightly different as we’re a little worried.

Normally we watch adverts and can identify the fact that the mysterious hand of the ‘Ad Men’ in every second of the video. Usually, their influence is obvious; ear-worms, repetition, hideous sexism designed to cater a product to knuckle-dragging oafs who believe a woman’s place is in the kitchen, hideous sexism designed to cater to pseudo-feminists who believe that every man on earth is a knuckle-dragging oaf who believes a woman’s place is in the kitchen and annoying recurring characters. That sort of thing.

This week, join Dep Ed Michael as he worries that the people from Plenty of Fish might have missed an important factor in their latest ad. Find out what it is over the jump…

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Beer. Lager. Come on folks. We all love a nice cool, refreshing lager after a hard day sitting in the bedsit, angrily hacking words into our typewriters but lager advertising is notorious for playing up to ‘laddy’ stereotypes or generally misrepresenting the product as being anything more than yellow piss-water that no-one in their right mind would splash out three quid on.

Beer advertising is a minefield. On the one hand you have pressure from the public saying “GIVE US MORE BOOZE AND GIVE US IT CHEAPER!” and on the other there is pressure from regulators and central government saying, “DON’T GIVE THEM MORE BOOZE, THEY KEEP HITTING EACH OTHER  WITH BROKEN BOTTLES!”

Under such pressure it is difficult to encourage people to consume the product in quantity which, make no mistake, is exactly what alcohol manufacturers want you to do. The more you buy, the more they sell to pubs, clubs, supermarkets and off-licenses.

The more you drink, the more you poison your liver, the more money they make. They’re like drug dealers or tobacco companies. Or are they?

Yes. Fundamentally speaking, they are.

Therefore the companies have to work much harder to make sure that their products are distanced from the actual aim of the thing and are seen more as rewarding you for a hard day doing whatever the hell it is that you do with your day. As such, you’ll have noticed a move towards the aspirational side of things. Carlsberg have moved from their “If Carlsberg Did…” campaign, as people were beginning to realise that Carlsberg isn’t the best lager in the world- not even close.

According to a website all about advertising (that actually believes the nonsense they write:

“The aim of the re-launch was to focus the brand around a universal human truth — the connection between endeavour, achievement and pleasure. This is captured in the new tag line “That calls for a Carlsberg”. The creative reflects on the pleasure of an ice cold beer as a reward for achievement.

The opening thematic campaign features landmark moments in history, giving them a twist and placing Carlsberg as the reward.”

Yes, that’s exactly what they’ve done…

EVEREST! One of man’s crowning achievements. The cold, the sheer altitude and the time it takes to climb, it remains one of the most mysterious and tragic locations on earth. Everest is so rooted in the mind as being a challenge that we refer to our biggest life challenges as being our ‘Everest’. It’s one of the focal points of human endeavour.

You would never look at a person who had just climbed Everest and call them a berk. You would look at them with appreciation for their resolve and respect for the mountain that they conquered.

It’s hard to imagine standing on Everest’s peak, looking out across the entire planet (okay, not quite) from its highest point. It would surely take your breath away, if the thinness of the air hadn’t done that already. It’s easy to imagine long minutes of stunned silence and reflection from the expedition while they take time to absorb the full scale of the task they had just accomplished. It’s a life-changing moment.

It’s a champagne moment. It’s a really expensive malt whisky moment. It is, if you’re pushed, a really good Czech beer moment. It is not a moment where you whip out eight tins of 3.8% abv Carlsberg and toast to the achievement before smacking each other about because someone “looked at the Sherpa funny”.

Carlsberg, at a push, is a reward for all the other taps in the pub being off or for it being on special offer in a club. It is absolutely not the reward for life-changing, momentous events because, by that logic, If Carlsberg Made Human Endeavour Then It Would Be A Massive, Piss-Weak Let Down.

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Let’s talk about time, shall we? Time is important. Time is vitally important. Time is- we’re led to believe- money. The amount of time that we spend doing things directly relates to the amount of time that we have remaining to do other things like drinking tea and masturbating while crying into a woman’s garter.

No-one likes to see their time wasted. People who waste the time of others are tantamount to criminals which is why you can be charged with ‘Wasting Police Time’. When you do find yourself wasting your own time, you call it procrastination and you continue to watch videos of puppies frolicking in fields.

Ironically, this particular instalment of Badvertising is kept to a minimum length to illustrate a point.

Unfortunately, McVities seem intent on wasting everyone’s time by making us watch the way that they create their latest biscuit which apparently has something to do with music. It doesn’t but they’ve called it Medley. We can only assume they’ve done this with the same implication that Cadbury had when they created the Fuse which was- of course- a fusion of everything that had ever fallen on the floor of the Bournville factory.

