This is the advert for the new Volkswagon Golf that has generated over 100 complaints to the ASA.

Aparently the “ad is offensive because the depiction of violence is excessive, inappropriate to be seen by children, should not be shown before the 9pm watershed and may encourage emulation”.

And presumably the risk of being influenced by this “fight each other Matrix-style” encouragement is even higher for identical twins. Why does no one ever think about the identical twins?

Some of you might think this complaint is completely ridiculous. But I’m so worried about the effect it might have on my child that I made him wear a blind fold during the advert breaks inbetween us watching Hamas and the Israelis bomb the shit out of each other in our 72 hour Sky News marathon.

Anyway, back to the more important things in life…

VW make consistently great adverts for the Golf - and I think that this new one is no exception – even if the same can’t be said for the car itself.

Once it was a car to argue over as part of your divorce settlement – “You’ll get the house and the kids but let me keep the Golf.” “No. You’ll get the house…” etc. But now the Golf is such a boring car, you’re more likely to argue over the half-used tin of magnolia paint in the shed – yeah,  even though it’s got a really thick skin on the top because it’s been left open to the air – then over who gets the car.

So maybe sometimes the only one you have to beat is yourself, but sometimes you lose.

There are some advertisers, I’m looking at you Omega, who seem to believe that their products are something of a landmark in the evolution of the human race. Rather than, say, just an over-priced piece of jewellery.

Philips – come on, you’ve heard of Philips, the ones who make clock radios, hair dryers and, to my surprise, sex toys – have now joined those ranks. 

In their latest advert a portentous, voice over man proclaims:

“Conquered the skies. Conquered Mount Everest. Conquered the Neck.”

Conquered.

The.

Neck.

For the love of God, man, pull yourself together!

From the way Philips are going on about their new electric razor, you’d think they’ve found a cure for AIDS.

It’s just breath takingly pompous.

This ad, of course, is all about brand positioning – or some other nonsense phrase – in which Philips want us to believe that buying one of their new Arcitec razors – terrible, terrible name, by the way Philips – we’ll become the, mind bogglingly bizarre, love-child of Sir Edmund Hillary and the Wright Brothers rather than some overly anal metrosexual, who gives an wholy unnecessary toss about whether their necks are a little bit stubbly.

On the other hand “Conquered the neck” cracks me up every time I hear that idiot say it.

So in balance, good work Philips.

“God, I love being a priest. We’re all going to heaven lads, wheeeyyyyyy!”

“Do you remember when you said you’d never buy a Renault?”

No, me neither.

In fact I don’t know anyone who’s ever said that.

What a load of toss.

Thanks to Bryn for submitting this bad ad.

I can’t decide who I would kill first if I was sat next to this pair on a flight: Stewart, Walters or myself.

Here’s a snippet of their oh-so-natural conversation as the “genuinely friends in real lfe” – who were in no way crow barred together just for this advert – enjoy a bit of in-flight entertainment: 

Julie Walters: “One fifty from a fiver is… three pounds fifty. Yessssssss.”

Patrick Stewart: “The synapses are firing!”

For the love of God! 

One of them is so pleased with her ability to answer a basic maths question that she behaves like she’s just won University Challenge – all by herself.

The other one is patronising in the most gut churning and unnecessarilly intellectual way possible.

Everytime it comes on I want to scream: “She’s doing something a 5 year old would find easy!”.

Sadly, I can’t find this advert on the Tube but feel that the splendour of Patrick Stewart’s moustache alone makes this previous advert a worthy entry in the TV’s Worst Adverts archives:

Thanks to Trystan for submitting this bad ad.

As any sane person knows everyone alive today can be split into two categories: PC or Mac.

And on the off chance that you’re not sure which you are I’ve knocked together a handy check list.

You’re a Mac if all of the following:

• You work in Graphic Design.
• You wear t-shirts with ironic slogans on them that would make a non-Mac look like a complete knob.
• You’re currently sleeping with 5 people at the same time. At least 3 of them are models – but all of them are perfectly happy with the arrangement.
• You live in the gay quarter of either Manchester or Bristol – even though you’re 80% sure you’re not gay. Well, 65% sure.
• You’re far too cock-achingly cool to be reading TV’s Worst Adverts.

You’re a PC if you’re any of the following:

• Not all of the Mac ones above.

So they decided to get their own back with their series of “I’m a PC” adverts. Yeah, Microsoft were going to give Apple a bitch slap they wouldn’t soon forget:

Except, and I’m sure this will amaze you as much as it amazes me, in making these adverts Microsoft have taken one of Apple’s ideas and made it very, very nerdy and many, many times shitter.

Who would have thunk it?

Of course, one of the main problems with these advert’s pathetic attempt at portraying PC users as some kind breed of uber-Fonzies, lies with the fact that PCs aren’t sexy or cool.

