It’s felt like quite a busy month here at TV’s Worst Adverts with plenty of new stuff to write about.

Most notably I think the Ewan McGregor advert for Davidoff (in which he sells his passion for a bit of smelly) and for the Lynx Chocolate Man advert (in which there’s a man made of chocolate).

Both have brought a lot of interest, comments and votes on TWA so thanks to you all that commented and voted and a big hello to all the new readers.

This month also marks the end of TVs Worst Adverts first year slagging off the ads. So I’ll just say a “big-up yourselves” to all of you that have helped make TWA the blog it is and let’s hope it only gets better in the next year (unlike the ads or we’re screwed).

Anyways, on to the results for Feb. Here’s the top 5:

1. The Gadget Help Line
2. Picture Loans - Dad’s Found Your Scooter
3. Moonpig
4. Halifax
5. Picture Loans - An Adult Conversation

So, The Gadget Help Line wrestles the top spot back from Picture Loans again and Moonpig makes an appearance in the top 5.

What will the results be next month?

Only you can decide that so get voting!

More Shameless Self Promotion

Don’t forget that TWA is nominated at the Bloggers Choice Awards. Click the button below to vote for TWA:

Who will be the crowned the “King of the Humo(u)r-based Internet”?

Only you can decide that so get voting!

Update

OK, yeah, I forgot that there were 29 days in February this year, so what?

Well, so I’ve had to change the top 5 slightly. Out goes Dulco Ease, in comes Picture Loans - An Adult Conversation.

The main result still stands though - The Gadget Help Line top of the flops.

Well done…

Note to reader: This ad has been hanging round TWA like a bad smell for some time now without me writing about it. So apologies that it might not be currently shown on TV.

Musical taste is an *xtremely* subjective matter. And I suppose that, just as “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, good music is in the ear of the, er, behearer.

Here’s a confession for you: although often maligned, I actually quite like dance music. There’s something primal about it, you can’t help to move. A bit like Tyres from Spaced. He hears the phone ringing, he hears the kettle boiling, he hears Colin chewing a bone and he can’t help but dance.

I love the electronic sounds used in dance music. You see, as a child I always wanted to live in the future when I grew up (which turns out to be the case) but those electronic noise make me think that I am in an episode of the Jetsons. Not the sub-stylophone ones but the big fat bass one. Yes, one is fairly prone to a bit of bass in one’s mother-fucking face. There’s nothing quite like feeling your internal organs vibrate to the music.

But I think it’s fair to say I’m not in the majority here. In fact, I’d even go as far as saying hardcore dance music, probably, isn’t the nations favourite musical genre (”Hold the front page!”).

This is possibly because most peoples’ experience of hardcore dance is blasted at high volume from a Nova (Side point: Do Kevs (as they were known in my day) still drive Nova’s (as they did in my day)?) passing at high speed.

What’s more, dance music comes into it’s own when you’re in a club actually dancing to it (possibly whilst drunk/buzzing nuts off). Trying to get the same level of enjoyment out of it at home is a bit like complaining that taking Ymea doesn’t really do anything for you when a). you’re not going through the menopause and b). you’re a man.

So it’s wrong for us on the outside of the UK’s xtreme hardcore clubland scene to tar it with the “hardcore dance music is shit” brush.

Or it would be if it weren’t for the fact that hardcore dance music is shit.

And this advert does nothing to help it’s image:

Just look at the people in the advert. Look at them! Oh, the humanity!

I can only imagine that the advert was filmed at a party for people from a council estate celebrating just how rough they are.

Yes, this is one of the cheapest looking adverts doing the rounds in the last few months.

So maybe it’s snobbery that stops me from liking hardcore dance music or maybe is that’s bloody incessant high tempo electronic drum beat playing constantly under that atonal drone and cat calling.

I’m just not sure.

Here’s a tale for you…

I found myself on a tedious journey. The scent of car fumes in the air. Leading me further and further into the abyss. Every smell, every step, every sight made me want to go home. Until I found myself in a place where I saw something magnificent… I saw an empty space in the Tesco car park on a Saturday afternoon.

For that’s about as much as an adventure as the average British male will ever experience regardless of what they might dream about:

Now, I really like Ewan McGregor, (bizarre Star Wars accent excluded) I think he’s a believable actor, I think he makes some good choices and, what’s more, he seems like a very nice, down to Earth, amusing chap.

