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

There was an ad around a couple of years back with a lady bouncer. I can't remember what it was for but one of the things she said was:

"I'm not the sort of person who likes waiting for things".

what???!!!

Are there people around who say "oh look! there's a queue over there, let's go and join it".

wasn't it for noodles or something?

I hated the one for some bank that started "I work as in the marketing department in a large financial institution - so I *know* what I'm looking for in a bank"

Bank adverts in general.

Especially the one with Samuel L Jackson in it - if you're with that bank, now you know where your overdraft charges are going.

Hmmm, I hadn't thought of that. Still I quite like the Samuel L Jackson ads.

There was a commercial I saw shortly after Sept 11 that about made me want to throw my tv out the window - the tag line was "In defence of life, liberty, and the ability to kick butt."

The US Navy.

All those shampoo and cosmetic adverts where 'scientific tests prove' that some improbable sounding chemical with a made up name that's probably been lifted from an early episode of Star Trek along with something that you really ought to eat rather than wear will make your skin 73% more luminous.

I want to see the tests that prove that washing my hair in fluoro-chloro-bromo-ferro-hydro-alco-dilithium crystal tachion particle acids in a solution of chicken bloody tikka masala will make my hair less prone to split ends. Here comes the science - my a*se!

The Laughing Cow adverts. Especially the (c)rapping sheep. Very street.
And her friend, the chop sockey Rooster.

I saw another one that had me changing channels. It's the Fiat Punto ad that uses The Human League's "Don't You Want Me, Baby?" I didn't like it much when I saw it the first time. Now it's been shown so often that I switch channels, or fast forward if it's during something I've taped.

I still can't think of that other one that makes me switch over. I don't like the Nissan Micra ad, though.

What, the Micra ad with the blue lips?

Modro. Spafe. Pretenshit.

Hed

Re: Posting 8 - Gosharoo kid, ever seen Starship Troopers?

I haven't - is that ad a ripoff of something in the movie?

And re Amy's post about the US Navy - for the past year or so they've been showing one with the tagline 'Life, liberty, and the pursuit of all who threaten it', which is a phrase I Googled, and found that it's a quote by Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Vern Clark at a ceremony honouring the Navy victims of the Pentagon attack http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=3521

And to get back on topic, one type of ad which really makes me go are the ones which show ordinary people struggling with the most simple task just to advertise a product which makes the task easier.

Like the flurry of ads on tv a few months ago for different versions of a saucepan with holes in the lid so that you can easily strain pasta, or anything you boil and have to strain, which showed examples of people who can't manage the simple task of using a colander. Or the ads for yet another bloody hair removal product which show people using other hair removal products (even ordinary disposable razors) and cutting themselves, breaking stuff, grimacing in agony, in fact, behaving like a bunch of cack-handed accident prone four-year-olds

"I haven't - is that ad a ripoff of something in the movie?"
That probably deserves a mini thread in its own actually.
Very basic answer, yes.
Not so basic answer, watch the movie and then decide, it is qwuite subjective I think.
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Its got to be the ad for E-sure insurance with Michael Winner and that stuuuupid woman, (who we're all supposed to think that shes butted in on the shoot and says 'hello mum'). Its also broadcast on the radio too. Michael Winner's voice makes me wanna gip!

Wasn't she in the Liver Birds?

I have no idea. I'll have a closer look next time its on.

The Gap, Old Navy, ect. ads that insist on conformity to whatever garbage they got a containerload of this week. I particularly dislike the implication that I really need to look like a malnourished Heroin addict.

MattP

The ad that has me switching channels is that on with the butch tooth fairies trying to persuade us that mouthwash is going to compensate for poor diet and lack of toothbrushing/flossing!

Teuchter - banging her drum again.

Just about b****y all of them!

Most TV advertisising is either aimed at an IQ arounf that of the average 3 toed-sloth of tells you abosolutely noting about the product or both.

Also much of it borders on Huxley's subliminal advetising (Brave New Word Revisited -I think!)

Fundamentally dishonest!

Any adverts that involve members of the public ... Janine from the Bromley branch of B & Q ...

Ocean Finance in a word ...

Orange's current series about 'the hard-nosed businessman' make me cringe. They also make me wonder what on earth was going through the minds of the execs who OK-ed the ad. I mean the basic plot line for the ad is that a businessman can run around being a general b*****d with his lovely mobile from Orange.

Now to my mind that says, b*****d bosses use Orange mobile phones, so I'll go buy an O2 one instead...