Hooray! Another adverts thread (good or bad)

[Subtle Mocking]

Is this Compare the Market ad with Robert Webb quite intelligent, or is it a piece of shit? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JRk3Ju6UQ0

[kngen]

If it heralds the end of that 'Simples' shite then I will hail it as the greatest advert ever made, but I have a horrible feeling its just going to breathe more life into the little cunts.

[Lazy Daisy]

I keep expecting David Mitchell to pop up somewhere, unless this is the first in a series.

[Jamie Oliver is fat]

<Hicks' marketing schtick applies here>

[BritishHobo]

I'd like the idea and the character a fuck of a lot more if it hadn't followed not just the meerkat ads, but the egregious tie-in books and toys and songs that everybody loved, and didn't hint at the continuing adventures of the flea-ridden little cunt.

[monkfromhavana]

Who is that woman, she kinda looks like a low-budget blonde Kirstie Allsopp crossbred with a hamster, who starred in those suicide inducing Halifax "radio station" ads. She's now in an awful series of adverts for Planitherm windows where all of the characters names rhyme (loosely) with "-therm".

[Jumble Cashback]

Okay, I have not had sufficient rumination to firment a Clover-esque tirade on the subject of this new Compare the Market advert, but I do have some thoughts. 

There seems to be a ploy afoot to ridicule those who might confuse the words 'market' and 'meerkat', a misunderstanding which, unless I have grossly misunderstood the motivation behind the original wave of comparethemarket.com adverts, did not actually exist prior to their advent.  The tone has gone from

"ha - look, the words 'market' and 'meerkat' are a bit alike - wouldn't that make an HILARIOUS premise for an interminable slew of cutesy cuntery, designed to appeal to naïve, witless, childlike prospective customers like YOU!"

to

"Ha - look at these idiots who think that the words 'market' and 'meerkat' are interchangeable.  Never mind who implated the notion in their mind in the first place, the point is they are idiots.  That anyone who forgets the name of our business is an idiot.  The only thing that would make them a bigger idiot would be if they couldn't see these fine robes, your majesty".

We've all seen this kind of subterfuge before though haven't we?  A company's mercenary reappropriation-by-condemnation of their own witless, insulting dirge used as a cynical way of squeezing even more milk from the already withered tits of the public cash-cow.  It's the fucking GoCompare saga all over again.  There has already been much discussion here as to the duplicity of the GoCompare marketing department for deploying such a stratagem, so I will not labour the point further.  But, even in the evil, wanking, two-faced monster that is the new GoCompare campaign, there is, at least, a hint of admission; a suggestion of an apology, if not an apology itself.  A real apology would be to return some of the money earned as a result of this campaign, or to donate a huge amount to charity and never darken our TV screens again.  But a self-depricating giggle is probably the best we're going to get.

Here, however, it is not the previous campaign at which we are encouraged to snigger.  It is the feckless, easily-influenced losers who were caught up in the supposed 'confusion' it caused.  The same feckless, easily-influenced losers they count on when using a funny-voiced cartoon character to sell insurance.  The feckless, easily-influenced losers they assume are everywhere, sleeping on a filthy matress filled with grubby tenners, just waiting for some endearing, animated toy to come along and help replace those tenners with shiny new springs.  Springs worth a fraction of the cost, but reassuring nonetheless. Whether it's a talking, cartoon phone; a bouncy-titted, wire-haired, singing bint; a shiny red phone on wheels; a dancing elephant; a mouse who can't hold on to his fucking iPod; or a computer-generated, vaguely racist suricate, the message is clear - you are, intellectually speaking, an infant.  You like bright colours, funny voices and very, very simple humour.  These are the things you like and, if we give them to you, you will follow us - you will give us your money.  You will follow the pretty, bouncing ball off the edge of the cliff.

But now they wipe their hands of all that.  Now they get someone from the world of proper, clever comedy in and say "look at the stupid idiots, dancing to the advertiser's tune; gawping at the shiny keys being jangled in front of them.  You're not one them are you?  You like us, the altogether different brand.  The brand who don't insult your intelligence with childlike nonsense and never would.  You know we're really the ones to trust with your money, not them - the other guys who're also us".  Never mind the fact that we make huge amounts of money from doing very, very little - or that we are essentially the same as any other company that performs the same, effortless tasks.  You will come to us, because you're just that clever, aren't you?  And they'll come to us because they're just that stupid.

