If you locked an infinite number of ad executives in a room for an infinite amount of time, would one of them eventually understand the concept of “dumb luck”?

Seemingly not.

The planets must be aligned because it was exactly a year ago today that I wrote about the “still hilarious after all this time” Aleksandr the meerkat from the “just when you thought racism couldn’t get any funnier” CompareTheMarket.Com adverts.

Those of you with little better to waste your life upon will remember that I rather amusingly claimed that Omid Djalili would be starring in their next advert as the “compere” of a “market”. At the time it seemed like a rather harmless little joke. Well no-one’s laughing now.

Here’s Omid starring in the new advert for MoneySupermarket.com:

OK, OK. He’s not exactly compering the market. But surely this is a little too coincidental, wouldn’t you say?

Is this another case of TV’s Worst Adverts not getting the credit it deserves?

Virgin Trains have always traded on the sniggering schoolboy-ish thought that you’ll be “riding a virgin to Chipping Norton and back” but I’ve just sat open-mouthed watching an edited version of this advert for Virgin Trains – with that Robyn Addison from Survivors in it – in which the 3 scenes of “Becky” ogling the men in the field, the bottled water turning into gushing champagne and the train enters the “tunnel of love” are shown back-to-back that left me… well, speechless.

Is that..?

Did that just…?

Is that a euphemism for…?

Sadly, in the longer version, not only aren’t these scenes played one after the other but we’re also treated to a glimpse of Stoke-on-Trent which really underplays just how much of a sexagasmic experience riding on a Virgin train actually is.

Shame.

There aren’t many things that will get a policeman simulating oral sex in the street these days – except, of course, for the sight of a Tunnocks Caramel Wafer lorry:

Or as Cat, who submitted this bad ad, summarises:

I think this is an accidentally aired GCSE project.

The use of Comic Sans at the end is particularly craptastic.

But even though it does look like someone’s Media Studies course work gone wrong, I think it’s important we’re not too harsh on the makers of this advert – as they’ve clearly had to spend 2, maybe even 3, weeks’ pocket money on it. That’s nearly 10 Tunnocks Caramel Wafers they could have bought instead! Poor loves.

Oh well, 3 weeks miming eating a chocolate coated caramel wafer bar is a price worth paying for this masterpiece.

Nice one, Cat.

Here’s an advert that’s been getting a bit of press over the last couple of days so I thought I’d jump on the band wagon and stoke the fires of indifference that are sweeping the UK by adding it to TV’s Worst Adverts.

It seems that the new advert from Burger King for it’s “Texican” burger featuring a tall, bearded, scrawny Texan – who’s good at reaching high shelves and cleaning windows – and a midget Mexican wrestler – who’s good at opening jars, has a large fan base and enjoys swimming – has caused outrage in both Mexico and Mexican embassies the World over:

Yeah, according to the Independent this advert has left Jorge Zermeno, the Mexican ambassador to Spain, with a bad taste in his mouth – one even worse than actually eating a Texican. He is reported to have been so outraged by the depiction of the Mexican wrestler as both short and good at opening jars/swimming that he “wrote a formal complaint to Burger King, asking for the ad to be removed.”

So if once the dust has settled and this advert has been forgotten like yesterdays fart we only learn one thing from this whole sorry affair it’s do not mess with the Mexican ambassador unless you’re ready for him to unleash a can full of “formal letter of complaint” on your arse!

Is that headed note paper? You’re a nasty piece of work, ambassador. 

But like most people, what surprises me most is that a man as important as the Mexican ambassador to Spain can possibly find the time to get so worked up about an advert for a spicy cow’s buttock in a bap? 

I just can’t believe that he’s not either too lazy, commiting too much petty crime or is too high to worry about Mexicans being stereotyped?

Anyway, I think that we can all agree that there’s only one way to decide if this advert is really offensive to Mexicans, vote for it on TV’s Worst Adverts.

So get clicking, amigos – as long as you’re not too pissed on taquilla, busy stealing mules or sneaking into the US, that is.

