Now, there’s a fine line between witty comment about the terrible state of British TV adverts and extreme racism. So I’m going to tread carefully with this one but….

Did they deliberately ask Jose from Polaris World to get his word order wrong? Were they concerned that we, the viewers, wouldn’t really know that Polaris World holiday villas were actually abroad and not a council estate on the outskirts of Coventry?

“Hmmm, we really need to emphasise that the holiday homes are in Spain.”
“Maybe Jose could be super Spanish.”
“Yes, brilliant! I don’t suppose you mistakenly think you own a pet hamster but it’s actually a rat, do you? No? Shame. It will have to be the old Yoda word order trick then.”

And so it was decided, Jose would Latin-up his sentence structure.

“Don’t forget Jose, be super-Spanish, super-Spanish! And action!”
“Make sure you pay for your property, a fair price.”
“Excellent, Jose. Just excellent!”

Judge for yourself.

Until that one becomes available on the Tube, here’s an older advert. Presumably this one’s from 5 years ago when property prices were attractive because for long time I was convinced Jose was saying “Who said you can’t enjoy this life style from just £18,000″.

Ah social networking, isn’t it great?

Networking, socially, brilliant fun. Except I’d never really got in to it.

I do have a MySpace page for this blog but I don’t look after it. I haven’t made any friend requests and I never update my page. Worse than that, the only people that want to be my friends are actually just fronts for porn sites. And although I enjoy their company, our reunions only ever last for 30 seconds or so.

No, I’m looking for some friendship that is a bit more deep and meaningful than that.

So when I recently discovered the wonders of Facebook I was fully satisfied but in a different way to MySpace.

Oh but it’s not all roses.

Whilst Facebook has reunited me with some friends that I haven’t seen for years (”I mean, you call them *friends* but then admit you haven’t seen them for years. How friendly is that?” OK, I’m rubbish at friends) it also has the worst feature of any social networking site - the friends counter.

Yes, I love the smell of competitive friendship in the morning. It reminds me just how shallow we all really are.

“How many have you got? 69,754? Rubbish, you loser! I’ve got 1.8 million give or take.”

What’s more, it seems impossible to have a *network* of *friends* without someone who plays competitive friendship.

Let’s call him Mickey for ease of reference.

Mickey is everything I hate about people. He’s self-centred, arrogant, manipulative and slimy but thanks to a chistled-jaw that could cut granite, he’s popular.

I’m for ever getting messages on my “Facebook News Feed” that says “Mickey and X1 through to X1000 are now friends”. In fact, that’s virtually all it says on there except for the occassisonal:

“Mickey has added the Arrogant Wanker application”

“Mickey has added the Treats Women Like Objects application”

“Mickey has added the Smug, Self-satisfied Bastard application”

Yeah, everyone knows a bloke like Mickey… and he’s a cunt.

I’ve still got him as a friend though because, by Christ, I wish I were as popular as he is.

Join My Group

You can join my TVs Worst Adverts Facebook group and have me ignore you like I do all my actual friends.

Go on, it’s not very popular.

Making fun of the Cillit Bang adverts is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.

When they first appeared on our screens, with the human-mega phone Barry Scott (”BANG! AND THE DIRT IS GONE”) as the company figure head, they seemed to be “joke” adverts.

Surely no-one is actually using adverts this shit to promote a real product.

But a funny thing has happened. As our nerves have become dulled by Barry’s incessant shouting (thanks to there seemingly being a Cillit Bang advert every 30 seconds) and the campness of the low quality Spanish soap opera was maintained we’ve started to like Barry and apparently we like Cillit Bang too.

“9 million UK householder have tried Cillit Bang!”

I must confess that I am one of those 9 million households - you should see how clean the 1 pence pieces are in my piggy bank…

In their latest advert - Cillit Bang in Action - Cillit have taken the deliberate shitness of their adverts to a new level.

The dubbing is terrible on this advert, it really is, but where is the original from.

Answers on the back of a post card or in the comments please.

I love Ross Kemp.

He’s my favourite cardboard cut-out on the box. He’s rightly become a highly regarded televisual acting personality (despite looking like a slightly retarded baked potato - albeit an adorable one).

I loved him on Eastenders where he played Grant an ex-soldier. I sat open-jawed as I watched Kemp with all the emotions at his beck and call: angry, sad, and er, well that was enough for the part really.