However, let's not make the mistake of thinking that this new campaign comes out of genuine frustration at people going to the wrong website.  The people shovelling this shit in your mouth aren't that stupid.  They've bought both domain names.  The other one just takes you to 'comical' link to their real page.  Not to mention the franchising of the meerkat image.  No, they're making their money, just fine, thanks bub - the only reason this advert exists is to do the same thing that the GoCompare opera singer did; that the Confused.com YMCA song does; that every other fucking insurace or insurance comparison advert tries to do: drill the name of their business into your head like a fucking lag bolt, so that nothing can remove it.  Because they know that they are all essentially interchangeable - that they can't offer anything of any substance that would be worth your custom.  All they can do is beat their branding into your feeble brain in the hope that, one day, you'll need some insurance and you'll think "now, what company do I know off the the top of my head that could offer that service?".  That's all it is.  That's the only edge they can ever hope for, because they are not fulfilling demand; they have no real product to sell.  They are preying on fear.  Fear that you might lose your home or your car or your stuff or that you might get an unexpectedly large bill.  And then what would you do?  Die, I expect.

[Lazy Daisy]

I saved £90 on my car insurance, went fully comp and now I feel epic.

[Deader Kata Mosser]

There's one for a smartphone or a tablet or something - maybe Nokia, and one young twat says 'you can literally flip through the apps.' Now misuse of the word 'literally' aside [nb]unless 'flip through the apps' has become a metaphor since I left the country[/nb], what does he mean? That you can look at the big list of (useless) apps like any other smatphone or tablet? Or that you can have several running at the same time, and go from one to the next. If it's the latter, why not say that so i know what you are fucking talking about?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I think he does mean literally. As in shake tablet, whoosh.

I still find this type of technology adds nothing fundamentally, it just likes to.think it's revolutionary.

[Subtle Mocking]

I think he does mean literally. As in shake tablet, whoosh.

I still find this type of technology adds nothing fundamentally, it just likes to.think it's revolutionary.

It's a gimmick, and it often works. Kinda like Siri, the sort of thing you play with and marvel at when you're in a shop, but you would never actually use when applied to reality.

[BlodwynPig]

There is another ad that uses the shit "you push, you pull...you fuck...you cunt...you whore...you die" wording. Can't even remember any of the products these ads promote. I'd like to see a Jumble deconstruction of that meme.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

We really can't let these price comparison cunts have their cake (by creating annoying adverts that everyone hates) and eat it (by mocking the annoying adverts that everyone hates that THEY FUCKING CREATED).

It's a side effect of the fact that price comparison sites are basically nothing but their branding I guess.

Still, at least we won't see the glove buying snowman twat ever again now Christmas is gone. Hurrah.

[greencalx]

I watched itv for the first time for a year the other night (yes, we're middle class) and all I could think was "But you wouldn't need to discount those sofas if they weren't so bloody hideous in the first place".

[mbedd]

The one advert I found a bit odd over the holiday period was that, 'If you could see yourself raping' raping awareness one - strange advert in its self - made stranger putting it on during the middle of that Jean-Luc Picard version of 'A Christmas Carol' - it really added a nasty subtext to Scrooge's character visiting his Christmas past after the break.
Yes rape, it's an important issue, but I found their need to link it to this heart-warming film a bit distasteful.

this one, just found it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPC-Q2NMwJw

Now try enjoying Dickens after watching that.

[DrGreggles]

Those adverts for blood in your poo.

I mean, who would want to buy that?

[Cerys]

Someone who had substandard blood in their poo.

[KLG-7B]

I get free blood in my shit. I bet you're all envious.

[Jumble Cashback]

The one advert I found a bit odd over the holiday period was that, 'If you could see yourself raping' raping awareness one - strange advert in its self - made stranger putting it on during the middle of that Jean-Luc Picard version of 'A Christmas Carol' - it really added a nasty subtext to Scrooge's character visiting his Christmas past after the break.
Yes rape, it's an important issue, but I found their need to link it to this heart-warming film a bit distasteful.

this one, just found it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPC-Q2NMwJw

Now try enjoying Dickens after watching that.

I found that a bit odd too, but I actually think those ads [nb]well, not really ads; 'public awareness campaigns', I guess you could call them[/nb] are very good.  There's no demonisation.  No stupid dramatics.  The fact that they are actually trying to engage maturely with potential rapists is extremely admirable.  And it's a fucking miracle when you consider how they address people who have downloaded a pirate film or might not have declared every single penny they earn to the Inland Revenue.  I'm not saying those things are alright, but they're a damn sight less damaging than rape.

[Barry Admin]

Locking of some of the larger threads - please start a new one linking back to this to continue the discussion, thanks.