Ocean Finance – Long Grass
21 April 2007 by SilkyWhen you’re desperate, you’ll do anything for money: Sell your cherished record collection, sleep with your best friends mum, appear in an Ocean Finance advert. That was the sad choice the actors in the latest Ocean Finance advert had to make. Poor desperate fools.
And you know, it’s this kind of desperation that fuels loans companies. Because they’re essentially the psychics of the money world. They seek out the desperate and needy and squeeze every penny they can out of them (I suppose, for the sake of fairness, I should add: “in a perfectly legal way”).
“I’m getting a man’s name. Jon? No. James? No. Bill? Yes! No. Bill, Bill… err, bills! Now, what sort of bills? Credit cards? Car HP? Mortgage? All of them? Bingo!”
And adverts for these loan companies are great manipulators. They twist your debt-addled mush-like brain into thinking that getting a loan will free you from the hardship of life, stop the rain falling from the sky and maybe even make your kids slightly less ugly.
The Ocean Finance advert continues this trend. It’s an apocalyptic scene. Shot with the colour drained from the lives of a couple (let’s call them Barry and Jeanette for ease of reference) who live in a horrific 70′s house, with a run down crap-mobile parked on the drive and, oh dear God, look at the state of that lawn. We’re offered a glimpse of the neighbour’s house and that looks like a palace in comparison (“I wish we could have a conservatory, Jeanette, I really do.”). But there’s no time for dreams about conservatories, Barry, you’ve got to cut the grass.
But hang on, it gets worse. He’s so far in the red he’s having to use a vacuum cleaner that an elderly relative left him in their will about 10 years ago instead of a mower. In fact, cutting the grass with the vacuum cleaner is so hard and Barry is so badly in debt that he starts hallucinating. (Note to Barry: Hallucinogenic drugs are also a good way to escape the realities of life).
The vacuum cleaner explodes. The dog runs away (“Et tu, Rover?”). Barry looks to the sky in despair. Jeanette and the kids want to kill themselves. I just can’t see a way for them to get out of this hell hole…
Fortunately a loan from Ocean Finance has put the colour back in their lives. It also puts a new car on the drive, a conservatory on the back of the house, a new, less scraggy dog in their kennel. Barry can now afford what he’s always longed for: a ride-on mower. The kids are happy and by the look he gives Jeanette, Barry is finally getting some action again. Aren’t loans fantastic?
OK, so I accept that we can’t all be Alvin Hall (I for one look ridiculous in a bow tie and blazer), and most of us have probably borrowed money but (Warning! Unqualified financial advice approaching) if you are in financial trouble and have to take the desperate step of securing another loan against your house (which could be repossessed if you do not keep up payments) then don’t spend the money on a FUCKING RIDE-ON MOWER!
This advert and the number of loans companies advertising on TV at the moment is really a very sad tribute to the buy-now-pay-later, possessions-make-you-happy culture that we live in and it’s nothing short of despicable.
(Phew! Glad to get that one off my chest. Right, I’m off to call Picture Loans. The wife needs breast enlargement surgury and I fancy a platinum Prince Albert to impress the lads at the rugby club. Tut ta.)
Just How Bad is this Ad?
(58 votes, average: 4.52 out of 5)
22Responses:
Beatrice
Said on the 23 April 2007
Fair play, Silky. A lawn of that size needs a sit on mower like Vinnie Jones needs a hairbrush.
DaveP
Said on the 28 April 2007
PMSLMFAO! You summed up exactly what I was thinking when I watched that advert.
Ben
Said on the 21 June 2007
So right. But it’s not just the look he gives his wife, it’s the fact that she’s stuffing that pot, down at crotch height, really hammering home the point that he’s now getting to give her a stuffing.
Thranjax
Said on the 22 June 2007
Truly an awful advert (but hilarious) and typical of the wish fulfilment nonsense that the debt consolidation leeches spew out.
Also, towards the end there is a shot of him approaching his wife on the mower, and a cut to him going back the other way. There’s no space for him to turn the monstrous thing round (the mower not his wife) so how did he? (Shades of that old advert with the Joker on the soundtrack and the bike in the elevator).
