Are they selling sex or breakfast cereal? (Best / Worst TV Adverts)

Member Name: Lynsey100

Product:	Best / Worst TV Adverts
Date:	05/09/06 (2434 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gives Linda Barker a job

Disadvantages: Irritating and boring

Somebody once said that seeing a murder on television can help work off one’s antagonisms. And if you don’t have any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some. Most adverts are incredibly annoying with their stupid catchphrases, z-list celebrities and false promises. It seems that programmes barely get started now before we are treated to an ad break. The radio is just as bad with the ten adverts you have to listen to between each song. There are, however, some adverts that you can learn to tolerate.

***** The Best *****

Andrex
That pesky little puppy has been running away with the bog roll since 1972. He’s so cute; you could forgive him anything though. We might see Christmas decorations in the shop as early as October now, but you know Santa’s nearly here when you see the “A puppy is for life, not just for Christmas” ad on the telly. I just love it, a gorgeous puppy and fluffy wee duck sliding around the ice together with Slade playing in the background. It makes me so warm and fuzzy inside. I have to say, I’m a bit puzzled by the latest Andrex campaign, with the new toilet roll that has puppies on it. How will it make you enjoy going to the toilet any more? Unless you enjoy rubbing a puppy’s face on your arse of course. I’m still waiting for them to make a toilet roll with pictures of the Big Brother housemates on it…

Imperial Leather
The scene is of a woman relaxing in a big bubble bath, listening to a football match on the radio, as all women do when they have a moment to themselves. The fiery Paulo Di Canio is sent off, and leaves the pitch for an early bath. Lo and behold, he enters the lady’s bathroom and begins to strip. He gets down to just his crisp white boxers before asking if he can get in the bath. The lucky lady merely has to raise an eyebrow, and Di Canio tantalisingly begins to peel off those boxers. Alas, the rest is left up to the imagination.

Marmite
The ad starts with a guy and a stunning blonde model-type entering a flat. She tells him to make himself comfortable on the sofa while she pops into the kitchen. He can barely contain his excitement, as he is about to get his rocks off big time, and boy will the lads be impressed about this one. When she returns from the kitchen they start kissing, and the guy pulls away with his face contorting in disgust doing that tongue spitting thing. The camera pulls back, and we see a piece of toast and marmite with a big bite out of it. I think this advert is really funny, and I like the honesty of it too. It’s true that Marmite is something that you love or hate. How the hell did somebody come up with the idea for a yeast and vegetable extract spread anyway? Weird.

Levi’s (Laundrette)
Ok, so this is the second advert I’m including where a man strips down to his crisp white boxers, but there aren’t enough of them in my opinion! This was the first of a series of classic retro 50’s style ads that increased sales of Levi’s by 800%. The opening bars of “I heard it through the Grapevine” bring one image to mind – that of Nick Kamen doing his Laundrette striptease and washing his 501’s, as flustered women and bemused elders looked on. It was the launch of the Levis hero. The James Dean type loner; mean, moody, arrogant and tough. I can remember studying the Levi’s campaign at school, which entailed watching the adverts over and over again. Those were pleasant afternoons!

**** The Worst ****

Lynx
Lynx is often used by teenage boys who can’t be arsed taking a shower. The ads are targeted towards young males who dream of seducing FHM girls, but sit at home at night watching TV with their parents making mental notes in their heads for the threesome they’ll be having in their heads later that night. The Lynx adverts feature average looking young blokes who spray themselves with the deodorant, and are soon surrounded by model-types desperate to get jiggy with it. Obviously, fat, ugly or average looking women have no sense of smell, and are therefore immune to the Lynx effect.

Halifax/Bank of Scotland
Whoever comes up with the ideas for these adverts is most definitely shagging their boss. How else would this drivel end up on our television screens? They’ve taken some annoying pop songs, and done the near impossible job of making them even more irritating by changing the lyrics to reflect their financial products. Then they took a blonde Scottish woman and put her on the back of a flying swan, and threw in a man that looks a bit like a mole with glasses ten times too big for him to add some “sexual chemistry”. These adverts could be used as a modern day form of Chinese water torture to interrogate terrorists. Ten minutes of watching this would soon have them spilling their guts out for mercy.

Sheila’s Wheels
I can’t remember to put my bin out on a Friday morning, yet I know every single word of this incredibly annoying jingle by heart. There are evil forces at work here. Once you hear this song you will NEVER be rid of it. I have a theory that if you played this seemingly innocent jingle backwards you would probably hear some kind of sinister satanic chant in an unknown malevolent language designed to gain control of our minds.

Summary: Promise is the soul of the advertisement.