I secretly wish he was my best friend.

But he is too worthy by half in this advert for Davidoff Adventure aftershave. Plus the painful crow barring of “the scent of adventure in the air” into his tale of personal discovery makes me recreate the scene from Home Alone when Macaulay Culkin puts on aftershave each time I hear it.

Come on Ewan, you’re better than this.

Update

Here’s the very amusing and well made parody of the ad as linked to by eieio in the comments below. Superb.

“Hey, I’ve found something small time” Lenny Henry shouts to his manager.

Much to my amazement, it wasn’t his own reflection in his Premier Inn hotel room’s bathroom mirror but the bill at reception.

He then pulls a face as if he’s finally crapped out the funniest line he’s thought up in 25 long, mirthless years:

Note to Premier Inn: When trying to promote your updated, re-branded, and all together shiny budget hotels don’t use Lenny Henry as your figure head. A man who hasn’t been big time since the day before he first appeared on New Faces back in 1975 (OK, that’s unfair he was very funny as Trevor MacDoughnut on Tiswas but, honestly, that’s about it).

This advert stinks of cheapness, it really does.

It’s a shit, cruel and wholly unfair world.

Disclaimer: Except not in my house and probably not in yours either. But, I assure you, everywhere else it’s shit and cruel and unfair - I’ve seen it on the tele.

People do terrible things to each other; they will use people, animals and, sometimes, the rain forest to manipulate us to get their own way or, worse still, their hands on our cash.

What a bunch of bastards.

But, I’ve got some good news for you: most people in the world aren’t like that. Most people are good, honest and friendly folk. In fact if you smile and say “hello” to someone on the street the chances are they will smile and say “hello” back to you (except in London Village, obviously, where they will cut your lips off so you can never smile again).

Go on, try it (except if you live in London Village, obviously).

And what’s more, most people are caring and sympathetic to others too.

But there is a line up to which you can physically care. Because if you really thought about all the *bad things* going on in the world, you’d never get out of bed in the morning. You lie there, under the duvet, sobbing into a pillow, all day and all of the night.

So we tend not to think about all the *bad things*, all the time, we just try and get on with our lives. This in itself doesn’t make us bad, it simply makes us human.

Here’s some shocking news, for you though: Advertisers for *good causes* know about this (Boo! Hiss!) and they also know about our guilt complex.

For, as normal caring folk, when we do think about the *bad things* we often feel guilty that we’re not doing more to help stop the *bad things*. We wish we could do more but we’ve got to pick the kids up from school at half three then Debbie from No 42 is coming over to look at the new carpet you’ve had put down in the bedroom. And you simply can’t help everyone, can you?

So, in a mawkish tone, the voice over on adverts for *good causes* tell us about the *bad things* and that for just 3 pounds a month we can help change the world.

Just 3 pounds. Come on, what’s 3 pounds to you? A glass of wine on a Friday night? 3 litres of fuel for your car? 300 penny chews for the kids (you’ll rot their teeth with those, you will). Go on, 3 pounds, you can afford it. Ring the number, ring the number. People/animals/the rain forest are/are/is dying. Ring the number, it’s just 3 pounds.

So you ring.

But then you see another advert and another.

Before you know it you’re giving 3 quarters of your income to *good causes* each month because someone at a charity has made you feel unnecessarily guilty about *something bad*.

What a bunch of bastards.

I suppose compared to some of the adverts for *good causes* out there, this one for Pedigree isn’t too manipulative (American version, I’m afraid):

Here’s the UK one with Neil Morrissey (for the love of God!).

But it still uses the classic “please help this charity or people/animals/the rain forest will die” tone of voice - pecking away at your emotions.

I just wish they could treat us as conscientious adults who are able to make decisions based on facts.

I do care, I do want to help, but there is a line - my personal line is I’m not prepare to talk to Picture to help others out.

Anyway, enough of a whinge about adverts for charity, I’m going back to bed to sob into a pillow for a bit longer…

I’d had a post lined for today about Brand Power that I was fairly pleased with but then it was gazumped by the new advert for Tena Lady.

In fact, the Tena advert is so new that I can’t find a copy of it online.