Oh and he was brilliant in Ultimate Force where he stretched himself by playing Henno a serving soldier. His mastery of the craft was stretched too, he did: angry, sad and, that was it too.

I love him in the new Norwich Union advert too:

He’s managed to get a new acting facial expression - neither “angry” nor “sad” - I think it’s “smug”. But I could be mistaken, it might just be a bit of wind.

Anyways, I love the bit where you think your prayers are going to be answered and he is finally going to run down by a bus.

“Come on… Come on… Come on… NOOOOO!!!”

Getting my hopes up then dashing them so cruelly. Damn you, Norwich Union! Damn you!

The pay off of after the near miss with the bus is a piece of pure, unadulterated TV advertising genius - well written, well directed, well acted.

And it all hinges on Kemp’s natural comic timing as he delivers the final killer line:

“What. Are. You. Waiting. For. A. Bus.”

It always makes me wish I did have life insurance too, as I nearly die laughing each time I see it.

More, please Norwich Union. More.

There are simply no words to describe the following advert for the Sun newspaper’s online bingo game.

Oh sweet Jesus, save us all…

Update

After some sterling work by other readers (see comments below) TVs Worst Adverts can now bring you the lyrics to this televisual advertisement abomination:

B.I.N.G.O.
It is B. Brought by the Sun.
It is I. On the Internet.
It is N. Never boring.
It is G. Great chatrooms.
It is O. Online.
B.I.N.G.O.

Watch out for the writers at this years Ivor Novello Awards.

As part of our continuing battle to deny the most basic facts of life (we’re born, we age, we die) some of us will do anything to keep the wool pulled firmly over our own eyes.

Don’t get me wrong though, our ultimate goal is not to live forever but simply to look like we’re still only 19 until our clogs do finally go “pop”. And in pursuit of this goal we will believe anything and everything that reaffirms that this goal is not only a sensible one but also one that is achievable.

That’s why I was so very pleased to see this Nivea Visage advert.

Oh thank the Lord! Finally, someone has had the common sense to add 15% pure oxygen to face cream so that our skin can “breathe again, leaving it looking refreshed, radiant and more alive”!

In fact, I’m convinced that this is such a good idea that I think my skin is rejuvenating just by thinking about it.

Anyways back on planet Earth, this is the great new TV advert for Nivea Visage Oxygen Power (catchy)!

The central premise of which is so preposterous (that the oxygen in their face cream is in some way a substitute for breathing) that I can’t believe putting 15% pure oxygen into a bit of cream has any effect whatsoever.

If anyone from Nivea is reading this then I’d just like to pass on my experience. All the women I know that don’t have time to breath don’t have time to rub face cream in to their haggard old witches mushes either. They do however have plenty of time to push up daisies.

The Internet’s Worst Blog

If you thought that this was a bad blog, you’ll think again when you visit the Internet’s worst blog! A marketing exercise dressed up as a personal “Hey guys guess what I just found on the Web” blog, it made me cry a tear for what the World has come too.

It did, however, give me the video featured above and it contains a great F.A.Q. section with helpful and information nuggets like this:

“How do we make sure the oxygen stays in the products? The day and night creams come in airtight packaging with valves, specially created to make sure the oxygen stays in the product and isn’t released until applied to the skin.”

I would suggest that an easier way to make sure oxygen doesn’t escape from your product is to not put it in in the first place. Would the result really be all that different?

I, like everyone else, often wondered how the staff at the Early Learning Centre maintain their sanity.

They work in a shop where they are subjected to, not only the sound of mewling children, but to the 21st century’s version of Brian Cant singing some twee little plinky-plonky song about “ABC”s and “123″s from 9 until 5, Monday to Saturday, 10 to 4 on Sundays.

This particular form of torture is so grotesque and inhumane that it was outlawed in China in 1995.

It’s amazing that they don’t all run home from work at night and commit some of the most horrific hate crimes this country has ever seen (what a wonderful tribute to the good character of the ELC staff).

Over the last 6 months or so, when watching the TV, I’ve started to feel a little bit like an Early Learning Centre employee thanks to the jaw-dropping series of adverts with mind-numbingly twee sound tracks.

I’ve managed to block most of them from memory, so for the purposes of this blog post, let’s say that the T-Mobile Flex advert is year dot. And ever since we’ve been inundated with adverts in a similar style.

