“Is that your car mate?”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

“Why the fuck did you buy it in orange?”

How bad would your eyesight need to be not to spot that this is a 118 118 rip-off?

Using just your right eye, does it look more like 118 188 in this one:

Or now in this one:

And now with just the left eye…

As if just having to take public transport in itself isn’t enough to make you want to commit hate crimes against complete strangers, a mobile phone company deciding it would be *fun* to take over the whole bloody station really is beyond the bloody pale:

Reasons to commit murder aside, John, who submitted this Bad Ad, thought the T-Mobile advert was a bit like this Dolly Rockers video – or as John put it: “They stole the idea from the Dolly Rockers”: 

In fact a quick YouTube search – for something like “Flashmob Dancing”  - returns loads of video’s that all look suspiciously *similar* to the T-Mobile ad.

One of the most weirdly wonderful is this one for Oxfam with pregnant women break dancing on the streets of London:

It seems that it’s getting harder for advertisers to have an original idea but easier to get caught. Ho hum.

Here we go, another post, another insurance comparison web site.

Confused.com has been in recent years the Daddy of shit TV adverts and they’re back but this time they’re trying something new.

Gone are the cardboard set, the pitiful “I’m confused <pained looked to camera> dot com” script, and the actors who mostly looked like they’re on day release from a secure unit.

In come real people - who all look like they’re on day release from a secure unit - and Vlog reviews of the new Confused.com web site.

Welcome to the future, people!

The first time I saw it, it reminded me of a recent episode of Screen Wipe in which Charlie Brooker said:

“In advertising, research consists of sitting on YouTube and stealing other peoples ideas…”

Except Confused have taken that a couple of nightmarish steps further and employed “prolific You Tubers” to make an advert that’s actually like watching a fucking YouTube video.

Or it’s like watching a YouTube video for some because I suspect that there are still more people in the UK who haven’t watched a video on the Tube than have. So to those poor ludite cavemen the new Confused advert is little more than an episode of You’ve Been Framed. But not a funny one with Harry Hill, a shit one with Lisa Riley.

Anyway, the ad below is, amazingly, even cheaper than the old lot and although all the content is user generate what they’d really like you to take away from it is just how friendly Confused.com is – because I went on one comparison site and it passed a comment about the size of my penis then told me to fuck off – and how easy to use Confused.com is – because on another site, that was so hard to use, I put in the wrong personal details and accidentally started a civil war in West Africa.

Ah, friendly and easy – just like my third year English teacher if only Confused.com were so enjoyable.

Surely this advert for the new Audi Q5 is actually for an awfully boxy Volvo?

I’m confused.

You know what’s funny about foreigners?

The way they all talk funny in their funny little accents. Particularly when they’re trying to speak English but they just keep mispronouncing words.

What are they, all stupid or something?

And we all know how funny stupid people are – particularly when they’re foreign (I’m thinking of you “the Irish”).

Anyways, here’s the very funny new advert from CompareTheMarket.com featuring Aleksandr the meerkat from, wait for it, CompareTheMeerkat.com:

And what’s funny, right, is that we thought this meerkat, with his very thick Russian accent – because that’s where they’re from, said “meerkat” and not “market” but really all along he was saying “market” and not “meerkat”. Or no, was it we thought he said “market” but he really said “meerkat”.

Whatever it was, it was like funking funny.

Or…

Or it was like sub-Borat but without any of the intelligent, cleverly constructed humour so we just laugh at someone from a foreign country with a funny accent in our everso endearing ”ignorance is bliss” smug way, that we do.

I’m not sure which one, but it’s definitely one of them.

As a treat, to keep the readers of TV’s Worst Adverts ahead of the herd, here’s a snippet from the next brilliant instalment called “CompereTheMarket.com” in which, and you’ll love this, Omid Djalili “comperes” a “market” (do you see what they’ve done there?):

“…ah, I can’t keep that accent up any more.

Anyway next up we’ve got a very funny guy, Mick. He’s going to try and sell you some brussels sprouts.

No Christmas dinner is complete without brussels sprouts, is it? Sadly we don’t have brussels sprout in Iran. But it’s not too much of a problem… we don’t have Christmas either.”

It’s going to be hilarious, I promise you.

Sometimes you have to change your name because your parents are racists.

Sometimes you have to change your name because your parents are morons.

