Advertisments

Beyond the sight of Christmas trees starting to spring up in October, there is one easy way to feel the approach of the festive season: adverts. Thankfully, for the last 7 years I've been away during this silly season and have hardly watched any television at all, but this year I've seen it all. Last summer I set about the job of copying all our old VCR tapes to DVD and the most enjoyable part of this was seeing all the old adverts from the 80s. They really knew how to make them back then - no celebrities, bad hairstyles and simple premises. I have to say that my family are an advertiser's worst nightmare - my father doesn't understand any of the ads, my mother remembers them, but can't remember what brand they're for and I just mercilessly pick holes in them. Take the modern advert for the Vauxhaul Astra with all the cars flying all over the place - did anyone actually stop and think "this looks absolutely ridiculous!"? There's a bit in it where a chain of CGI Astras perform various choreographed manoeuvre's. Unfortunately it looks about as realistic as a Japanese Elvis. Saab on the, other hand, actually did this in real-life back in the 80s as shown below:



It's almost as if advertisers can't be bothered any more and just give their CGI people a free reign. But of course when it comes to Christmas we get the big promotional adverts. First up is the unfortunate case of Sony's PSP adverts. Sony clearly booked a lot of slots in the belief that they'd be pushing the new PS3 for all it's worth. The PS3 won't be with us for at least 3 months so Sony have had to push their PSP: after all it's being slaughtered by the Nintendo DS both here and abroad. Unfortunately they have come up with the most annoying characters known to man (the dustballs). If you haven't yet seen them (Sony have booked a LOT of slots) then play the video below.



Of course the one thing that never fails to appear ad-infinitum around this time of year are those tossing fragrance adverts - you know the ones: get various celebrities to ponce around and deliver a catchphrase that has nothing to do with the scent at all. To be fair, it must be a challenge to sell something that is entirely based on smell via a medium that's solely interpreted by the visual and aural senses, but why do they keep showing the same ads year on year? That "I see a man; it's chance. Take it!" gets me so angry and the one with the guy running across the bollards in time with the waves has me secretly hoping he falls and gets a large bit of concrete trying to insert itself into his crotch. And to finish, they're still wheeling out that Baz Luhrman/Nicole Kidman Chanel one that cost $45m to make. Apparently in the cinema it still carries credits at the end. What always amazes me is people fall for it. Of course, if people knew that behind the fancy names like Brut, Fabergé and the like were actually companies such as Proctor and Gamble or Unilever and that the scents were designed in massive chemical factories on the New Jersey turnpike they may not be so will to splash out £50 upwards on 50 ml of organic solution.

It's not 100% bad though. I'll finish on a positive (before all those sofa/kitchen sale adverts start next week) with two adverts that I actually like. The first is another Vauxhal advert. It's the ones for the Astra/Corsa with the muppet-like characters that simply say "C'Mon!" At first it bugges the crap out of me, but I and severa others have grown to love them - especially the really gruff one who mutters things under his breath before shouting the obligatory line. Sean Paul actually suits the soundtrack (I never thought I'd say that) so have a glance below.



Secondly is the 2006 Debenhams Christmas advert. The whole theme is a modern take of Father Christmas - instead of being a fat man with a long white beard in the traditional red suit, he's portraid as a young, slim man with a grey goatee and sharp red suit who body pops his way through his "grotto" (read: stylish house) before setting out on Cristmas Eve not on a reindeer pulled sleigh, but a flying snowmobile. It's not on YouTube yet, but if for some reason you haven't seen it you can do so here and the music (a modern version of Santa Baby) can be downloaded from the same page. In a world of dull, uninspired, cynical adverts, it's nice to know at least some companies are coming up with innovative adverts. Oh, and if you're ever left wondering what the music used in adverts was, try this site.