I picked Orange for the subject of this post for this advert:

In short, a terrible, tuneless, mumbling, twee advert that was clearly written by a 6 year old:

“I like music made by men with long hair.”

“Very good, Johnny; have a house point.”

What sort of moron judges music by the length of hair of the composer?

“Yes, I’m particularly partial to Metallica and Bob Marley but not so keen on Right Said Fred.”

(OK, bad example but you see my point.)

Just from thinking about the girl in the advert, oh, I can feel a hate crime coming on. Deep breaths, deep breaths. Maybe I’ll just pull the legs off a daddy long legs and be done with it.

Do you see what you’re doing Orange? Do you see?

Update

I’ve just seen another in this series of adverts, and frankly, I’m even more appalled. Not just at the tweeness of the whole affair, but at the terrible grammar:

“All that they need is me and a friend and the talking to go on and never to end.”

I think you’ll find that should be:

“All that they need is a friend and I…”

Honestly, what do they teach in schools these days?

It’s too not much of an exaggeration to say I was mesmerised the first time I saw this advert.

The tension of the music. The drama of the thunder clouds. The resolution of that tension and drama as the rain drops start to fall. It’s got some lovely camera shots and is really well put together.

“Have you ever stopped to wonder what makes something beautiful? What makes something powerful? What makes something memorable?” the trustworthy voice over man questions.

Maybe turning a little pretentious now, I thought but I’m still with you because I want to know what’s it for? What’s it for?

Then the big reveal - it’s Hiscox Insurance.

“Oh” I thought.

“With Hiscox nearly half the claims we pay would not be covered by a standard insurance policy” the trustworthy voice over man tells us.

The scenes of thunderstorms and heavy rain now seem in extremely bad taste given that Britain is recovering from its 2nd set of summer floods and thousands have had their houses ruined by water.

Rubbing salt into the wound, you might even say.

Tut tut, Hiscox, tut tut.

Is this a spoof?

I’m fairly certain that it is Simon Cowell doing this advert but he sounds like he doesn’t really give a shit about animals particularly when set against the most enthusiastic person on Earth (”Wow, animal cruelty! That’s great. I mean it’s great that it’s so terrible…” etc ) Fearne Cotton.

I realise that it is supposed to be in the X-Factor/American Idol style but, again, is it a spoof? Is it really for the RSPCA? I get the feeling it might be new, really short comedy show on E4 (you know how our attention spans are so very low now-a-days)?

If it is for the RSPCA then I say “Come on Simon, at least pretend to care about something other than money and Sinitta!”.

I thought that after Mitchell and Webb parodied the toothbrush design meeting (what with M&W being as ubiquitous as Little Britain but slightly less trashy) that toothbrush manufacturers and advertisers might have got the message.

As the woman from M&W laments:

“We may have run out of things to tell them they need on their toothbrush.”

But, alas they have not, at least Oral B hasn’t.

They suffer from the same issue that Stanley had with their Stanley Knife: it’s pretty much perfect and everyone has one. So how do they sell more?

Innovation, innovation, innovation.

Oral B decided to make a couple of bits go up and down and add a few bits that go between your teeth:

(Apologies, for it being an Italian version but it does still include the brushing “dramatisation” and here’s a link to an English version.)

Oral B’s marketing department decided that this new innovation should be called “Pulsar” (ooh, manly). No longer do we poor saps simply have to brush our teeth while our brush does little to help. No, now our brush will forever be more pro-active and send “pulses” through our filthy gobs to shed our gnashers of heinous plaque.

Cor! A toothbrush with a pulse, what could be better? Because the whole world has a pulse, so why not a toothbrush?

Well maybe because the whole tossing world doesn’t have a pulse.

The tree opposite my house, doesn’t have a pulse. The stone my dog just ate, doesn’t have a pulse. The turd I just flushed into the North Sea, doesn’t have a pulse.

In fact, on that theme, why not say:

“The whole world does shit; now so does a toothbrush”?

To claim that the changing the shape of some bristles is “Changing the way you brush forever” is ludicrous. And innovation for the sake of driving sales then trying to con us into thinking it will make us more attractive (cue shot of attractive female) goes to show how idiotic Oral B think we all are, wouldn’t you say?

Oh well, here’s the Mitchell and Webb sketch to make us feel a little bit saner again:

Thanks to Mark Mclaughlin for submitting this bad ad.