Oh here come the Christmas ads, and I'm already ambivalent about the Argos one. I'm usually hugely averse to ads using existing music, particularly music I actually like, however by using Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me" they've at least made one more inevitably hideously repeated Xmas ad slightly more bearable by not inflicting Christmas music or any other mawkish pop crap on us 199 times a day, but a bearable and pleasingly unseasonable soft rock classic instead. Also I like the slightly self deprecating implication, "don't you forget about Argos, with all your online options, don't don't don't don't." etc.
Christmas ads? Famous Grouse the way they used to be or GTFO.
Argos have now started referring to their catalogue as The Book Of Dreams, presumably in reference to that Bill Bailey bit from years back. Odd."And why is it laminated? To catch the tears of joy!"
M&S's jumpers one is like a horror film where everyone gets possessed, I'm not convinced it wasn't pitched as a Halloween ad until they remembered basic middle aged people don't really do Halloween so switched it to Christmas. And what is "Go jumpers for Christmas" supposed to mean? It's not even a play on anything, it's just nonsense.
That kind of ad makes me feel really claustrophobic, like being bullied into forced fun. Remember the Tesco one from a few years back where the family all bully the goth kid into wearing his cracker hat? Wankers.
Very.co.uk are getting in on the John Lewis game with a sugary animation set to slow, emotional music: https://youtu.be/s_4-VsJnUXE But it all feels a bit by-numbers. Sad old man (although he just looks like a fine old man), spirit of giving.
Ikea mix it up a bit by opting for grime in their first Christmas ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0EKS2YfLc0Everyone who was into grime said it jumped the shark ten years ago. But now even my mum will be telling me grime is no longer cool!
What should mothers be listening to now?
Why is Mariah Carey on the crisps?
THE JOHN LEWIS AD HAS DROPPED AND IM B A W L I N G BECAUSE I'M AN EASILY MANIPULATED SLAVE TO COMMERCE
money
The Sun have a live feed for reactions to the Ad
Why is the Queen on the money?
I've still not seen the John Lewis ad yet but they played a bit of the song on the radio and it was very mediocre and autotuned, which is probably what I should have expected.
