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.
Ladies and gentlemen, let’s not dilly-dally around the issue of Christmas advertising. It’s everywhere and it’s so aggressive that 90% of the time you feel less like it’s the most wonderful time of the year™ and is more akin to being drugged and lured onto a railway platform by a sexually excited Jeremy Clarkson.
It’s only really supermarkets that show any interest in being nurturing and suggesting that your entire Christmas experience will be easier if you shop with them. That is until you step through their front door to be confronted by a modern-day reenactment of the Battle of the Somme. You’ve all seen it. Grandmothers entrenched in the biscuit aisle launching barrage after barrage of garibaldis on the “boche” in their dugouts made from microwavable Christmas puddings and tiny tubs of brandy butter.
There is a definite trend of companies recycling their expensive adverts of yesteryear in order to save themselves a bit of cash. To be honest, there isn’t a lot we can say as a criticism of that. Times are tough and if your product hasn’t changed very much then why bother going to the effort of making a whole new advert to extoll the exact same virtues.
While there’s nothing wrong with it on the face of it, some ads remind us that they were completely awful in the first place and, like last week, we’re looking into the murky, sugar-loaded world of soft drinks.
Cars. Automobiles. Vehicles. Things with engines. On four wheels (sometimes three) that often get covered in ice during winter and, if you get leather seats, are too hot to sit in during the summer. Yes, our four wheeled friends are so much a part of our everyday life that it takes the release of Disney Pixar’s ‘Cars’ to actually make us consider the fact that cars might have feelings too.
Which they don’t.
And that’s a good thing because if certain cars had feelings they would almost certainly see themselves as hideous, nutrient-guzzling windbags with no friends either on the road or in the driveway. It would likely drive them to self harm, presumably by slashing their own tires while sitting in a puddle. Who knows? It’s rarely a good idea to personify inanimate objects too far as they are likely to take on a terrifying edge the next time you clamber into one to pop down to the shops.
Let’s just face facts right here and now. We’re pathetic. All of us. You reading this, us writing it and especially those that have to edit it. We all feel lonely sometimes and where some of us can just walk into a public house, identify someone they would like to engage in coitus with and then leave with them, many of us lack that ‘cutting edge’ or, as it is sometimes ominously known, killer instinct.
While we’re all sitting in the corner of those pubs looking at those people and wishing that we were them. Those people with the confidence and the sheer bravado to just say what they want, maintain eye contact and end up getting what they want.
We sit in the corner looking at the other sad, sunken faces around us, unable to even make eye contact with them. Everything has gone wrong with your life and seeing these people, able to show confidence in their lives seems to exacerbate the lack of companionship in yours.
At hecklerspray, there are few things we hate more than watching television. It’s so irritating isn’t it? With its loud, garish programmes invariably starring some Northern “comic” trying to rehash the glory days when you could watch someone win a microwave on Bullseye and be genuinely delighted for them.
TV will never change. It will always be either shouting things at you like the Apprentice’s “YOU’LL NEVER BE AS SUCCESSFUL AS THIS LOT” or subtly trying to make you change the way you think.
It’s not TV’s fault as in, it’s not the box in the corner of your living room’s fault that it does this. The world is all about shouting at people and forcing them into making decisions. Companies and governments lie, cheat and deceive you on a daily basis in the interest of adding a few more zeroes to the end of their bonus cheques. By now, you’re probably thinking about what you’re going to do with that rancid chicken breast that you bought from the supermarket the other day while somewhere, a bankrupt butcher sobs into a sirloin steak and goes to work for Morrisons.
Music on adverts is, sometimes, the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone, ever. Worse than being in a concentration camp for 10 years. Think we’re hamming it up? Let us remind you of the jingles from the Go Compare adverts. Or the We Buy Any Car one.
Wishing you didn’t have ears now?
Well, not all music on commercials is woeful. In fact, sometimes, it is really, really cool. Old hits are given new leases of life via TV and new bands break vital ground with a well placed piece of music.
At hecklerspray, we’re always up for a knees-up. Even if we’re not invited, we’ll at least try to crash various parties until the police are called.
The next major party on our calendar is that of our lord saviour Jesus Christ. When he was born on December 25, not only did he know he’d be worshiped by millions, but he’d have to die for our sins. Sorry about that Jesus – we didn’t mean to squash the neighbour’s cat when reversing down the street.
Instead of it being called Jesus day, that day is often referred to as Christmas. While we use it to chomp on dry turkey, multinational corporations use it as a tool to promote their badly-made product.
Bearing in mind that it’s only just November, DFS are already telling us to buy quickly so they can deliver an Italian three-piece suite to our house in time for Christmas. Last time we checked, sofas and Jesus had nothing in common. That’s unless he was a greasy Italian man who made chairs and talked in a funny accent while eating pizza.
This advert isn’t the worst one we’ve seen on TV, but the fact that Christmas is being whored out to us now is nothing short of depressing. Every year Christmas seems to be arriving that little bit quicker. Expect Easter eggs to be prominently displayed from the 2nd of January 2009. You know, so you can buy early and save precious pennies.
You know how adverts for expensive perfume are bewilderingly oblique to the point that you often spend up to 30 minutes afterwards scratching your head and wondering what you’d just watched?
That feeling isn’t just limited to perfume commercials, you know. The Safestyle double glazing TV adverts have been running on and off for years, and yet every time one of them is broadcast we find ourselves quivering in the foetal position trying to chew our own shoulder off afterwards because we just can’t work any of it out.
In short, the Safestyle ad is a commercial so confusing that this is the only logical conversation that could have possibly taken place at the advertising brainstorming meeting:
Safestyle executive: “OK, so the benefits of double glazing are clear to everyone – noise reduction, heat insulation, security – and we’d also like to highlight some of our financial incentives as well. Any ideas?”
Advertiser: “Yes! Why don’t we find a obnoxious, self-consciously wacky bald man who looks like he’s from Narnia and makes Barry Scott look like the world’s finest Shakespearean actor, dress him up like a Medieval time-traveller from the future and make him walk around the world’s cheapest set destroying your own products and bellowing at the viewers in a way that’s virtually guaranteed to offend all of them into never using your company for anything?”
Safestyle executive: “Well, um, that’s not really…”
Advertiser: “I saved your life, John. Remember? In the war? I dragged your injured body to safety through minefields and machine gun fire. You said you were forever indebted to me. Remember that?”
Comic book fans will no doubt be aware that seminal 1980s graphic novel Watchmen is making its way to the big screen.
What you might not know, however, is that director Zack Snyder commissioned an intriguing little competition for amateur film-makers to contribute to the upcoming feature. Entrants had to create a TV commercial set within the Watchmen universe – an alternative-history 1985 where superheroes have driven key world events.
Got some time to waste? Good. Then you can pop over to YouTube and have a look at some of the winning entries. They’re all frankly fantastic, with a particular favourite being the spot-on toy commercial.
Oh – and is this the geekiest post in hecklerspray history? Very possibly.
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.
