The Best Ads Ever! (Formerly Ads from Hell)

[imitationleather]

Gawd, I feel like I'm going round and round in circles...

Anyway, what are your least favourite adverts? Y'no, ones that are eye-meltingly bad.

I nominate:
1) Those printer cartridge refill ones with Quentin Willson
What the fuck do you have to do with printers, Quentin? Fuck off and act smug behind the wheel of a car so I don't have to look at your lop-sided face, you fucking quote me happy money cunt.

2) Ringtone ads on TMF
Woman with most annoying voice ever yaps on about how good a deal it is to pay three quid for a thirty second ultra-annoying tone. Bitch.

3) Any nappy ad
Oh come on! No, I don't want to see a baby's bare arse being kissed! Fucking hell, and they wonder why we have paedophilia in this country...

Any suggestions?

[Flook]

Things That Make You Go Mmmm
Anything that takes a verse from a current track and then mangles their marketing spiel into lyrics that nearly scan, just because one part of their product name sounds a bit like a word in the aforementioned song . The Halifax are especially arse clenching in this department but by no means the only culprits.

[Purple Tentacle]

I once worked for a company who's client was Brita Water Filters, and interestingly they fully admitted that they deliberately kept those "it's MY lovely cup of tea!" adverts on deliberately to annoy, as they stuck in the mind.

The car advert with the shaking arses is my current most hated, although the aforementioned sub Clockwork Orange fucking

"You read me wrong, my audience. For I was in the pink room, not the stink room!"

or

"I'm not a dirty queer, even though I drink the drink of dirty queers."

[Ambient Sheep]

Zoom zoom fucking no I won't ever even consider buying one of your cars ever cunts zoom.

[gazzyk1ns]

The ad for the Pop Idol magazine - "Try the latest dances, the best moves!" and something like "With the first issue, get a COOL free bandana and look JUST like Avril!" Anyone not wanting to wring the necks of those girls in that ad has something seriously wrong with them.

[splattermac]

any ad where it features staff in a call centre delighted to receive your call,

it insults my intelligence and is frankly, dishonest.

I really must do a rate-my-call-centre webpage, yup, the domain names available.

[european son]

HSA manage to have had two totally different, equally irritating, campaigns.

the rabbit saying haitch-ess-ayyy and a bunch of wankers chanting "why are we waiting".

[Ambient Sheep]

"You read me wrong, my audience. For I was in the pink room, not the stink room!"
or
"I'm not a dirty queer, even though I drink the drink of dirty queers."

Ooer!  We don't get that in Wales.  Obviously they thought it wouldn't, erm, go down well in the valleys.

It's like that Murray Walker & Damon Hill pizza advert that ran a few years ago.  I never saw it once, despite everyone else in the country having seen it and it getting widespread comment.  I can only assume that it didn't get shown in Anglia for some reason, which is fucking bizarre when you consider it's full of racing drivers (some of them not even in XR3s).

[gazzyk1ns]

I saw it when it was first on Sheep, and I'm in Anglia... maybe your brain just avoided it for you? Pizza Hut have a bit of an appalling record with ads like that, don't they... maybe it's deliberate, a la Brita up there. The one with Chris Waddle and Stuart Pearce was the worst - "This time he's hit the post!"

[imitationleather]

What about the one with the Pop Idol judges and the YMCA girl?

[Ambient Sheep]

I saw it when it was first on Sheep, and I'm in Anglia... maybe your brain just avoided it for you? Pizza Hut have a bit of an appalling record with ads like that, don't they...

Heh, I was waiting for one of you Ipswich-ish guys to correct me!

You misunderstand though...I *wanted* to see it (being a big fan of both Walker and Hill), and yet it was never on.  Perhaps it was because I hardly ever watch ITV except for the Grands Prix, and of course come to think of it due to ITC rules they wouldn't be able to show it then.  That probably explains it.  Then again, I remember asking my workmates whether any of them had seen it either, and they hadn't.

Maybe it was a transmitter thing - I assume you're pointing at Tacolneston or Sudbury (Anglia East) rather than Sandy Heath (Anglia West)?  I know they have different local newses, maybe they have different adverts too.