Sometimes you have to change your name because you’re a moron.

And sometimes you have to change your name because you’ve been swallowed by a multinational insurance giant who hasn’t got a clue where in Hell Norwich is:

Yes this is the new Norwich Union advert featuring a galaxy of stars who have changed their names, you know, just like Norwich Union is doing.

But there’s something slightly odd about the stars they’ve selected – their name changes are just a bit on the naff side.

OK, I grant you, no one would frantically masturbate over a picture of rancid old bum-faced Eleanor Gow. But as soon as her mother remarried and she changed her name to McPherson – ding dong! Fire up the laminater; I’m of to the 5 digit disco! What does it matter that she was only 14? After all, if there’s grass on the wicket…

But who in their right mind would ever change their name from Walter to Bruce? Maybe only someone who’s middle name is already Bruce.

Or change their name from Vincent to Alice? Maybe only someone looking for a stage gimmick?

And who would change the name “Norwich Union” to “Aviva”? Maybe only someone who thought “Consignia” was a good idea.

But, you know what it’s like, sometimes a change of name is more than a change of name. Sometimes it’s a chance to show the world who you’ve always wanted to be.

So it seems Norwich Union have always wanted to be a mispronounced Vic Reeves catch phrase then.

Maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe the name change will work out for Aviva and 200 years worth of brand recognition and trust wont be destroyed in one ridiculous palindrome. But there’s definitely no need to be so portentous about it all particularly when you’re advert features someone who changed their name because “they wore a lot of rings“.

Anyway enough of this nonsense, I’m off to eat a peanut, nougat and caramel chocolate bar then fight the 7 signs of ageing and give my kitchen a bloody good clean.

Ta ta.

Here’s the new advert for the Mazda 2:

Now to the untrained eye that might seem like the video to the White Stripes’ 7 Nation Army.

But it’s not.

It’s categorically and most definitely not.

Judge for yourself.

Update

Here’s the actual ad for the Mazda 2 – I think we can all see where the confusion lies though:

If the ones who left comments on the Clubland Xtreme Hardcore 4 TV’s Worst Adverts’ entry are anything to go by, your average Hardcore fan is a humourless, souless, near-illiterate, irony-free and presumably deaf bore – much like a certain someone who writes a blog about bad TV adverts.

It’s not just Silky Shitbiscuit they’ve something in common with, though. They’re much like Ross Kemp too – because the only emotions they can express are happiness or anger.

Which is why the release of Clubland Xtreme Hardcore 5 must have been an emotional bungee jump for them:

A new album of your favourite music is always something to be happy about.

But soon that happiness will turn to anger when they hear that Clubland Xtreme Hardcore 5 is the “only hardcore album you need” making them feel pretty foolish about buying the previous 4 Clubland Xtreme Hardcore albums.

But as they’re giving it large, possibly after having paid £30 for several hours top quality frottaging at the NEC, possibly whilst doing the ironing at home, the anger is replaced by some Hixxy, Styles and Breeze tuned happiness.

But it wont last.

If this is the only hardcore album that they need, what should they do when Clubland Xtreme Hardcore 6 is released?

Blimey, thinking their way through this commercial conundrum is bound to make them angry again.

There was an advert a few years ago for the fast food restaurant Wimpy. It went something like this:

“Wimpy is a fast food restaurant with a difference. We have tables and chairs, knives and forks and your food is brought to you on a plate by a waitress.”

Which, obviously, sounds “Wow” but is, in fact, just like every other non-fast-food restaurant in the country, then.

But with worse food.

Which brings me to the latest Pringles advert in which a bunch of failed actors doing a very bad job of pretending to be “real” people try the brand new Pringles Select crisps:

My favourite bit is when the reject from the cast of Coupling says:

“Wow! Crisps? In a bag? How the fuck did you think of that?”

Magic.

Yeah, Pringles have taken the one thing that helped make their crisps stand out, their tube, and thrown it in the bin.

This is possibly because Pringles think that posh people – after all, this is the posh Pringle aimed at posh people who shop at posh John Lewis – are simply too posh to “pop” the lid on the chavy old tube – although I’m fairly certain that their butlers’ aren’t too posh.

So, despite what Pringles have been telling us for all these years, it seems you can “stop popping” after all.

Thanks to Gordon for submitting this bad ad.