h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I saw that scientology ad again, and I think I know why it was there.
It was on MTV, they're after our children!

Is there any way of putting in a formal complaint against such an institution?

they may have a suggestion box, but you'd probably have to devote yourself to the church for any exorbitant number of years and climb through the ranks using every financial resource available to you and anyone else you can sucker into it.

Sorry, I phrased that completely wrong. What I meant was, can you complain to MTV that they are showing such dross?

Probably not, the Church of Scientology paid for the commercial so its unlikely that MTV will do much about it if someone complains.

One set of ads that has me hitting the mute button whenever one comes on: the current 'Go Compare' ads with the 'opera singer'. The ads with the man stepping into and out of a computer monitor I could live with. The latest ones are total rubbish and do nothing to encourage me to use the website.

I'm with you on those - there's a series of them - hateful!

yepp, they're not a patch on Aleksander Orlov!

Ho yus!

Ah the current one for Cadburys Celebrations using "Everybody Needs Somebody" from The Blues Brothers movie.

The only trouble is all the people in the advert are doing the dance moves from "Shake A Tail Feather" which is a completely different song and section of the movie.

Did they not think a fan would notice this HUGE mistake?

"Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without M&S"

- no, it would be Chrita!

I was just trying to find some shower gel stuff for a friend, and I found a perfume company called Cheap Smells. That sounds like a terrible name to me. Not even Cheap Scents, but Cheap Smells. I wonder if there´s a skincare company called Crap To Put On Your Face.

Isn't advertising great, not only do they not get the music right as The Invisible Knight points out, but they fail to get their product to register in peoples mind.
"Cadburys Celebrations"? Try Mars Celebrations or Cadburys Heroes.
(Sorry to be pedantic).

May I interject with a moment of advertising that impressed me ... and it was from BT !!!!

They have commercials on my local staton where the person is trying to make a mobile phone call and there's lots of noise and dropout. So they go home and use their landline and have a nice, quiet conversation and tell their loved relative some really nice information.

I was just amazed at how simple and sensible and lacking in gimmick the ad was.

Oh yes ... I also heard a radio ad with John Craven (he of Newsround fame) at about 4:30pm one evening ... it was to warn that deer can just run out of the woods in front of your car ... so drive carefully. I'm not entirely sure how many deer he expected me to find in the Tesco carpark that evening ...

Ah, the old "advert in inappropriate slot" thing...

I recently saw an advert which was encouraging investors, companies etc. to invest in Macedonia. You often see these adverts on Bloomberg TV, CNN business, MSNBC Business channels etc.

This one was during Countdown.

RF

It's like those DHL ads you used to get in the evening slot during something like Morse. Used to make me wonder if they knew who their target audience was (this was before they started delivering the mail)

Not quite the same, but years ago there used to be an advert for the "new" Vauxhall Cavalier. It was set to the music "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel, and showed several Cavaliers being crash tested, to show how safe it was.
On more than one occasion it was run just before an advert warning against drink-driving. Mungo Jerry's "In The Summertime" played as people sat laughing and drinking in a pub, and then getting into their car. To the words "Have a drink, have a drive..." we saw the car wrapped around a tree, smashed to bits, with dead bodies hanging out of the windows. The car? A Vauxhall Cavalier.

Garmin*, manufacturer of satnavs, is currently flooding the radio airwaves with its annoying jingle. At the end of the advert, it exhorts us to visit their website, which has "gifts for all the family".

In the spirit of scientific enquiry, I went to their website to verify this claim. My findings:

There is nothing for toddlers. Indeed, the whole child and pre-teen market is sadly uncatered-for. It's possible that some of their products (running watches, specifically) may be suitable for teenagers...but frankly, the possession of a driving licence is going to be a necessary condition for nearly all their products. They do also make some golfing products which may be useful for the senior citizen, and outdoor-hiking type satnav systems. Now, whilst not wishing to deny that some females partake of these activities, it is instructive that all the icons that lead to these products (The Driver, The Fitness Fanatic, The Golfer, The Adventurer) are representations of males.

Maybe I should complain to the ASA?

RF

* Other satnav manufacturers are available. And probably don't make quite so many outlandish claims in their advertising.

That reminds me of a Loriot sketch...

I recently saw a poster advertising a new prepaid mobile phone service - supplied by a car parts dealer. It was bad enough when all the supermarkets had to have their own!