Here’s part two of TV’s Worst Adverts‘ “Disturbingly Sexied Up” Trilogy – Birds Eye’s Salmon Fish Fingers advert.

If you did a survey of 1000 men, asking each of them to write a list 1000 things that they found “sexy”, on resultant and fairly comprehensive list of “one million things that turn men on” not one of them would have written the words “Fish Fingers”.

Not one.

In fact it’s been proven that it’s medically impossible to find sealife that’s been covered in breadcrumbs then frozen in anyway sexually exciting.

Daryl Hannah in Splash – Yes.

Daryl Hannah in Splash covered in breadcrumbs then frozen – No.

So my jaw never fails to hit the floor when I see that Birds Eye have tried to use sex to sell their new Salmon Fish Fingers:

Oh goodness.

When the *male* fish finger says “So much pink!” at the end, is he referring to a woman’s shaven bits?

If so, it’s all kinds of wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

See Also

Peugeot 308 – DRIVESEXY

The What the Monkey category was made for adverts like this:

No. I’ve no idea either.

Strokes aren’t funny.

They can kill you or, at the very least, make you look like you’re permanently watching the Hollyoaks omnibus. So I’m not going to make fun of people who’ve had strokes nor of teenagers who simply don’t realise they’re wasting the best years of their life.

But this advert has left me a little worried:

If you’re anything like me, watching that advert has made you extremely paranoid and you’re now permanently on stroke-watch. So to help save lives, here are those symptoms again:

• Difficulty smiling.
• Can’t lift their arms up.
• Slurred speech.

Hang on a minute. That sounds like everybody I catch the bus to work with in the mornings is having a stroke. This is much more serious then I first imagined.

Not really, only joking. They’re really just miserable bastards who hate their miserable lives and their miserable jobs that they’re grinding out for the sake their miserable families. But hey, that’s the Midlands for you. 

Back to strokes… the most of important symptom of all that you should look out for is the “forehead on fire”. If someone’s face is burning down quicker than the Australian bush then they’re are definitely having a stroke. Well, they’re either having a stroke or they’re a Nazi and they’ve just opened the Arc of the Covenant in some unholy ceremony on a God forsaken lump of rock in the middle of nowhere. 

It’s definitely one of the two though, so always check for a leather trench coat and swastika armband before you call the for the ambulance, just in case.

If you’ were anything like me, there was nothing you loved more as a kid than air freshner.

Except maybe sweets.

And puppy dogs.

My love of these things lead me to spend many a happy hour round at the house of a neighbour. He was very generous and let me have as many liquorice comfits as I could eat then, high on E numbers and sugar, he let me chase his puppy dogs round his garden.

Anyways, all that liquorice, fresh air and exercise would leave me desperately needing a poo.

Not a problem, our neighbour was very kind too and he always let me use his toilet. Strange thing was though, he was very protective of his air freshner. He’d stand and watch me have a poo just to make sure “I didn’t use too much Touch and Fresh” when I’d finished.

Stranger still, he kept his air freshner very low down on the wall behind the toilet. And every time I bent down and gave it a couple of squirts it would make a sound like the click of a camera.

Weird.

The local children had a nickname for our neighbour. What was it, now?

Ah yes, I remember, “Paedo Paul”.

Dirty, Paedo Paul! Dirty!

In TV’s Worst Adverts’ role as a public servant, or some shit like that, here’s another potentially contentious Bad Ad submission. This one comes from TWA regular CovertJellyFish:

Hmmm… Let me make one thing absolutely clear to all advertising executives. CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE SEEN ON TV.

If you have to have children on tv then you need to follow two rules:

1) DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PICK UGLY CHILDREN.

2) DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MAKE THEM ENTERTAINING IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM.

Yes, after last year’s Drumming Gorilla and Trucks, Cadbury’s are back with a new Glass and a Half Full Productions advert – Body-Popping Eyebrows.

Unlike CovertJellyFish, I’m glad these kids are on our TV’s (beats watching talking animals at least).

I’m down with the electro-funk groove (Don’t Stop the Rock by Freestyle, in case you’re interested) and despite finding 2 gawky-looking kids staring at me – without blinking once! –  for a whole minute just a little unnerving, when the girl pulls out the balloon, I can’t help but smile. 