Anyways, although Tena is a little bit snigger-worthy as a topic I imagine that if you do actually have bladder weakness problems it can be extremely humiliating so I’ll try to be mature about this advert but the whole premise is ridiculous.

“Do you want to stand out?” the voice over asks us (I’m having to paraphrase as I’ve only seen the advert once but that’s very much the gist) as a woman in an evening gown prances around in front of the camera.

Whoa there, Tena!!

Who in your marketing department thought that women with incontinence issues want to “stand out”?

Honestly, who?

OK, I see, you’re trying to put a different spin on not allowing your life to be limited by having the occasional accident but here’s my issue:

If a women is incontinent and she wants to stand out, she could just walk round with a giant, great, wet, piss patch down the front of her dress.

That will make her stand out. Guaranteed.

No, I very strongly suspect - what with having met and spoken to at least 7 women-type people in my life - is that most women with difficulty keeping their pee in, probably want to be as inconspicuous as is humanly possible.

So go back to the old advertising campaign, Tena, and stop making these ridiculous statement in adverts!

Did you know that if we all switch to Lenor Concentrate instead of using horrible old bulky Lenor, err, Unconcentrated we could take up to 14,000 lorries off the road each year?

Yep, you’ve guessed it, it’s another bloody “You’re destroying the environment, you bastards!” advert.

Because, you see, the bottles used in Lenor Concentrate are littler… so you get more on a lorry… so you don’t need so many lorries… so we wont kill the planet… so our kiddies can live in peace and harmony with polar bears forever.

Ooh, hang on, what’s this article in the paper I’m reading?

“Fuel duty rise…”

yada yada yada…

“Cost of motoring up…”

yada yada yada…

Ohh, here we go: “Hauliers particularly badly hit”.

Now I wonder, is it a coincidence that the cost of transporting goods around this fair isle is rising dramatically (yeah, thanks China, buying all our oil…) just as Lenor try to make us to buy a smaller bottle “to take lorries off the road”?

No, I don’t think it is.

Of course taking those lorries off the roads could have a positive impact on the environment, I don’t know (as this will shock you but “I’m not an expert”), but it will definitely save Lenor money.

So why make us feel bad by lying to us?

Here’s my advice, just stop making the big one Lenor and save us from the guilt.

The environment is currently the “morality-knife being slowly twisted in our backs” of choice amongst, seemingly, just about everyone working in the media.

You just can’t get away from it.

In fact, there was a time there when every day for about, ooh, 6 years the Independent had a front page story about how we were “destroying the planet” this “ruining the environment” that.

And only yesterday there was a news story telling us that a heatwave will kill thousands of us in the UK some time in just a couple of weeks time (to be fair, it may be sooner or later than “in a couple of weeks” I’d drifted off by the time they told us when it would be).

And who’s to blame? Global warming, that’s who.

And who’s to blame for that? It’s you, you great big ninny!

That’s because when you drive your car just one yard down the road it releases the same amount of carbon dioxide as one million cows all farting at the same time.

So what’s the answer? Either we kill all the cows (and at the rate we’re going with the whole “fucking up the environment” thing there’s a good chance we’ll do that anyway) or you don’t drive more than, let’s say, 3cm a week.

“But, hey!” I hear you yell. “I want to get chips from the chippy down the street and be back at my house - which is lit up like a casino on the Vegas strip - before they get cold. I need to drive!”

Alright! Calm down, dear. There is a 3rd way: Science!

Yes, car manufacturers are using science to make their cars ever more fuel efficient at the petrol burning end of things and less “cow farty” at the emissions end of things.

Yes, their cars are *greener* now (other colours are available) and owning one will make you feel less guilty about driving that 4th centimetre. So how do they flog you these motors?

Most seem to have not gone with just repeatedly flashing “Your old banger is destroying the planet, you bastard! Drive our car instead” route of advertising and gone down a slightly more subtle road instead.

Like the advertising for the new Peugeot 308:

Yes, if we believe what we’re told, nature inspired the new Peugeot 308.

It’s very being was carved from rock by the sands and it’s protected by the mists. It is driven by the seas and powered by the winds (more bloody cow farts).

Of course, the connotations of being inspired by nature are many but I deeply suspect, given our current obsession with the environment, what Inspired By Nature actually means is:

“You’ll be at one with the planet - not fucking it up.”