Unfortunately they’ve chosen to do this by showing us two idiots throwing the “ingredients” minus the additives, obviously, into a bowl, accompanied by some berk beatboxing the rhythm and rhyme of the various component parts of the biscuit. Basically, it’s a big biscuity bar that will fill you so full of carbohydrates that you won’t feel the need to eat again until the additives convince you that you’d quite like another one.

The chef with more knowledge of kitchen standards and personal hygiene than the spitting beat-boxer is passionate though. He “loves those funky biscuits”. Whatever that means. You might remember him from that awful sausage advert that rips off the popularity of Mumford & Sons but that’s no reason to think badly of him. Combine the two however and you have a reason to kick him in the shin should you ever encounter him in the street.

Let’s face it. This advert isn’t terrible. Yes, it’s annoying, yes, it’s got all the charm of being repeatedly punched in the face by Duncan Bannatyne but it puts the (rather tenuous) idea of combining music and biscuits across well. Of course, this isn’t the first time that beat-boxing and the kitchen have been combined and once you’ve seen Beardyman’s skit in which he shows you the recipe for a perfect break, you’ll see that you should accept no imitations, even from your favourite biscuit brand.

Don’t let McVities waste your time by making you sit through the longest thirty seconds of your life. Watch Beardyman’s instead. It’s funny, it’s charming, the beat is better and oddly enough; it feels more like thirty seconds than the advert we’ve focussed on.

Also- don’t try to beatbox, readers. You’re not very good.

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Now we’ve never seen Rachael Ray’s TV show or read any of her books – we’re not even exactly sure who she is – but that bitch is a freaking terrorist.

Why? Because Rachael Ray will only be happy when the charred remains of the western world are enslaved by evil democracy-shunning, freedom-hating Arabs. This is a well-established fact.

How do we know this? Because Rachael Ray was recently seen in a Dunkin’ Donuts advert wearing a scarf that, if you get far enough away from it and squint, looks vaguely like the kind of thing that Yasser Arafat used to wear, even though it’s flowery and made of silk. What that means is that Rachael Ray is the worst kind of terrorist bitch from hell and should probably be executed in public for her implied beliefs. Or so we’re told.

Here’s a little-known fact – if you eat, or have ever eaten, a doughnut from Dunkin’ Donuts, then you’re just as bad as those people who flew planes into the World Trade Centre. It’s true because a bunch of crackpot conservative bloggers and someone who works for Fox News said so, and none of them have ever been wrong about anything.

Perhaps we should explain. A few months ago Rachael Ray – the daytime lifestyle TV show host and author of Rachael Ray’s 30-Minute Meals for Kids: Cooking Rocks! – signed up to become the face of Dunkin’ Donuts. However, little did Dunkin’ Donuts know that Rachael Ray was going to use her position working for the company as a platform to preach her pro-terrorist hatred to the unsuspecting masses.

Well, not ‘preach’ exactly – what Rachael Ray actually did was wear a scarf in one advert that looks slightly like a keffiyeh, a traditional headscarf worn by Arab men. And that, as any conservative blogger will tell you, is worse than blowing yourself up on a crowded commuter train. First blogger Pam Geller ran a story with the headline ‘Rachel [sic] Ray: Dunkin Donuts Jihad Tool’ which read:

“Have you seen Rachel [sic] Ray wearing the icon of Yasser Arafatbastard and the bloody Islamic jihad? This is part of the cultural jihad.”

And such was the force of the berserk backlash against Rachael Ray for doing such a profoundly anti-American activity as keeping her neck warm that Dunkin’ Donuts, fearful of the number of reactionary spazzes who eat their doughnuts dropping slightly, pulled the advert immediately. ABC News reports:

Dunkin’ Donuts issued a statement from Margie Myers, senior vice president of communications for Dunkin’ Brands: “In a recent online ad, Rachael Ray is wearing a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design. It was selected by the stylist for the advertising shoot. Absolutely no symbolism was intended. However, as of this past weekend, we are no longer using the online ad because the possibility of misperception detracted from its original intention to promote our iced coffee.”

To further prove that it hates terrorists as much as everyone else, Dunkin’ Donuts is now rushing to launch its new super patriotic Red White & Blueberry doughnut, which comes wearing a cowboy hat, has the lyrics to every Bruce Springsteen song iced onto it and is filled with the delicious blood of anti-American dissidents.

But Rachael Ray isn’t going to get away so lightly. As well as agreeing to wear the keffiyeh-style flowery scarf, it’s also been revealed that if you buy a copy of her book Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats: A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners and read the fifth letter of every third word on the seventh line of each page that’s a multiple of six, Rachael Ray spells out a complex series of bomb-making instructions that includes where to buy the components and details of where and when to hit to hit hit traffic and commerce infrastructures the hardest. Seriously, try it.

