This week’s Badvertising proves that the really piss-poor elements of advertising live longer in the memory than the really good ones. What do you remember most? Those Nescafé ads where Anthony Head gets his end away or that insurance advert where Michael Winner tells people to calm down before disemboweling them with a rusty fork? We can’t even remember which one’s meant to be the bad one in that comparison.

What we’re trying to say is, this isn’t a new advert that we’re picking on today but the minute you see it, you’ll remember it.

Fizzy drinks. People like fizzy drinks. We know in a health-crazed culture where everyone’s going out of their way to look like some tanned bell-end from The Only Way Is Essex, it’s not fashionable to say that. Why not have a smoothie instead? Piss off. The people want sugar and strychnine!

That being said, these drinks are popular and force global drinks conglomerates to diversify and look for other opportunities and markets. That’s a good thing if you like to pop open a can of fizzy juice and get all hiccupy of an evening.

That being said however, it’s always been a struggle to sell the ‘great taste of Pepsi Max’ when in reality it tastes like sucking sweetened chicken-vomit through cheese-cloth. That’s why they tend to go in more for adverts which appeal to the EXTREME element of calling a product MAX which will appeal to MEN!

MEN LIKE EXTREME THINGS! It’s true.

Gentlemen, the next time you go to the supermarket, take a look at the deodorants. Many will say EXTREME, ULTIMATE, INDEFATIGABLE (well, maybe not), UNBEATABLE, MAX etc. That’s because the manufacturers want you to feel invincible as result of using the product. We can say with some degree of certainty that if they could have an image of a man surviving a nuclear holocaust, shielded by an eerie white shroud as a can design then they would.

Much in the same way that if they could get off with making an EXTREME toothpaste that tasted like metal filings, we’re quite sure they’d go for that too.

Surely this is the kind of thing that Badvertising should be looking at, we hear you scream (silently)! Well, yes but in an effort to stick to the formulaic nonsense that we confine ourselves to, we have to look for an advert that accentuates those elements. Oh…

It’s probably best to set up an overview of the advert in the minds of the advertising executive. A Pepsi Max account exec definitely didn’t say:

“The Asteroid campaign gave us the ability to show the consumer that people who drink Pepsi Max are go-getters who are willing to do absolutely anything it takes in order to get what they want be that in their professional life or their personal life.”

Of course, what they’ve ended up with in reality are a group of people who don’t take no for an answer. The primary thing we have to realise here is that our friend or the ‘protagonist’ of this piece (if it’s correct to call him that in such a depressingly misogynist piece of advertising) is a desperate, pathetic man who is so sure that he’s going to crash and burn with any woman that he meets in that bar that he’s enlisted a number of his friends using expensive television broadcast equipment (even if it’s only in the other room) to get a girl to sleep with him. He is, in many ways, like many current and former hecklerspray staff members.

Sure, on the face of it the implication that women are stupid enough to fall for a ploy which was at least partially ‘masterminded’ by someone who was in American Pie Presents “The Naked Mile” is deeply offensive to anyone with even a laughable IQ but maybe this poor loser is to be pitied.

Phwoar! Look at that apprehension! She's totally into it!

For a start the protagonist, or “Defendant 1″ as we’ll be calling him, is friends with someone who was in American Pie Presents “The Naked Mile” who is now apparently so desperate for an acting gig that he’s willing to put “Conspiracy to Sexually Assault” on his CV.

Second of all he’s running a risk giving this guy the ‘reporter’ gig in the first place. What if the girl or ‘target’ as we’re quite sure Defendant 1 wouldn’t want us to refer to her as had seen American Pie Presents “The Naked Mile” … actually. No. Fair enough. We take your point. No-one’s seen it.

Naturally this advert was cleared by the ASA who, according to our friends at Bitter Wallet claimed that it was too fantastical a situation to offend. Of course it is but what if people begin to try it out, eh? What if young men everywhere are suddenly asking for expensive broadcasting equipment for their Christmas?

Best Served After Forced Penetration

Maybe this advert is part of the government’s cost-cutting plans. Surely it would be cheaper to keep a note of those buying expensive TV equipment and hiring Steve Talley than to actually keep an up-to-date sex offenders’ register? Kudos to Ms May if that’s the case.

The exploitative and offensive nature of this advert is what makes it so reprehensible and to see the three rapists (because that’s what they are) congratulating each other on a rape well done is enough to make you sick to the very pit of your stomach. Unless you’re a rapist too, presumably.

So there you have it. EXTREME advertising doesn’t work if your idea of EXTREME is forcing your unsheathed penis on a woman with no desire to have your disappointing, shrivelled prune of a peen anywhere in her vicinity.

Don’t get any ideas, okay?

PLEASE NOTE: It’s only fair to mention that Steve Talley also starred in the slightly less successful American Pie Presents “Beta House”. It was also shit.

That Dalai Lama and Robert Smith are a lot alike. More alike than you probably appreciate.

