Note From Silky

Here’s the first post from one of TV’s Worst Adverts new writers - Ian Smith. So go on, have a read and make him feel nice and at home here on TWA.

Decisive Moments

I’m really worried about the guys at Vodafone. Not content with being an worldwide mobile phone giant, they seem to always play cupid.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love a happy ending (that’s why I’m hoping the next BT ad will end with that smug bloke from that cheap as chips sitcom jumps off a cliff because he “oh look I’m dating an older woman, how very post modern” marriage is up the spout).

But when it comes to adverts striving for a happy ending, whenever you talk about it, the conversation always seem to goes like this:

“Oh you seen that ad where etc etc etc?”
“Yeah, what’s it for?”
“Dunno.”

Which kinds of defies the point of an advert. Adverts are just adverts, they’re not remaking Shakespeare - which is my main problem with this ad.

This advert is mostly shown in F1 ad breaks, so apart from being really annoying to the viewers hoping to see a ten car pile up but instead are watching animal hybrids’ sexy dancing, it’s pretty easy to advertise to them.

All they wanna see is cars, cars, cars. That’s why there watching.

After all, these are people who will pay hundreds of pounds to see something they could probably see at Tesco’s car parks for free at 3 o’clock in the morning.

So they got the first part right by placing Lewis in his very fast, very expensive car but it all goes wrong from there.

But then they shoehorn this “we only get one chance” storyline in which Lewis seems to have taken on a part time job as taxi driver delivering forlorn softies to there loved ones for one last kiss.

It’s kinda like the Renault “Nicole” adverts but with a bit more than just Va Va Voom.

Either that or Lewis found the wife of the Steward who docked him the points recently and decides to show the bad side of Lewis by ploughing into her at 180 mph.

Ever since their “Time Thief” advert it seems like Vodafone are hell bent on saving the notion of love.

And where will it end? Next week, don’t be too surprised if you see Lewis Hamilton using his very fast car to end world hunger.

There are few things I enjoy watching more on TV than a deer with lovely pert breast indulging in some sex play with a bear in a very small pair of pants.

Except maybe watching a whole menagerie of anthropomorphised and scantily clad animals performing a saucy dance routine.

Yes, that’s the one.

And I gets a right thirst on from watching that, I tell you.

Those French are mental, aren’t they?

Thanks to Cath and Dave Newman for submitting this bad ad.

As we all know, in the list of important things in life in modern Britain, cleanliness comes second only to Godliness - just ahead of cappuccino-liness and complain-liness.

But on the flip side of this, also in modern Britain it’s becoming increasingly difficult to stay clean of both body and mind.

Walk down any city street and you’ll be wading knee deep through dog turds and choking on bendy-bus exhaust fumes.

Turn on the telly and in between the endless programs of violence, profanity and semi-nudity (or the Olympic Games as they’re more popularly known) there are graphic scenes of men kissing each other.

Disgusting.

No, if you want to get to Heaven now-a-days, the only sensible solution is to lock yourself and your whole family safely in the cupboard under the stairs.

But God, wouldn’t it be terrible if mindlessly following this strict Godliness/cleanliness doctrine turned us and our children (think of the children) into unfeeling, blocky robots from the 1970’s?

TV’s Worst Adverts agrees with Persil’s sentiment that you’ve got to let your kids have some freedom to play and enjoy themselves without the fear that they’ll be run over by binge-drinking, illegal-immigrant on a joy ride at the tax payers expense or being raped in the ear by the local gang of paedophiles but…

If dirt is so good Persil, why don’t we just leave it on our clothes as a sort of badge of honour?

Because you’d go out of business, that’s why.

So dirt is good people but, please, wash it off ever once in a while will you?

Thanks to Alex and Keith for submitting this bad ad.

And a special thanks to Littlefishey for their amusing words.

Over the next few weeks I’ll try and get as many of these up as I can find on the Tube - any old company cashing in on their sponsorship of the Beijing 2008 Olympic games.

Here’s Scottish Widows’ effort:

You might think it odd that Scottish Widows, a life insurance company, are sponsoring the Olympic Games but if I remember rightly it was Baron de Coubertin who coined the Olympic ideal:

“Swifter, Higher, Stronger and 20% Off Stake Holder Pensions If You Apply Online”.

Wasn’t it?

Even those of us with only a rudimentary grasp of human biology know that there are 2 types of sex configurations.

But now-a-days what with all this sexual equality guff (women wearing trousers?) and an obesity epidemic that makes most men have breasts that would put Katie Price to shame, it’s getting harder to tell the sexes apart without asking people to drop their trousers.

Fortunately for the less gropey, science has come up with an answer - the Keys Factor.

The Keys Factor (KF) enables laymen to judge whether the person they’re about to sleep with (either for professional or purely pleasure reasons) is of the male or female persuasion.

