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Super Bowl 2012: Top Ten Big Game Commercials

August 7th, 2012 By Mof Gimmers

You may think the Super Bowl is all about a sporting event, but you’re wrong. It’s all about television and, specifically, the adverts that litter the game. American Football is the perfect sport for the advertising exec.

Why?

Well, not only is America filled with vain, greedy sporting superstars who are willing to shill to the highest bidder, but American Football is also filled with stop/start action and, for every stop, there’s a chance for a television advert. To many, the commercials are the whole reason for tuning in. IMAGINE! Anyway, if you can’t be bother with all that sport cluttering up a perfectly good break, here’s the ten best Super Bowl big game commercials.

Star Wars Dogs Welcome You To The Bark Side

January 20th, 2012 By Mof Gimmers

Only America could host the idea of having a commercial about a commercial. And that’s exactly what VW have done in the build-up to the Super Bowl, which of course, is more of a marketing showreel than an actual sporting event.

Hell. American Football is barely a sport in itself. Ostensibly, it’s two teams of androids running at each other screaming. What’s not to like?

Anyway, the commercial about a commercial features a squad of dogs all in Star Wars garb and? together, they sing a very familiar tune. Click over the jump to watch it. And no, we’re not getting paid for this.

Someone Sets Gordon Ramsay Set On Fire – No-one Noticed

September 22nd, 2011 By Mof Gimmers

Gordon Ramsay has more nervous tics that One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. He twitches, jiggles and burps ‘Uh?’ while swearing like Tourette’s bus. Why no-one has certified this man mental is quite beyond us.

And we’ve not even looked at his weird, weird face. It looks like a cliff face that’s falling into tge sea.

With that, the fact he got get on fire, it’s hard to imagine that anyone actually noticed any difference from him. He looks weird, swears a lot and cooks flesh. If you were in the next room, you’d carry on doing your crossword wouldn’t you?

Gordon Ramsay Axed As The Horrible Face Of Gordon?s Gin

August 7th, 2012 By Matthew Laidlow

If you were ever faced with the task of cooking wrinkle faced chef Gordon Ramsay a meal, you'd probably find that it wouldn't be up to standard. Instead of constructive criticism, a fiery Ramsay would slam into the kitchen, take you by the scruff of the neck and threaten to hack your eyes out with bread knives.

All because the carrots and mashed potatoes were touching on the plate.

Whilst our speciality of microwaved noodles fails in comparison to Ramsay?s Michelin grub, the TV cook is actually better known for his filthy mouth and bad temper. Notoriety equals an easy payday for the ?celeb in endorsing a product. This is presumably what the people at Gordon?s Gin thought would happen, especially when someone with the same forename is believed to be a lover of said product, but this lazy marketing ploy has backfired. Sales are down and Ramsay is off!

Top 10 Weirdest Celebrity TV Commercials

August 7th, 2012 By Mof Gimmers

Celebrities have always endorsed tat to make a bit of extra coin for themselves. They’re a brazen bunch, willing to sign up to almost anything. It’s almost impressive really. They’re nakedly greedy and don’t mind showing it off.

From Iggy Pop’s dodgy insurance commercials to Chubby Checker endorsing his own beef jerky, there’s always someone trying to steal a coin from your pocket.

However, marketing and pop culture – as intertwined as they may be – don’t mix too well sometimes. This is why we’re going to have a look at some of the more peculiar celebrity endorsements.

Badvertising: For When You’re Really, Really Desperate

August 7th, 2012 By Michael Park

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.

Badvertising: We Don’t Want To Lose Money! Please Buy This Obsolete Junk!

August 7th, 2012 By Michael Park

Windows. You either love them or hate them. Some see them as an invaluable way to let light into an otherwise darkened home while others see them as 3ft x 5ft invasions of their privacy. There are many types of window. Sash, double glazed, casement, transom, going all the way up to the stately bay window and the magnificent stained glass window. Windows can give us light but also allow us to look out on the glory of our surroundings.

They allow us, from a safe vantage point, to see what’s over the next hill. To see if the grass is indeed greener on the other side. Depending on where we live, they allow us to see the options available to us in the wider world. For some of us, that might just be the decision whether to go to the bakers’ for a pasty or it could be the choice between two diametrically opposed directions on the street. One- to death and glory, the other- to a life less ordinary.

Of course, these are all pitifully weak analogies designed to bring us to think about Microsoft Windows. More than 20 years now, Microsoft have been inflicting their Windows operating system on PC-owning shlubs and fools everywhere. That’s not to say that ‘PCs’ aren’t good, of course, they are. Let’s just get that out of the way now before we end up with 79 comments to approve that all say “RUTRIGITHISGTNRTIG ANTI MICROSOFT BIASSSSSS”.

Badvertising: Hotel Derek Does It With Criminal Damage

August 7th, 2012 By Michael Park

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.

Badvertising: Meet Vincent; Advertwat

August 7th, 2012 By Michael Park

Sometimes in life, we come across people who we know straight away are going to be immensely successful.

These people are able to take the most crippling disappointments in their stride without ever deviating from the belief that they’re anything other than the greatest people to ever walk the face of the earth.

These are people like Richard Branson, Alan Sugar, the successful Apprentice candidates who don’t end up crying about their weight or selling double glazing to large commercial clients.

Badvertising: Is This The Pinnacle Of Human Invention?

August 7th, 2012 By Michael Park

Stop! That’s enough! This has gone on long enough! The world is coming to an end next year and this is the best we can come up with? This is the pinnacle of human endeavour? The human race has been on this planet for so many years that to think about it in any great detail is enough to make anyone but the most eminent anthropologist’s brain burn but all of that might come to an end if those wacky Mayans are right.

Fair enough, the chances of that actually happening are slim but still. The human race has invented powered flight, television, the wheel, the idea of forcing others into poverty to expand your own bank balance, Victoria Sponge; not to mention the rest of the fantastic things that man has come up with.

We’ve all but wiped out certain diseases that used to kill people in their millions and fought wars against injustice and greed. That is what humans are. Inventive. War-like. Destructive, yes but bloody marvellous all the same.