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

Any advert that contains the threatening by-line "Homeowner Loans", always said in a jaunty, up-beat manner. This should be followed by "Default and you're on your arse in the street with the kids"

I gave up smoking 7 years ago using the patches, the first ones (tarpaullin sized things)definately reduced the craving urge. (I was smoking 60 a day)By the time i was down to stage 3 (postage stamp size)they'd often fall off during the day and i'd not even realise. So some of it's medical, some placebo.......and a bit of will power.

I've just seen an advert for a Phillips "open-top" MRI scanner. It's the latest in MRI scanning technology, you don't get that all-closed-in feeling you get with traditional scanners. They look brilliant. I'm off down the shops to buy one now.

RF

I think I'll have two... one for weekdays and one for Sunday best.

Anyone seen that Lea & Perrins sauce advert which takes the p!ss out of those shampoo adverts with the dubious science?

Car ads that show dangerous cars.

Buy an Audi, turn the ignition key and it instantly explodes into its component molecules, floats through space, then regenerates itself on the roof of another building across town. Okay, it beats getting stuck in traffic jams, but what state was the poor bugger inside the car?

Alternatively, buy a Citroen. Put some funky dance music on, and hey presto, you're mashed up as your car starts break-dancing!

I seem to recall it was BMW who had a car that melts, and dribbles down the stairs...?

Urgh! Those advertisements for pre-wash stain removal; where they launch foodstuffs at an 'unsuspecting' traveller in an airport (or shopper in a mall) and then 'magically' remove the stain right before their eyes using their product...of *course* a stain will wash away easily straight after it has been applied. Try removing a nosebleed stain from a white shirt after six months THEN I might be impressed

Yes, it was BMW, with the 5-series (sorry, I'm a car ).

Regarding the dancing Citroen ads, I saw a Citroen C5 that was dancing in Tesco's car park at the weekend. Seriously. It was parked up, and bouncing up and down at the front like it was doing press-ups . So, for once, the ad is true - it really *was* alive with technology. Whether or not the technology was functioning properly or not is another matter...

On the ones about pre-wash, the Vanish ad with the family coming back from their holidays really annoys me pretty much for the same reasons you've given.

Has anyone mentioned the latest Focus ads, with the penguins - what on Earth is that one supposed to mean? What do penguins have to do with getting us to buy Fords? OK, it's meant to be about winter holidays (and payment holidays in the ad's case), but why penguins? Who has a winter holiday involving penguins?!?!? And why are there zebra crossings there??

Sorry, I just don't get that ad full stop.

The chap in the penguin suit in the latest Focus ad, is the salesman who took the girl for a test drive (psycodelic sexual encounter) in the 'Summer of love' ad. I guess they were struggling to find a way of getting him into the winter ad, and someone said 'Penguins'
And the reason there is a zebra crossing is simple.........so the penguins don't get run over.

Have you seen those new Bacardi ads? What the..... Seems to me the first one implies if you drink Bacardi you get St. Vitas dance, and the second one.......well, that's anybody's guess.

Talking of penguins and stupidity, what about the new Tango ad?

I haven't seen the new Tango ad, but I must admit I don't watch much telly these days. Or are you talking about the one for Tango Clear, with the woman in the office and the penguin slapping her leg with a fish?

I've only seen the Bacardi ads once, and they made no sense to me whatsoever .

I thought the man and woman in the Focus ad looked familiar . They could have created something similar to the Gold Blend ads there if they'd thought about it a bit more. Or at least made it amusing and Pythonesque with the penguins.

>>The one for Tango Clear, with the women in the office and the penguin slapping her leg with a fish? (Rains)

Yup, that's the one


I haven't seen the Bicardi or Ford ads, so I couldn't comment --- I'm not getting to see much telly either these days. Seems a tragedy, when I read what I've been missing...

I thought that Tango Clear ad was pretty good. A spoof on those other adds where someone takes a sip of something and falls into an ocean or lands on a tropical island.

My new "favourite" is the Sunsilk shampoo commercial - the one with the hair monster licking the woman's hair making it greasy and sticky. And then comes Sunsilk killing off all the monsters - you can see them going down the drain...
Those dirt monsters are very common theme, don't you think? I still remember the Toilet duck monsters, hanging on the inside of the toilet rim...
Lack of imagination or...?

Some time over the weekend I saw an advertisement that made so little sense that I can't remember what it was about and I can't remember what the product was. Whoever came up with that particular ad wants shooting. The whole point of an ad is that people remember the product. Definitely 'advertising stupidity'.

The annoying thing is that as I often think adverts are better than normal TV (the Barclays "supercomputer" ad currently running is superb) - I want to know what that advert is now! Any ideas what went on, Dragon?

Not a clue. The ad made so little sense that my brain has erased all memory of it, except for the knowledge that it made no sense.

Probably a car advert then. Speaking of which, that one running at the moment (can't remember what type of car it is) where a load of wierd looking blokes in a pub are saying about how they "saw it this morning at 8" and then another weird-looking bloke emerges from the shadows and says "there's more than one out there"... It's a car advert not the f**king X-Files!

I guess the marketing men think that gives their car an aura of mystery or menace or something . I just think it gives the impression that the people there are so daft they don't know what a car is!

A friend of ours who actually works in marketing said to us once that if you don't get the ad the products aren't aimed at you... don't know how true that is. But we're all engineers so we take the mickey out of him for being in marketing, anyway .

>>If you don't get the ad the products aren't aimed at you...

So what if you get the ad but think its stupid --- still not aimed at you, or failure on the part of the marketing peeps?


I cannot recall *ever* watching an advert and thinking 'oh yeah, gotta get me one of those!' or even being mildly encouraged to purchase the object in question – can anyone else?

I've never seen an advert and thought, "I need one now!", or gone and bought a product because of the advertising. In fact, I purposely avoid buying some products because the adverts irritate me intensely (Cillit Bang, for example - it's a crap ad!)

If you get the ad but think it's daft, I think the marketing people would still say it was aimed at you because you understood it. From what I can tell of marketing people, they expect us to think that all adverts are daft, irrespective of whether we get them or not.

The Lindt chocolate adverts that show people stirring and doing stuff with melted always make me want some I don't really care whether it is Lindt though, and in fact I usually have a cup of low-fat hot choc to get over it...