Here’s how it works: someone with a high KF score is very manly and likely to be a man. Someone with a low KF score is very feminine and likely to be a lady.

Simple.

Using the KF scale scientists have proven that they are catagorically no females in some parts of Eastern Europe and not a single female in all of South America. They have also found that the male professional cyclist is, on average, 57% more female than French women. FACT.

Despite this overwhelming evidence I was dubious that lowering the Keys Factor could make a woman more feminine, so I did a little test of my own.

I took the hairiest woman I could find on the streets of London and made her sit in a bath of Veet for an entire day.

Amazingly, it worked!

If you don’t believe me, check out the before and after pictures below:

Before:

After:

She’s quite the stunner, I think you’ll agree.

Note to Reader: My lawyers have asked me to point out that under no circumstances should you sit in a bath of Veet for an entire day.

God only knows what it might actually do.

Judge for yourself.

Lynx?

On TV’s Worst Adverts?

Surely some mistake?

I’ll let Andy, who submitted this bad ad, explain:

It’s just horrific, isn’t it?

Is it? You tell me dear reader, you tell me (you know by voting and leaving comments and shit).

It’s just turned lunch time in the offices of Cobblers & Shitbiscuit Advertising Agency (that makes it 10:31 precisely) and Bertie Cobblers is struggling to finish the Sun quick crossword again as Silky returns from his long brunch.

“What-oh, Silky! Help me out with this blasted crossword, will you? 5 across, 8 letters ‘Found on front doors and Page 3′, K-N-something-C-K-something-R-S”

“Erm, no. No idea, Bertie. But good news, old chum, I’ve got us a job!”

“Oh no, I don’t want to hold a Golf Sale sign all day long.”

“No, no, Bertie, it’s not that again. It’s for a tele advert and they’re going to pay us £200.”

“Oh boy, £200? That is good news. What’s it for?”

“I don’t know exactly. Something called Formoline; it’s for women or something.”

“Right, well how can we drive home the name of the product and that it’s for women without revealing the fact we’ve absolutely no idea what it’s for?”

“That is a tricky one, Bertie, that is a tricky one.”

Thanks to Cath for submitting this bad ad.

Previously on TWA I’ve complained about the terrible dubbing on the Cillit Bang advert.

But the lip syncing on that is of the highest quality when compared to the advert for the bizarrely named Paula - a new chilled desert for kids made with whole milk and cool splodges, no less:

Thanks to Louise for submitting this bad ad.

There are some who might say that “imitation is the greatest form of flattery”.

In fact I’m one of them which is why I think my fake Rolex (or “Rollex” as it says on the watch face) flatters my wrist oh so very much.

And there are also those who might, less frequently, say that “when you’re in a TV advert you’ve made the big time”.

I’m not one of those.

However, in the case of the new Coors Light advert and the Flight of the Conchords I definitely don’t think that the imitation is particularly flattering, in fact it’s painfully bad, and it definitely doesn’t mean that the Conchords have made the big time (sorry, Murray).

I’m not too ashamed to say that I had such a fright when I first saw this Coors light advert my boys jumped so far back into the barracks that my eyes bulged clean out of their sockets:

Does it not remind you in anyway of a Frankenstein’s Monster version of She’s So Hot, Boom!:

It’s like the Sugar Puffs/Mighty Boosh business all over again.

And by some accounts (I heard it from a bloke down the pub) Coors have pulled the advert after some fairly critical comments (you know the sort, “Flights of ths Conchords rip-off” this, “copyright infringement” that…).

I think it’s about time that advertisers learn that these comedy pastiches just don’t work out of the context of the show.

People who haven’t seen The Flight of the Conchords are just going to think this some festering turd of an advert with 2 blokes shouting some incomprehensible nonsense at them. And on top of that because fans of cult(ish) comedy tend to be really protective of their favourite shows these adverts are never going to get anything but slated.

You know, I thought Alpen’s attempt to sex up muesli last year was a little desperate but that’s nothing compared to Envirofone’s attempt to sex up the world of mobile phone recycling.

Their advert is a little bit like a play on the old joke in which an attractive woman appears on an old man’s doorstep and tells him “I’m here to offer you super sex!”. To which the man replies “I’ll have the soup, please.”

Yes the Environfone advert poses the question: Which do men prefer, a scantily clad young woman or 32 quid?

Or as Chelsea Monks, who submitted this bad ad, asks:

What red blooded male would pass her up for a tenner??!!

Quite.

In fact, I was so unsure about which I prefer, I’ve had to watch this advert 50 or 60 times in a row now. And my view on this matter is still slightly blurred - along with my view of everything else after seeing her dirty pillows so many times.

Anyway, I’ve come to the conclusion that she is either a ghost - which would explain why he appears not to notice her - or that she charges at least £32 for whatever service she offers - and this is why he is so focused on his goal.

Yep, definitely one of those two options.

Cheers, Chelsea Monks.