[gazzyk1ns]

I'm pointed at Sudbury... I had no idea the local news differed between transmitters though! I thought those other two you mentioned were... er.. I don't know what they call them, relay stations or secondary transmitters... so they'd have the same output as Sudbury which was a primary one. I have no idea though, my knowledge on the matter was attained from a leaflet I found in B&Q and that page on Ceefax which used to (maybe still does?) have transmitter info. it's 69x I think? Can't remember.

[@ssmaster]

'I love horses, best of all the animals' I can't get that fucking song out of my head!!!!

http://www.deagostini.co.uk/ilovehorses/

I prefer this one myself...

Ted & Dougal - My Lovely Horse

[Uncle Gripper]

That idiotic 'Mach 4',, now shaving can be similar in experience to driving a performance race car.  Red of course.

That new coke advert, sure.......

Why the fuck do they have life insurance, death mongering adverts on Cartoon Network.  In fact they should ban all adverts on kids TV, its just not cricket.......

Any food adverts on after say 10pm, i mean if yer sittin there at 1am and ye see an advert for some tasty grilled flesh pancake, then although you might not want a burger, it DOES make ye feel hungry on some level.  so you end up going in and getting some cereal of a bag of crisps, etc.  its evil i tell ya!

Those adverts aimed at the '38% of women who essentially piss into their pants', pantyliner/nappy ads.

Adverts that suggest overt sexuality, like the 'swing both ways' hair striaghtener advert and the bukkake-esqu archers alcopop 'I want JUICE' dominatrix piss fest.  Eventually there wil be hardcore bangle teasing and eye jamming imagery on TV, advertising fucking Volvo's or something.

[Borboski]

'I love horses, best of all the animals' I can't get that fucking song out of my head!!!!

http://www.deagostini.co.uk/ilovehorses/

I prefer this one myself...

Ted & Dougal - My Lovely Horse

I was going to say that one. Mrs Borboski is a teacher, whose caretaker brought in a kiddly bean clutching said mag. Mrs Borboski was very pleased, singing out, I LOVE HORSE! THEIR MY FRIENDS! at which point all the 14 year old lads starting calling her twat. Bless.


Hilairiously, she really does love horses.

[Gazeuse]

Avon on a scooter.

Yes, Paul darrow on one of those old folks/disabled scooters.

It's not so much bad as bizarre.

Still, makes a change from the Liberator, I suppose.

[fanny splendid]

The ad for the Pop Idol magazine - "Try the latest dances, the best moves!" and something like "With the first issue, get a COOL free bandana and look JUST like Avril!" Anyone not wanting to wring the necks of those girls in that ad has something seriously wrong with them.

Was that your main defence?

[Spiteface]

Frogs wiping their arses...



Am I the only one to think this is wrong?

[Ambient Sheep]

I'm pointed at Sudbury... I had no idea the local news differed between transmitters though! I thought those other two you mentioned were... er.. I don't know what they call them, relay stations or secondary transmitters... so they'd have the same output as Sudbury which was a primary one.

Sandy, Sudbury & Tacolneston are the main transmitters (nice map) for the BBC East / ITV Anglia region.  Each have their own relays that do indeed carry identical programmes - not many though, as the area's so flat; compare with Wenvoe (Cardiff) for example... :-)

Usually all main transmitters in a region carry the same programmes & adverts too, but in recent years some of the larger regions have split themselves into sub-sections, Anglia was amongst the first of these, as people in Bedford have fuck-all interest in what goes on in Norwich.  I'm not sure whether ITV Anglia news has two or three versions, BBC I think only has two; if you can find a mate with a Sky box you can see both the BBC ones as "BBC East (E)" and "BBC East (W)".  Having said that I think there's only one ITV Anglia on satellite (Norwich, naturally, since that's their HQ), they couldn't be arsed to pay for the extra carriage for the Milton Keynes version.

I remember when they first started testing this out a few years ago, for the first few weeks there were a few cockups where people would forget to press buttons and you'd get the start of the Norwich news before suddenly switching to the Milton Keynes news (neither of which were at all relevant to me) halfway through a sentence...

I have no idea though, my knowledge on the matter was attained from a leaflet I found in B&Q and that page on Ceefax which used to (maybe still does?) have transmitter info. it's 69x I think? Can't remember.

698.

I'll get my anorak.

[Morrisfan82]

"We apologise for the recurring image of Leslie Crowther. This is due to a fault on our transmitter."

[Vermschneid Mehearties]

3) Any nappy ad
Oh come on! No, I don't want to see a baby's bare arse being kissed

But why? They're so fucking sexy...

