Persil – Dirt is Good
16 August 2008 by SilkyAs 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.
Just How Bad is this Ad?
(15 votes, average: 3.73 out of 5)
5Responses:
qwidge
Said on the 18 August 2008
I happen to hate this advert for a completely different reason Silky…when i first saw it in the cinema before a showing of WALL-E, right up until the “PERSIL” denoument i assumed it was a very keenly targetted advert against child abuse. Watch it again with that in mind and i swear it’ll change your view of it. HAUNTING!
PL
Said on the 18 August 2008
This adverts great! I love it! Persil…….nice one!
Gary Bembridge
Said on the 20 August 2008
I really did not know what to think when I first saw the ad.
On the positive, I found I was watching it to find out the F@@K was going on and what it was all about. I assumed it must be cleverer than I thought it was once one had seen the Wall-e film. But I am guessing it is not.
Have no idea why it would make me buy Persil. So that makes it a bad ad surely?
Claire rudedoodle
Said on the 20 August 2008
Haunting indeed.
I find I almost shed a tear watching that.
Surely kids love dressing up like robots though. I bet kids watch it and wish they had a cool robot outfit like that unappreciative little dirty boy.
Jim Butterworth
Said on the 22 February 2010
The healthiest kids are often the dirtiest kids. Over-cleaned over-protected kids often have poor attendance records.
What was the message – I forgot ! But I would have remembered better if Persil had been mentioned before the throaway line at the end.
Good theme; poor advert.