Saturday, December 22, 2007

Are the cynical genes finally kicking in?

I watch a fair bit of Tv probably too much to be honest and I've noticed myself becoming a bit cynical about adverts (no really) and I'm probably one of those people who would have market researchers tearing their hair out as adverts never seem to work in the correct way on me.

For example all of the adverts for things such as hair care or beauty products that announce 97% of users would recommend it to their friends. All well and good but I can't help but sit there and wonder why the remaining 3% wouldn't.

Then their the adverts for furniture stores who seem to have some sort of sale on at all times. To be honest it would probably have more affect on me if they did a advert that announced they were going to sell everything at it's normal price. Their are two main culprits at the moment for these kind of adverts at the moment. One where they have some guy who used to be in a band, then used to be in eastenders years ago and seems to have failed to find any work since then as is only in the adverts in the hope that someone might still know who he is. The second store is the one who seems to delight in "double discount sales", which makes no sense because if your offering it at the sametime it's really just the one discount. They announce with pride that they have sofas that are reduced from £1100 to £690. Which makes me wonder just how much profit they can still be making on the darn things to be able to reduce the price by £400. Grumpy did mention that we have just finished paying for our suite. Which has made me nervous around them as I'm sure my old friend irony is lurking just around the corner and you know how he likes to mess with me.

The advert for that well known english choclate company with the drumming Gorilla has finally disappeared from our screens. It apparently increased sales to some ridiculous extent somewhere between 100 - 200% apparently. I bet the marketing exectutive who came up with that idea is feeling pleased with himself. Can you imagine how crazy that pitch sounded " Well to advertise our choclate we'll have a gorilla drumming along to phil colins and not show the choclate at all. what do you think?" I think most peoples response to a pitch like that would have been to call security. It did make me wonder though if it can do that for choclate could it do that for my companys books?We just have a Gorilla there reading a book. Think it will work? Well probably not as it a well known toilet cleaning manufacturer have also started using a Gorilla in their adverts as well. Quite why the man in the advert is more worried about the smell from a toilet and not about the talking Gorilla with a newspaper under one arm which has just wished him good morning while walking out of the toilet, and the men in lab coats and gas masks that appear from behind a hidden wall in the bathroom when he presses a button is beyond me.

Talking about the smells in toilets has reminded me of another advert I am finding fantastically annoying right now. It's obivousily a advert orginally used in another country as it is extremely badly dubbed. It starts with a little boy in a bathroom sitting on a toilet (not as dodgy as that sounds) who gets worried that it's 'all gone', no not the toilet paper as most people would be concerned about but rather the air freshner is empty/doesn't have a cartridge in. His mother comes to the closed door of the bathroom to call out to him and ask whats wrong. Cue little bit of papaer shoved under the door with a picture of the air freshner and 'Empty' in big letters with a arrow pointing to the drawing. Mother comes into the toilet with boy still on seat, puts in new cartridge and all is right with with world. A few questions spring to mind.
1) why is the little boy concerned with a missing air freshner?
2) why is the mother so concerned with a missing air freshner?
3) where does the little boy get a pen and pad to make the drawing with while in the bathroom?
4) how is the little boy able to make the drawing, slide it under the door and get back onto the toilet ready for when his mum comes back with a fresh cartridge?
5) why is the mother not concerned that her son seems to be spending a incredible amount of time on the toilet?
6) where did the pad and pen go?
anyway,
later!

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