Advertising
Advertising is generally annoying. That is a fact of life we cannot escape. Ever since Gibbs S R Toothpaste started showing tubes of toothpaste embedded in blocks of ice, advertising agencies have been concocting weirder and weirder adverts. Far be it from me to criticise anyone, especially people as benevolent as advertisers, but why the hell can you not just tell us about the damn product??!?!?!?!?!!?!?
For example, the latest Phones 4 U advert. There seem to be more vacuum cleaner parts featured than phones, and the only thing that actually makes sense is the slogan at the end.
Some advertising is just plain annoying. At the moment, my daily newspaper contains more Sky adverts than actual news. Then of course you have all the Sky leaflets that decide to fall out at you. Rather than making me interested in Sky, all this advertising makes me want to find Sky’s head of advertising and ensure, in no uncertain terms, that they are never let loose anywhere near the media again. For the good of humanity they should be locked in a small room. Out of sight. On Salisbury Plain.
Whatever happened to showing me a product, telling me about it, and telling me how much it will cost? I’m sorry to say this, but Argos seem to have hit the nail on the head. They show you a product, and give you a price. Thats pretty much it. If you’re interested you’ve either got to go to the website or to the store. I’d still never buy anything from Argos, but its good to see that they can advertise their overpriced junk.
I have to admit I seem to be slightly immune to advertising for two reasons:
- I am cynical
- I can never remember the jingles
The first one isn’t a major problem, but not remembering the jingles is. What if, in 20 years time, I’m on a TV quiz show and I’m asked about TV advertising jingles? I could be losing thousands of pounds here! Some effort is definitely required…
November 18th, 2007 at 1:22 am
The trouble is Rob, when I’m eventually forced to do the weekly shop myself, I tersely know I’m not just going to remember most of these dratted slogans but act upon them too - I shan’t be arsed with the marxist principles of my cynical youth - If I remember the bloody jingle long enough to justify lambasting it then they’ve already caught me haven’t they? As Vodaphone’s very own Dame Judy says: ‘Make the most of now’ because cynicism isn’t sustainable, it comes in spates…During educated youth, and the disenfranchised decades of middle age, by which time we’ll be begging for a return to ‘those good old days’ of the formative years we despised so much. Bring on the ads, while I can still wield contempuous disregard with close on commercial ardency!
November 18th, 2007 at 9:06 am
I beg to differ
And there is one piece of advertising I can remember - the old Coca Cola Christmas advert backing music. Unfortunately, it seems Coca Cola have scrapped that now and replaced it with something else.
November 18th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
For you Rob, yes perhaps it is. And I always thought a more appropriate musical accompanyment to the Coca Cola ads was Weird Al’s ‘I Saw Mommy Fucking Santa Claus’… but hey ho.