The Dalai Lama and Robert Smith both have their own websites, both find an umbrella necessary during monsoon season, both say “let’s go to bed” when they’re sleepy, and both of them are distancing themselves from Sharon Stone.

So, the Sharon Stone thing might be true for the Dalai Lama, but we’d wager Robert Smith would do the same, given the chance.

We’d all do the same, given the chance.

The Dalai Lama is a wise leader, both politically and spiritually, and being the reincarnation of Buddhist masters comes with great responsibility, and right now that responsibility is to stop messing around and finally de-skankify Buddhism.

We’ve all seen it coming, really. After associating with Hollywood in even the mildest degree, there can’t help but be a nasty skanky build-up in one’s religion. So, the Dalai Lama is going for the jugular and starting with the mother of all skanks: Sharon Stone.

You already know, but just to fill in our mother who doesn’t get to read hecklerspray as often as most mothers do, the whole Sharon Stone brouhaha derives from when last month at the Cannes Film Festival, when Sharon Stone took it upon herself to declare that the earthquake in China that killed 70,000 people may be karmic punishment for their treatment of Tibet. In the same interview, Sharon Stone had also squawked that the Dalai Lama and her are grand old friends.

But the Dalai Lama? Yeah, he’s not so sure about all that jazz. At a recent press conference in Sydney, the Dalai Lama seemed to delicately distance himself from his supposed BFF. He said:

“…yes, I’ve met that lady. Of course from a Buddhist viewpoint, every event is karma. Tragedy in Tibet, tragedy in Burma (Myanmar), tragedy in China, all this is karmic … but her particular sort of comment — that I don’t know.”

Our special Dalai Lama translation correspondence course tells us that the Dalai Lama’s statement in pseudo-street terms means, “get away from me, you psycho beast, and take your backasswards nonsense ideas with you”.

Maybe being banned from China and having the Dalai Lama back away from Sharon Stone slowly, cautiously, like a man dipped in steak juice backing away from a deranged panther, is karma’s way of punishing Sharon Stone for, um, well everything, actually. We’ll let you choose which reason is your particular favorite.

We like to voice our opinion. If there’s something we don’t like, we will act. As a matter of fact it happened last week. We successfully got the local café to stop using bacon that had been dropped on the floor in sandwiches.

Whilst our campaign was a small victory, someone had to try and do something better. And it was only bloody Bjork, who went out of her to try and make a difference to someone. However, in stark contrast between ourselves and the Icelandic pop queen, she didn’t really do much good. Instead of helping, she fucked off the whole of China and consequently the government there now wants to stop foreign artists entering the country.

Well done Bjork! 

China is known for a lot of interesting cultural aspects. For instance, its terracotta army that will sort you out if you step out of line, its big fuck-off wall, its numbers 16, 33 and 56 which can be found at any tasty Chinese takeaway establishment, its knock-off designer goods from the likes of Rebook, Neek, Louise Vitton and Kalven Cleen and its job of hosting the upcoming Olympic games where America will win everything. 

However, one of the biggest aspects of China is its rather rocky relationship with Tibet. We won’t bore you with a full-blown history lesson but, in a nutshell, China owns Tibet’s ass. A lot of people see China’s control of Tibet as slightly wrong and various campaigns have started and ended to free the country. On the other hand, China deems any talk of this subject as a big no no. In its eyes, Tibet is quite happy being under the thumb of China.  

Amongst other things, China is very strict on its own media and bans any public opinion on such hot topics as Tibet. Likewise, the country rarely lets western bands in to play in case they breach the censorship laws. Despite this, the Chinese government recently asked Bjork to come and entertain a few people. It went slightly tits up. 

At a recent gig in Shanghai, the singer and part-time airport fighter simply set the following: 

“Tibet, Tibet.” 

It may not seem like much, but it was enough to offend the government. The ministry for culture in China said Bjork “broke Chinese law and hurt Chinese people's feelings” and pledged to:

"Further tighten controls. We will further tighten controls on foreign artists performing in China in order to prevent similar cases from happening in the future. We shall never tolerate any attempt to separate Tibet from China and will no longer welcome any artists who deliberately do this."  

Obviously, the Chinese have not yet developed tiny police officers who can fly into people's heads and control what comes out of their mouths. So it was highly possible Bjork would say something that could ruffle a few aromatic duck feathers. And, unlike Bono, Bjork has admitted that she wasn’t a part time politician and was simply expressing human emotions. Just coincidentally in China where the subject of Tibet is a wee bit iffy. If she had been slagging off kebabs at an English gig, we may have reacted in a similar way to the Chinese. 

And Bjork’s punishment for her wrong doings? A warning of being banned in China if she does it again. Whilst that’s nothing too extreme, it is important to note that the country wants to tighten the influx of foreign artists due to her actions. Just in case they say Tibet.

This ultimately means that the population of China will never see the likes of Keane, Scouting For Girls and The Feeling grace their country. Actually, that’s not such a bad deal. Where can we sign up for citizenship?

Read more: 

China to crack down on pop stars - BBC