The 308 will give you that guilt free drive of your life.

Well, you know, either that “at one with the planet thing” or it means “Complete load of bollocks”.

I’m not 100% sure which.

Just to be on the safe side, I’m going to buy a 308 then drive to the countryside and run over a herd of cows with it. You surely can’t get much greener than that.

Ta ta.

Back in the middle ages people more than likely had bad teeth. I say “more than likely” because, as usual, I’ve done no research into the facts behind this post.

These bad teeth saw the rise of such nicknames as “Gummy Fletcher” and “Toothless Jim” and popular phrases such as “She’s got a gap in her teeth bigger than the Dartford tunnel” etcetera, etcetera.

Fortunately, now that we don’t live in the middle ages, our oral hygiene is much improved, and we very rarely meet people called “Gummy”.

This is, in no small part, thanks to the dental know-how of the Oral B experts - who seem to loiter disturbingly in our bathroom cabinets.

Yeah, after many, many years research (or at least more than I do for these posts) they’ve finally worked out how long you should brush your teeth to get them perfectly clean.

Turns out it’s 2 minutes.

Conveniently, that’s 30 seconds for each “quadrant” of your mouth.

What were the chances - 2 minutes dead? But we’d better not argue with the experts.

They’ve also come up with the life saving Smart Guide that has special sensors which let you know if you’re brushing too hard. This is going to be a God-send to millions of people like me, who are forever brushing their teeth so hard that they snap the heads clean off!

I must get through about 30 tooth brushes a week at the moment.

Although, I sometimes like to use the special sensors I have built into my teeth and gums to let me know if I’m brushing to hard - called “nerves”.

As a rule of thumb, here’s how my oral nerves give me feedback:

• Gum are sore = Brushing too hard.
• Gums are not sore = Brushing just fine.

Fairly straight forward but I wouldn’t listen to me; I’m no expert (nor do I live in your bathroom cabinet).

Judge for yourself.

I was talking to a friend not so long ago about his future plans. He was debating whether to move away from London to a new, better paid job because leaving the bright lights of the big city would mean leaving his youth behind.

“You’re past 30; I think youth has left you behind” I reassuringly told him (after all, what are friends for?).

And I’ve realised that I’m not a young man any more either. It takes me 2 days to get over playing an hour’s football, I can’t bear listening to even a second of Radio 1 and I’ve completely forgotten the excitement of trying to sneak into a pub even though you’re under-age.

So that’s why I probably don’t get the latest set of Ford Fiesta adverts. Stupid Dogbot, Clever Fiesta simply isn’t aimed at me, it’s aimed at the youth (just like the C’Mons Corsa adverts were).

Whilst I sit at home with my pipe and slippers doing a crossword, the youth is sat outside Tesco with tinny music playing from their mobile phone doing a jay.

So, no, I don’t get Dogbot but that’s OK because I’m not supposed to.

But I get a feeling from these adverts that just as I don’t get their adverts, Ford don’t get the youth either.

Let’s look at the features on which Ford are trying to sell their Fiesta to the youth:

#1. Light sensitive headlights:

#2. Rain sensitive wipers:

#3. Power-fold mirrors:

#4. Quick-clear windscreen:

Ford clearly think that the youth is actually made up primarily of 50 year old ex-teachers called Norman and Betty because they’re the ones who will care how long it takes for the windscreen to clear, or whether the mirrors fold in etc.

(Note: I confess this might be because Ford are trying to appease the parents of the youth (who may well be 50 year old ex-teachers called Norman and Betty) with sensible features on the car. Even if this is the case, the adverts still miss their muddled-objective by some distance).

No, here’s a list of car features that I think the youth care about:

#1. It will get me laid.

Fairly straight forward really.

And if you’re going to target the youth niche with your Dogbot adverts then maybe that’s what you should have in mind when creating your advert.

To be fair to Ford they do have a couple of ads with features that the youth might actually give a flying Dogbot shit about:

#1. MP3 connectivity:

#2. Bluetooth connectivity that let’s you park up outside Tesco and play music from your mobile phone through the car’s (not so tinny) speakers:

So come on Ford, get down with the kids and try to remember what it was like being young before you became a high flying car company marketing exec.

Thanks to Dave Newman for submitting this bad ad.