Curry's

"Always cutting prices...".

Last time I went into your store and had a look at your prices, I nearly fucking fainted. You have offers on shite that you couldn't sell, and then compensate for that by hiking up everything else in the fucking store. And that Lesley Barker thingy. She's annoying too. Everytime she gets those scissors out I feel like crossing my legs.

Kandoo

Like the above 'whore says. It's fucking disgusting. Crocodiles most likely don't have excretal orafaces in the same place as us, and even then- living in a salt water environment would like clean that area up faster than you can say Dettox in a David Bellamy style accent.

Mobile frigfucking 'Lifestyle' abominations

I don't have a mobile, but will probably be forced into getting one. Probably a big cheap brick which I'll proudly show off.

"What does yours do?"

"Mine allows you to send pictures of my sleeping todger to a member of the RAC....What does yours do?"

"Mine allows you to ring people or send them text messages."

Don't try and con me into getting a superdeluxe contract one which I DON'T NEED. Phone shops no longer get people in them, so then they hog the street space shouting weird things I don't understand over loud speakers, about how I could save £300 buy purchasing a mobile dog phone fucktoy for 1200 pounds, or how if I pay over 36 months, I won't inherit herpes from Siemens latest malfunctioning twatmachine.

[Morrisfan82]

Re mobile phone ads: do you remember a while back there was an advert for Nokia or someone that was like "in the future you'll be able to watch films on your mobile!". So fucking what?? In the future we'll probably all have jet-powered hoverpants and virtual-reality robo-telescopic winkies too, that's no excuse to show adverts for them now is it.

[Plank]

Well I used to be pointed at Sandy Heath and I caught the Hill/Walker advert (I think it was broadcast when I was still down there). Do they still have the closer to home music and BC the Bear down Anglia way or is it all this new fangled Carlton/Grenada sludge now?

[Sherringford Hovis]

Any advert on a TV station that's FOR ITSELF. Don't know much about your dish-delivered estate-ovision, but all the terry-stool ones are guilty, but Its Twatting  Vacant  are the worst - I don't know who half of those smirking twats they feature on their announcement screens these days, nor would I care if they were actually captioned to say who they are. By all means trail future programmes (so long as you actually tell us the date and time, rather than the 'coming soon' shite that's getting all too common).

Radio adverts in general wind me up, simply because I'm only too familiar with the dismal local muso types that think they're 'big' on the media scene because they got  £90 for some vacant thirty-second jingle that backs up some screeching woman going on about Kitchen Barn's half-price sale. Who the buggery buys double glazing because they've heard about it on the radio? Who decides to change their mortgage to a new lender because they heard the slot after IRN while they were driving home?


But more annoying than either of these is that advertising is bloody everywhere.

The big boards that infest  the landscape everywhere I look.

Buses are plastered with ads.

Stickers in car windows advertise asinine morning radio shows, political allegiences or the town where some twatty caravanners stayed for a few minutes.

Taxis now are covered in writing at all angles,

Check my email and I'm spammed to hell by idiots trying to sell me shit that even if I did need it, I wouldn't buy from an unsolicited offer.

Surfing the net I have to deal with an eternal chain of popping up windows containing the most useless products.

Open any letters at work and yet again I have to deal with a load of nonsense,  in addition to supermarket leaflets, internet trials, credit card offers and insurance deals I gathered at my own front door before leaving home.

If I stay in, I risk some dim-witted teenager pestering me to buy double glazing either over the phone or at my front door.

My mobile beeps, free ring tones, displays, £££ won etc, How long til credit card offers arrive that way?

I could go into town, have a few beers? I sit down in the pub place my beer on the mat which is advertising the very beer I just bloody bought.

In the High Street, the army of freaks in company-branded bomber jackets pressing leaflets disinterestly into the paws of vapid passers-by, I'm accosted by vagrants asking me if I have any spare change, or poor Big Issue sellers blackmailing me to hand them a couple of quid  to support the status quo of market forces that put them on the street in the first place.

When was the last time that you visited a shop (other than Comet, that reckons it doesn't have sales, but does really) that wasn't in the midst of some Sale or other?