PC’s are – and hold the front page for this one – functional and dull.

And there are few things nerdier than nerds trying to be cool. In fact these Microsoft ads miss the mark so much – one of them even features Bill, for funk’s sake – that they make David Mitchell’s character from the Apple adverts seem like Justin Timberlake.

So come on Microsoft, stop trying to be cool and keep doing what you’re good at: Add a few more functions to Excel so I can get my accounts done!

I think we must have all been very naughty this year because look who Christmas has brought us again:

Lovely on the inside.

Ugly on the outside.

Prepare to have your mind corrupted in ways you’ve never before thought possible – yes, it’s the banned Apple iPhone advert:

Apparently, the above ad was misleading for “exaggerating the speed of the iPhone 3G”.

Shocking.

In their defence Apple said:

“No, but what it was, right, we were saying “It’s, like, fast when you compare it to the old way of browsing the Internet on a phone”, yeah?

You know, we were saying “The iPhone 3G is metaphorically this fast compared to someone shouting a load of zeros and ones down the phone at you, yeah, and you having to interpret them using an etch-a-sketch that your operating with your teeth”, right?”

I was having to paraphrase there a bit but you get the gist.

Anyways, even when taking into account the fact that if you have an iPhone 3G you’re so pleased with yourself that you don’t care if it’s not as fast as the advert implies and if you don’t have an iPhone 3G you could give a monkeys even if it does connect to the “interwebsitenet”, the ASA saw fit to ban it.

So, shame on you, Apple.

Shame on you.

Is your name “Lehman”?

Have you and your brother just found yourselves out of a job?

If you’ve answered yes to either of the questions above, then read on, I might be able to help you.

Because, assuming you haven’t just thrown yourself out of your 32nd floor office window, now is the ideal time to retrain as a plumber, electrician, joiner or professional tea drinker.

And thanks to a very well timed advert, it seems that The Skills Centre is the ideal place to do that training. But just in case you missed The Skills Centre’s “inspirational” advert, here’s Simon Breadbin’s recap for you:

“Tony! How are things?

Let’s have an impossibly stilted exchange about what’s happened in the three years since we did our generic ‘work’ at ‘The Site’.

I’ve being doing ‘a course’ and got ‘my certificate’; yes, working AND learning.

Look at my smug van and tidy beard. Hark as I drop not a single aitch whilst whining my way through a script that makes Elton Johns hair look natural.

I’m better than you now Tony; you’re shit, and I’m ace.

Ha ha! Your life is ashes, YOUR LIFE IS ASHES…”

Nice one, Simon!

Judge for yourself.

Note From Silky

Hoorah! Here’s the first post from another of TV’s Worst Adverts new writers – Darren. Let’s hope you make him feel as lovely and welcome as you did Ian.

When You Had Diarrhoea This Morning

Now then, I understand that some products, medicines specifically, can be difficult to advertise. 

And if they treat symptoms which punters may not wish to admit to having – even to a pharmacist let alone anyone else – it’s important to get the product name out there.  The sufferer is empowered to pick the product off the shelf, and the company therefore increases sales: everyone’s a winner.  To sum up, I have no problem with diarrhea tablet adverts appearing on TV.

What I have a problem with is being accused of having the shits. And I have a very fucking big problem with being accused of having the shits every fucking day.

Here’s my bone of contention: Imodium Plus’s advert starts with the phrase “when you had diarrhoea this morning”.  Now let’s clear this up: I DID NOT HAVE DIARRHOEA THIS MORNING.

9 times out of 10. No, 99 times out of 100! No, in fact, I can’t remember the last time I had diarrhea, and it’s not something you forget in a hurry. And I eat a lot of curry. 

So I really resent the implication, and not just on a personal level – I just do not accept that there are enough people in the UK each day who warrant the accusation that they suffered a brown rage attack that morning.

I could be wrong. Maybe masses of people do have it each morning. But if that is the case? Shut the fuck up about it! I don’t want to know!

Ewww, really. Come on!

People on my train to work? In my local? In the queue at Subway? Half of them have got the shits? 

Well thanks for letting me know, I don’t fucking think. 

As for the sufferers themselves, well, do they give each other knowing glances? Form support groups? Is diarrhoea something the sufferers of could draw strength from knowing there are other people around who understand what they’re going through?

No. It isn’t. It’s just the shits.

I understand the strategy.  And I believe it could and would work for other products.  If you’re advertising on Bravo or Nuts TV or Movies4Men then maybe you could try “When you had a hangover this morning…”. You could make people feel fantastic by advertising condoms with “When you had sex this morning…”. 

But, really, for fucks sake, diarrhoea? Have a word! 

In fact, have the word “If”.

Judge For Yourself.