So go on, get voting and tell us what you think – Is it as tub-thumpingly good as the Gorilla or is it another Truck shaped, festering turd?

If you can’t afford it gambling is one of the most ridiculous reckless things you can do.

Even if it’s a dead cert.

Even if you got the tip off a your mate whose uncle knows a bloke who knows John McCririck’s cleaner.

Even if it’s not a problem and you can handle it because it’s just not a problem and you can handle it. Look, it’s not a problem. I CAN HANDLE IT!

And what better way to (inadvertently) highlight just how ridiculously reckless gambling at, for example, Ladbrokescasino.com is by comparing it to rock-climbing using only your chin, or to swimming with sharks while covered in pork-products, or to skydiving using a crisp packet as a parachute?

Sadly, the ASA didn’t see it that way; so here are the 3 banned adverts:

The Climbing One:

The Shark One:

The Parachute One:

You know what it’s like – you’ve had a hard day writing, directing and starring in your latest high-minded, holier-than-thou tirade against a social injustice – or Ocean’s 14, to give it its proper title – and you’re really, really gagging for a Nespresso.

Well, as luck has it, you’re just round the corner of your local Nespresso shop. What are the chances?

Ahh, browsing rack after rack of your favourite Nespresso capsule blends is truly one of the last bastions of humanity, isn’t it?

Just one problem; the shop’s full of beautiful, yet sycophantic, women. Will these damned sauce-pots not just leave you alone to enjoy the art of the espresso?

That’s life though, I suppose!

Yes, this is Sir George Clooney starring in the latest Nescafe Nespresso advert – what else?

And seeing as George is the most intelligent, sophisticated and charming whore-bag working in Hollywod today it seems natural that Nespresso has saddled him up, mounted him and whipped his bare buttocks with the giant greenback riding crop in the hope that some of our George-lust will rub off on their coffee machines – although not literally, of course.

That’s a latte noone wants to drink. 

A great plan, I think you’ll agree, except for the the fact that Nespresso machines are as sophisticated as an evening of Lambrini fuelled jelly wrestling round at Kerry Katona’s house.

Or maybe slightly less cruelly, Nespresso machanies are the coffee equivalent of a box of wine. Yes, it looks like wine – except it’s coffee – and it tastes like wine – except it’s coffee – but the only people who would willingly have one on their kitchen worktop are aspirational chavs.

Anyways, I fancied a bit of chav coffee quaffing action, Cloonster style, so I popped down to my local Whittard Of Chelsea shop but all the windows were boarded up and instead of a hoard of extremely attractive women there was just a piss soaked tramp asleep in the doorway.

That’s life though, I suppose.

Here’s another TWA special from the very generous Simon Breadbin. Enjoy!

‘Where’s Sarah? She should be here by now.’

‘Sorry I’m late, I was just designing this t-shirt.’

‘Ooh, yeah! Nice.’

Just what the fuck was Sarah thinking? Her FRIENDS are WAITING for her and she’s poncing about designing a fucking T-SHIRT?!

They’re all LATE now.

Except of course they aren’t, are they? Because this ‘Animal Crossing’, the nauseatingly cutesy game aimed at day-care centres and the mentally subnormal.

If there really existed such a world made of sugar, then there must be an alternate dimension made wholly from puke, and I know where I’d rather be.

Are we to believe that these are the same ‘advert women’ who routinely humiliate their buffoon husbands with their mastery of just about fucking everything, reduced to simpering at each other online and planning a virtual shopping trip?

I hate this advert as it reminds me that one of the last bastions of male immaturity has been hijacked, distorted beyond all recognition, and then sold back to us with a pink fucking ribbon on it.

The game featured in this advert reminds me of a fluffy version of the  Ludocvico Technique. It seems Nintendo are trying to condition our minds into believing the world is nothing but Autumnal days sat in the forrest or being wrapped in a blanket with a mug of hot tea.

It’s a world that mirrors our very own. You eat an apple, it eats an apple. You drink tea, it drinks tea.

