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

My brother has banned his step-son for singing the yop version of that song. I quite agree with him!

Sadly for me, the 'Quote me happy' adverts make me want to vomit, but when they were advertising half price contents insurance when buying building insurance too, that crappy catchphrase was what I googled to find it online. I couldn't remember the name of the company. And yes, I did buy from there.

I actually want to phone up NU Insurance and say "Yeah, I'm like 17, yeah? An' my dad won da lottery, yeah? An' 'e got me a Ferrari, yeah? An' I live in London, yeah? Quote me happy, innit?"

Those "scientific" surveys - I'm sure I've seen one with a totally stupid number of people surveyed - 53 seems to be sticking in my mind.

Political polls regularly use around 1,000 respondents, and these are properly weighted to reflect the distribution of the population.

Internet surveys are interesting - as indeed are "normal" polls and the like, because the people who respond to them are self-selecting...so even if you get a proper distribution of age, gender, etc. you're still only surveying *people who use the internet*. Not sure how you get round that one.

RF

Post it on the internet, but only accept entries on parchment?

Possibly just my cynical mind, but of the 53 women asked about the new haircare product, how many work for the relevant company?

-"No, I didn't think it was any good"

"Ahh, Miss Johnson, remind us, when is your contract due for renewal?"

-"Err, next month. Good shampoo this, lovely results!"

That ****** Fiesta ad that seems to be on 24/7 is really getting up my nose. Usual scenario, woman jilts man at the alter because she prefers (and I quote) "the new voice-controlled, brighter-coloured, MP3-ready Fiesta".

So, performance, safety, fuel economy, size, number of seats/doors go out the window - it appears that your typical woman driver is swayed by bright colours and would rather have a socket on the radio to plug in your MP3 player than the more normal but better quality CD player. Is that not the most sexist thing imaginable?

those infamous 'it's a hatchback now quote me happy ads' are totally unreal on pretty much every level, and based on my experience with call centres today should *really* have a bloke on the phone endlessly repeating his name, date of birth and mothers maiden name over and over again to a trudging downward succession of earpieced plebs in order 'to clear you through security' before they'll even think about talking to you, let alone actually quoting you anything happy or not.

Strange. I thought the point of the Fiesta ad was that the car was rescuing her from a loveless marriage where he was clearly already shagging her sister. Your car is an escape route to a better life etc etc.

(And if you seriously believe that a cd player will give you better sound quality than MP3 in a *Ford Fiesta*, then I have a bridge I want to sell you...)

Really, it's not the worst advert on the market. The Renault Scenic, which seems to imply that the vehicle is both difficult to control and noisy is not only irritating but dumb as well. And the new Peugeot ad 'Return of the Man' seems to revert to selling cars as penis extensions, which I thought everybody except Jeremy Clarkson had abandoned years ago.

I hate the ad which adds a jet engine sound effect to a car. What is the point of having fast cars unless you live in Germany?

Not really an ad, but I was very disappointed at John Humphrys on Junior Mastermind last night giving out the final scores:



" And in joint 4th place we have X and Y on 26, in second place is Z on 27, and - it can't get closer than this! - in first place with 29 points is Fred!"

Sorry John but it CAN get closer than that - if Fred had won with 28 points say. Or if they'd had the same number of points and it had to go to counting their passed questions.

Crap car ads?

What about "the Nissan Almera - the car THEY don't want you to drive" (cue shots of Almeras being pushed over cliffs, buried, and otherwise removed from circulation)

Okay, we won't.

Also, I appreciate that this isn't the advertisers fault, but several years ago, Vauxhall ran a campaign to show how safe and tough their Cavalier was. To the tune of Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" we witnessed several Cavaliers being crash tested, spun, rolled, and smashed, all showing how tough and resiliant the car was.

All fine so far.

However, at the same time, the government was running a road safety campaign, warning us not to drink and drive. To the tune of Mungo Jerry "In the summertime" a bunch of lads had a few beers in a country pub, then climbed into their car. They were seen driving off down a road as the song reached the line "..have a drink, have a drive..." - cut to next shot of car, wrapped round a tree, totally written off, with the dead bodies of the youths hanging out of the smashed windows - of their Vauxhall Cavalier!

'All fine so far.' A Peter Gabriel tune in an advert?! I just had my illusions shattered...

Ok, just saw one that really s me off.

Its kitchen roll, with the 'use, use, rinse, rinse, use' jingly thing! If you wanna do that then you get a j-cloth!!!!!!!!! I actually use that brand on occasion and you can't use, use, rinse rinse use coz guess what, its paper!! It gets soggy!!! Then it falls apart!!!!

AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH Stupid advert

If an advert promises something the product can't deliver, complain to Advertising Standards. Most people don't bother, or only complain when an ad is offensive in some way. I remember there used to be little 'ads' for the ASC (I think) in magazines, saying advertisements had to be 'legal, decent, honest and truthful'. Sounds like the ad your talking about falls foul of the last two.

I'm with you there Black-Eyed Girl... I've never actually used the brand in question so cannot judge it's effectiveness in the situations presented but whenever I see that ad I think "what kind of moron tries to clean a cooker top with a damp bit of paper?"

Exactly Mr. D, you can't clean a cooker top with paper... Well, the one in the ad you can, coz its clearly a brand new appliance, but I'd like to see them using a 'real' cooker in the ad after some clumsy person had done a full fry up and got fat and oil on the hob. Give that a while to settle, then try using your papery product to wipe off the grime!!

Yeah, I've bought that brand of paper towel, granted, it holds together a bit better than most, but you can't scrub with it...

There's one on the radio at the moment, which is extolling the virtues of T*****i Broadband, and the "unlimitedness" of the service. At the end of the advert, they say "fair usage policy applies".

Which would be...er...some kind of, oh what's the word?

LIMIT!

RF

...and here's a link to another thread!

F19585?thread=365595&post=25462809

RF

The other one's the older one but this one's MINE! And I managed to get Boswelox in to the opening post!

Whatever happened to Boswelox?