TV’s Worst Adverts » Blog Archive » Picture Loan - Dad’s Found Your Scooter » A Selection of TVs Worst Adverts
Said on the 22 July 2007
[...] I’ve mentioned before that I think adverts for loans companies are like the psychics of the money world. Extorting money from the most vulnerable and [...]
MikeZag
Said on the 30 July 2007
The product is vile – lumping all your tiny loans into one huge ugly one. However, spare a thought for the other vulnerable people here – the classically trained actors who are forced to do the ads between shifts at Starbucks. It’s not as if Kevin Spacey or Bob Deniro could do any better… They are just actors – unlike Nadine Baggot – which is by far the worst Ad ever… because it has the added ingredient of ‘no shame’.
Sean
Said on the 17 August 2007
The funniest part of the advert has to be the crazy spending. Even though the poor sod just needed to spend a hundred quid on a better mower, he’s managed to borrow enough to carry out some pretty extensive reworking on his house.The ride-on mower is pure class, which considering the size of his garden,would be like buying a pig farm when you fancy a bacon sandwich.
If I’d shot the advert I’d have kept the basic story but had the whole family wearing top hats and monacles and guzzling champagne as they watch him mow the lawn.
Exiledinwatford
Said on the 23 August 2007
Can’t keep up your repayments? House being repossessed? We have the answer – BORROW SOME MORE! For me Picture is just as bad. All these companies offer an answer to everyone’s debt problems by guess what? Getting into more debt. They ought to be stopped.
Clangnuts
Said on the 31 August 2007
How ironic. The google ads for loans after all the well meaning lecturing
Silky
Said on the 1 September 2007
Hey those adverts make me some good money.
I mean, I wrestle with my conscience on a regular basis about running ads this blog, Clagnuts.
I use the title “Ironic Advertising” to kid myself I’m not just another shill…
helenw1301
Said on the 27 December 2007
Basically these ads are for dumb arses – Are you in debt? Then get another loand to make yourself into more debt and be a lot older when you finally pay it off
Raymond Dunthorne
Said on the 17 January 2008
It’s almost as tasteless as the ‘castaway’ one Ocean did. The hapless debt-strewn victim was rescued at the end by a large ‘Ocean Finance’ yacht that I was told was owned by guess who? That’s right, the CEO of Ocean Finance.
Geoff_S
Said on the 21 February 2008
Ocean Finance must have got feedback from the bailiffs they send out to repossess their customer’s homes, that their ideal customer is one that can’t be arsed to mow their lawn. (like me).
Sort of people who’ll happily convert unsecured debts that they could probably walk away from, into one they’ll lose their house over.
Has anyone else noticed that the bad taste these adverts leave in your mouth is transferred to the program that follows? The program you’re watching has been financed out of the misery & exploitation of others.
Dave
Said on the 21 February 2008
This is hilarious, the symbolism in it, Freud would have a field day with the ginks who thought this load of tripe up.
Now this has got to hurt « Toppage
Said on the 19 April 2008
[...] are liable for the debt, but it isn’t accounted for as a risk. It is like taking out one big Ocean Finance loan. And then not telling your [...]
The Humphrey Awards 2008 » Blog Archive » TV’s Worst Adverts
Said on the 1 June 2008
[...] Read full post. [...]
D
Said on the 13 May 2009
Come on… a sit-on lawn mower for a garden that size!!!!!! wtf?!?!?!
LisaLisa
Said on the 15 May 2009
The dog is NOT scraggy!! He is my dog!!
rik o shea
Said on the 18 June 2009
drowning in debt ? no? well take out an ocean loan and you soon will be.
rik o shea
Said on the 18 June 2009
have you just had a stroke ? you have ? oh good , that means it will be easier to forge your signature on the proposal form.
Roger
Said on the 2 August 2009
“When you’re desperate, you’ll do anything for money: Sell your cherished record collection, sleep with your best friends mum, ”
Cadge from the impoverished tax payer rather than sell your valuable art collection………
AJXX
Said on the 10 April 2010
I see these cunts have a new advert (still looks cheap as chips!) with the fucking idiot in a tent with a light bulb strapped to his head.
The whole point of these adverts “did you know ocean have their own TV channel” – whoopt’y fucking doo! who in the fucking right mind would want to watch an entire TV channel after watching this single advert?
Honestly, why bother Ocean – can you not afford a decent advertising team?
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