Showing posts with label commercials. Show all posts
Showing posts with label commercials. Show all posts
I don't wanna go to the Phorm
Phorm: Your questions answered -sort of.
Phorm
Bad Phorm.
BT and Phorm secretly tracked 18,000 customers in 2006.
Me - I've always said advertising is the toxic pollution of the post-industrial age.
If advertisers have such a desperate need to put their ads in front of people's eyes - they should pay the people to look at them - not big stupid companies to secretly hoodwink people into seeing them.
Hey, then the unemployed can sit at home earning money looking at these ads and then they'd soon not end up not being unemployed any more and be able to buy some of those things they see advertised everyday. Wealthier people who simply haven't the time to sit through ads of various kinds could pay people to sit through the ads for them, like they already pay for housekeepers and personal trainers and what not. That'd save the government some money.
Can you tell I hate advertising - it's all such a waste of people's talents, creativity, time, effort, energy just to make people want things they don't really need. Just think what the human race could have accomplished if all of those things had been put into other things. We could be living in a world that had cures for cancer, no wars, clean energy, we'd be exploring the solar system, have personal robot servants, we could even have had jet packs!
OK I got carried away there. Meanwhile it's firefox & adblock for me.
It's always a shock for me to use someone else's browser - I forget how much people get bombarded by ads. They just mentally filter them out - I don't see how having personally targeted ads is going to work any better.
Phorm
Bad Phorm.
BT and Phorm secretly tracked 18,000 customers in 2006.
Me - I've always said advertising is the toxic pollution of the post-industrial age.
If advertisers have such a desperate need to put their ads in front of people's eyes - they should pay the people to look at them - not big stupid companies to secretly hoodwink people into seeing them.
Hey, then the unemployed can sit at home earning money looking at these ads and then they'd soon not end up not being unemployed any more and be able to buy some of those things they see advertised everyday. Wealthier people who simply haven't the time to sit through ads of various kinds could pay people to sit through the ads for them, like they already pay for housekeepers and personal trainers and what not. That'd save the government some money.
Can you tell I hate advertising - it's all such a waste of people's talents, creativity, time, effort, energy just to make people want things they don't really need. Just think what the human race could have accomplished if all of those things had been put into other things. We could be living in a world that had cures for cancer, no wars, clean energy, we'd be exploring the solar system, have personal robot servants, we could even have had jet packs!
OK I got carried away there. Meanwhile it's firefox & adblock for me.
It's always a shock for me to use someone else's browser - I forget how much people get bombarded by ads. They just mentally filter them out - I don't see how having personally targeted ads is going to work any better.
shredded
I happen to like bitesize shredded wheat - have done so for years. But their commercial for it drives me insane. A selection of different women (I had no idea this was a cereal designed exclusively for women - this was news to me) seem totally bemused by this cereal for consisting of nothing but wheat. No added sugar - no nothing - just wheat. Er, but you HAVE TO ADD MILK AND SUGAR TO IT FOR IT TO BE EDIBLE YOU MORONS! Otherwise it's straw you're eating - and you couldn't get through a bowl of it dry. It's also pretty revolting if you eat it without sugar too - unless you like the taste of raw cardboard.
Annoying adverts: The pornography of crying.
It used to be that the British were world famous for their lack of public displays of emotion - remember the 'stiff upper lip'? – but that seems to have quietly become extinct over time. Over the past few years – the UK has fallen in love with public displays of crying. I blame the American TV imports such as Oprah, Springer, etc. This led us to our own home grown chat shows and with the explosion of multiple channel TV which in turn led to a search for cheap ways to fill all that air time -and so was invented the 'reality show'. You can be almost certain that these days if the show involves a member of the public and it might be a show about dieting, clothes, their pet dog, their treasured processions, their untidy house, their career – whatever,– at some point it will feature a scene where that person is made to cry. That's the money shot right there. Then later came celebrity crying.... but I start to digress.
So now I've given you a bit of history – I want to draw your attention to one particular commercial that's been driving me crazy for the past couple of years. It has irritating jangly guitar music – and an indie-band boy doing a worbly 'soulful' vocal (which is already more than enough to set my teeth on edge and make me queasy) – and a blue sofa and a chair a weirdo overly-friendly man and most important of all - a box of famous brand paper tissues – all out in the open air on various street locations. Yes, out on the street. The premise being that random members of the general public are invited to sit on the sofa and talk to a sympathetic professional actor – until they are eventually driven to tears and so get to use the famous brand tissue and will notice it's wonderful tear and snot absorbing properties. Which is no doubt far superior to any other paper tissue and also great value for money. Of course this really is all a bit disturbing and it is pandering to the UK's newly-found love/spectator sport of watching people cry in public. Gross. Except of course the makers of this commercial have noticed that well, yes, it is a bit creepy and disturbing actually – so they've backtracked on themselves a bit and have since added in a few people being happy smiley happy laughy, and even some people having a group hug, and well, generally altogether having a good time that doesn't feature using paper handkerchiefs. Of course here the paper tissue manufacturers have missed a golden opportunity of showing people having themselves such a good time that they have the definite need for a clean up afterwards with tissues. Only -please let's not show that happening on a sofa in the open streets OK?
So now I've given you a bit of history – I want to draw your attention to one particular commercial that's been driving me crazy for the past couple of years. It has irritating jangly guitar music – and an indie-band boy doing a worbly 'soulful' vocal (which is already more than enough to set my teeth on edge and make me queasy) – and a blue sofa and a chair a weirdo overly-friendly man and most important of all - a box of famous brand paper tissues – all out in the open air on various street locations. Yes, out on the street. The premise being that random members of the general public are invited to sit on the sofa and talk to a sympathetic professional actor – until they are eventually driven to tears and so get to use the famous brand tissue and will notice it's wonderful tear and snot absorbing properties. Which is no doubt far superior to any other paper tissue and also great value for money. Of course this really is all a bit disturbing and it is pandering to the UK's newly-found love/spectator sport of watching people cry in public. Gross. Except of course the makers of this commercial have noticed that well, yes, it is a bit creepy and disturbing actually – so they've backtracked on themselves a bit and have since added in a few people being happy smiley happy laughy, and even some people having a group hug, and well, generally altogether having a good time that doesn't feature using paper handkerchiefs. Of course here the paper tissue manufacturers have missed a golden opportunity of showing people having themselves such a good time that they have the definite need for a clean up afterwards with tissues. Only -please let's not show that happening on a sofa in the open streets OK?
Victoria's ASDA Ads
Errrr.... why is British comedy genius Victoria Wood doing those lamentably lame commercials for ASDA. I mean - if it's for the money couldn't we all have a whip round? They just don't make any sense. Well, they do - I know how advertiser's minds work - they're just using Victoria's image as a nice, homely down-to-earth friendly character in the hope that the cache will become associated with the brand. At a time when all the supermarkets are suffering a major backlash for their predatory, underhanded, devious profiting ways. I'm worried for Victoria that the rub off will go the other way and she'll get caught up with the backlash.
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