But, before you know it, you’re mirroring their world.

They have their hair cut, you have you hair cut. They sleep with the lead games designer of Animal Crossing, you sleep with the lead games designer of Animal Crossing. They send their life savings to Satoru Iwata, you… well, you get the drift.  

And worst of all, it’s a world in which your pathetic attempts at fashion design – attempts that, let’s be honest, would embarrass a retarded child had they made them – become master pieces for you to show off to your simpering, slack jawed, idiotic friends.

Nintendos vision of the future scares the Warios out of me and it should do you too – or you might end up like Sarah and her friends.

“Oh, yeah! Nice.”

*Shivers down my spine*.

Thanks again to Simon Breadbin for submitting this bad ad.

The challenge faced by advertisers of High Definition TV’s on what are, quite frankly, pathetic, non-HD, Luddite teles is this generations “advertising colour TV on black and white sets”.

But a TV that can “make snooker even more enjoyable”, amazingly, isn’t much of a selling point these days.

No, HD is all about being able to see stuff you couldn’t see before.

You know, like being able to see James Bond doing some kind of pastiche of that bit at the end of Empire Strikes Back:

And in a World exclusive TV’s Worst Adverts can reveal the dialogue from the next instalment of these Sony adverts:

Goldfinger: “M never told you what happened to your father.”
James Bond: “She told me enough. She told me you killed him.”
Goldfinger: “No. I am your father”

Yeah, it turns out that Goldfinger is actually James Bond’s father. Who knew? Who knew?

Shockingly at the end of the advert Goldfinger actually does cut James Bond’s nuts off – to which Bond dryly retorts: “Bollocks!”.

Not really.

In reality, I don’t know what the hell this advert is really supposed to be showing us apart from the very obvious “green screening” of Daniel Craig – this generations “you can see the strings!”.

I get the feeling that this advert’s message is as simple as “Watching a Sony HD TV will make you as cool as James Bond”. In much the same way that the Barclay Card advert says “Spending money on your Barclay Card will make you as cool as James Bond” and the Ford Ka advert says “Driving a new Ford Ka will make you as cool as James Bond”.

And, although this message might seem exceptionally shallow, I think that we all agree that the coolest part of the latest James Bond film was when he drove his Ford Ka to Curry’s and bought a new Sony HD TV with his Barclay Card.

So, on the whole, magical stuff.

Toshiba Upscaling TV Advert

Here’s the new advert for Toshiba’s Upscaling TV’s – which “enhances standard definition content to near high definition quality” apparently.

I quite like this advert but can’t help but feel it’s what the Matrix would have been like if it was directed by Gus Van Sant.

Why is this advert still on TV?

It’s bizarre mix of heady, aspirational guff combined with a completely mental claim that makes it just so very confused.

Make my clothes smell of “white diamonds and lotus flower”, you say? Oh no, I don’t think so.

After all, any self-respecting, social-climber is going to do themselves no favours at all by claiming they smell of “white diamonds”.

“Ooh, you smell nice. What is it?” – the concierge at the new spa you’ve just joined might ask.
“It’s the smell of luxury – white diamonds” – you’d reply.
“Our health club doesn’t want idiots like you as members. Get out!” – he’d be forced to tell you.

And research has shown that you can only make yourself sound cheaper if you claim that the scent your clothes are infused with is, in fact, “white diamonique“.

Ultimately the big problem for me is that, probably like most sane people, I’m at a complete loss as to what white diamonds smell like.

I’m guessing they smell of pretentious bullshit.

I could be wrong of course, because there was a while when, as a impoverished student, I used to smell of Diamond White on a fairly regular basis, and that’s definitely not the kind of odour that would go down too well in a swanky restaurant.

Anyways, whatever it actually smells of, here are a couple more fragrances that I hope Bold will let us infuse our clothes with:

• White Elephant - The fragrance of a gift you wished you hadn’t received.
• Jimmy White - The smell of World Championship failure.
• White Supremacy - The stench of ignorance and hatred.

If you’ve got any more fragrances you wish you could infuse your clothes with, please feel free to add them below.

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.