In other news, Martha Stewart‘s recent decision to advertise her Martha Stewart Collection 6-Piece Multi-Colour Melamine Bowl Set by dressing up in a KKK hood and screaming “White power!” at the top of her voice has been shelved indefinitely.

What kind of story do you tell your kids?

The one about Goldilocks and the Three Bears, maybe? The timeless tale of Jack And The Beanstalk? Or that really silly, utterly implausible one about the guy who created the entire Earth in six days, can read your thoughts at all times and will strike you down with lightening if you touch your winky too much?

All very good. But none – none – are up to the standard of the Curtain Factory Outlet parable, as recited by this mother to a bewildered youngster.

Nice to see Matt Dillon still getting work, eh?

Lindsay Lohan is angry because an image of her drunken, villainous face has been used in an effort to teach America that ‘not all alcohol users are as irresponsible as people like Lindsay Lohan’ in a full page advert in USA Today on Friday.

The ad was part of a campaign against legislation for convicted drunk-drivers to have ignition interlocks installed (a device that measures a driver’s blood alcohol level before their vehicle can start) and was funded by the American Beverage Institute, a trade group that supports the interests of the alcohol industry.

Why is the alcohol industry having a go at Lindsay Lohan? Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. What’s next; the American Cake Institute denouncing Rosie O’Donnell?

Madness.

In the ad, ‘ignition interlocks are a good idea for’ is written above a Lindsay Lohan mugshot, taken from one of her previous DUI arrests, and ‘but a bad idea for us’ is written above photos of other folk drinking.

They are suggesting the legislation is fine for the more alleged ‘hard-core’ drink-drivers, like Lohan, but that it is unfair to tar the rest of the drink-driving public with the same brush.

American Beverage Institute managing director, Sarah Longwell, told The Associated Press:

The reason that we used Lindsay Lohan is because she’s had multiple DUIs that have been high profile. We needed to create the distinction for the public what someone with multiple DUIs looked like versus a low blood-alcohol-level first-time offender.

Several states have passed bills that would require drink-driving offenders to pay for and install the ignition interlock system – many of them extending to “highly intoxicated” first-time offenders (with a blood alcohol level of 0.15 percent or higher).

Lindsay Lohan’s lawyer, Blair Berk, said in a statement:

USA Today is idiotic to run such an irresponsible advertisement suggesting that drinking and driving is some kind of American ‘tradition’ we should protect. Not identifying that this ad was paid for by the liquor and restaurant industries is profoundly reckless… Drunk white businessmen, drunk housewives out for girls night out and drunk wedding parties should be kept off the roads of America. Lindsay Lohan fully endorses ignition interlock devices, which have been well-proven to save lives.

Now, before all you black businessmen out there get all over excited, hecklerspray would like to point out that it is still very much illegal for you to drink drive too. The Civil Rights movement achieved much in the name of equality, but nothing more. If you do wanna get pissed, just take the bus home. You can sit wherever you like.

The ABI stood by its use of Lohan’s image. Sarah Longwell said:

People magazine, Smoking Gun and a lot of people have republished this mugshot. It was publicly accessible. We’re not using it for any kind of commercial gain. So we’re well within our rights to use it.

We did it as well, Longwell, you People magazine/Smoking Gun shill! Why not give hecklerspray some free world-wide advertisement too? You couldn’t care less, could you? Well in that case, screw you, we’re siding with Lohan. Again.

In response to all this stuff that’s happened, USA Today spokesman Ed Cassidy issued the following statement:

Advocacy advertising is a big part of what we do. Our pages function as forum for competing views.

Talk to the hand, USA today, ‘cos the face stopped listening about three paragraphs ago.

Go on Berk, you show those white businessmen you mean business!

Read More – Lindsay Lohan mugshot used in liquor industry ad – Associated Press

It’s so easy to hate, you know.

Just take a look at hecklerspray‘s regular Badvertising feature, in which we take commercials presently oozing from your television screen and vehemently assert how rubbish they are. It’s a non-stop loathefest. And we’re tired, people. Tired.

So. We’ve decided to take a short break, see. Instead of showing you something lousy, we’re going to treat you to what is hands-down the best commercial ever made.

This is a 1992 advert for the Nintendo game Legend Of Zelda, and we’ll be damned if it doesn’t have the catchiest pop number this side of The Monkees, a strangely androgynous lead character battling all sorts of monsters, a crazy caged Princess and a dance routine that – in any sane universe – would be sweeping club floors nationwide.

What is actually happening in this commercial? We have no idea. Enjoy.