Advertising isn't an 'industry', it's a fucking disease. If products are any good, they should be successful on their own merits, not because some overpaid nob-gobbler on the TV says they're good.
We're rapidly reaching the point in the West where advertising is our only point of common cultural reference: our grandparents had a big bloody war, all we've got is Dairylea adverts, for fuck's sake.

[fanny splendid]

Stickers in car windows advertise asinine morning radio shows

I quite like the Chorley FM: Coming In Your Ears sticker, It always makes me giggle, although I have a feeling that might have something to do with peter kaye?

[Dr David V]

I've got a copy of the said I Love Horses And Horse Riding magazine on me (it's my brother's. Oh, and he's autistic, so he's allowed to read pointless shit) and it's really rather amusing. Page 1 (which is actually page 3, Deagonisti obviously can't count) contains information on starting your tragic mini-stable, including a tiny 'grooming kit box' and 'the loose box door'. Page 2 tells you how to "look after your foal". Now, if you've got a foal, surely you should already know how to look after it. If not, then how long have you been holding onto your foal for before learnign how to look after it properly? it doesn't make sense.

On to page 4, which tells you how to "make your horse look smart", including guides on how to plait your horse's hair, make it look like a chess board (described by the writers as "The Cool Look") and tells you to always use a stool when making your pony look like it's going to a fucking disco. Page 6 is all about The Arab horse, inlcuding details on how to recognise it, including a diagram featuring an in-depth guide on what to look out for. How many little girls are going to go around looking at horses noses in gresat detail to see if it's an 'Arab'?

Page 8, "In The Saddle", tells you how to get on a horse. Even I know this and I've never ridden one. Then page 10, my favourite, is called "My Favourite Discipline". This made me laugh out loud in an unruly manner, but I'm on my own, so it's OK. It tells you all about the exciting world of showjumping, and why you'll never be able to do it. Finally, on page 12, there is chapter one of a lovely little story called "Thunder Had Disappeared!", in a series called "Adventures At Meadowbank Riding School", accompanied with massive drawings that make up most of the pages. Then on page 14, you can see what you get in the next issue. It's a tiny horse and a saddlecloth. Plus - "how to stroke your horse", and "another exciting episode" of that riding school story thing.

16 tragic pages, and 2 cheap as fuck toys, all for £3.99. I don't see why you're all so pissy about it!

[butnut]

We're rapidly reaching the point in the West where advertising is our only point of common cultural reference: our grandparents had a big bloody war, all we've got is Dairylea adverts, for fuck's sake.

And I don't know which is more terrifying.

[Morrisfan82]

I found all of DrDV's post deeply unsettling purely because it reads shockingly similar to something I saw on a C5 sex prog last night, in a short item about zoophilia. Some guy appeared incognito talking about how he's gonna buy a pony for you-know-what, and they showed a few passages from the pages of a pamphlet entitled 'Getting It On With Your Horse'.

There is something undescribable about seeing the words 'hooves' and 'fellatio' in the same sentence...

[steevbishop]

I had a go at answering this on one of the reappearing-disappearing boards and can't be arsed to retread it all; besides most of you are answering the things in my head anyway.

So I shift to something that happens a lot in ads, and possibly was pioneered by that shitawful Radio 1: voice overs with that monotonous, strained loudwhisper. Whilst I can impersonate this accurately, that's no fucking good here, so I'll have to do my typically poor description job instead.
You know what I'm getting at though, the youthful voice, more often female, that has little inflection trying to get across how cool this product is by sounding relatively distant from the corporate tonguing coming out its mouth.

That's as best I can describe it. It better make sense or I'll use a frog to wipe a baby's crack.

Oh yeah, I LOVED it when they employed one of these cool-and-distant voice over types for a Seat commercial. The one where the car's driving around and some guy doesn't see it or something and then the women half-shouts, half-whipsers HELLO?, as if she's the one trying to get his attention. Like whatev-errr you plank, you're such a cock for not noticing this.

Ugh, I dunno. If one person knows what the hell I'm on about, I'll be happy enough.

[Smackhead Kangaroo]

.....Mmmm Advertising...like napalm on my shitslot

I'd like to wake up one day and find that all advertising had been wiped clean. It would be vaguely disturbing.

Incidentally horses are shit. To the most of us they serve no purpose except for glue and burgers I guess. Maybe they should have a few pages of that in 'I love horses'? Damn you prissy well to do bitchs and your fascination with privilege. I detest you and I detest your balding ultra platinum card wielding cockball parents