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Plainly I should go into advertising.
Dec. 9th, 2010 10:58 amThe big advantage of not owning a TV is that a lot of popular culture passed me by. I've missed out on Big Brother, The X Factor, the Queen Vic blowing up in Eastenders and so much more and do you know what? I dont' feel that my life is any the smaller for it.
On the other hand, the downside of not owning a TV is that when I have access to one for a few days I find it has an irresistable siren lure. I slump in front of the dancing lights with a large supply of booze and nosh and spend a few days watching entranced and slowly expanding until my arse fills the armchair - which is how I just spend my weekend.
The television programming itself was fairly boring, but thatnks to freeview I had hundreds of channels with nothing on them, and by the time I'd surfed all the way around the horn and come back to where I'd started there was something else on which wasn't worth watching so as a pastime it...well, it passed the time.
Despite the telly being rubbish, the adverts were fascinating in a slow-motion-car-crash-horror sort of way. As media has expanded so the available budgets for TV advertising have declined, and boy, it shows. Possibly most irritating are the German/US adverts dubbed by British voice actors for the home market (note to advertisers: If you can't be fagged to make an advert for the British market, then I can't be fagged to buy your crap). After those there were the "We're really desperate to sell our product but have nothing unique to pitch" types. The best example I can think of was for some toilet cleaner or other (I forget which. Great advertising there, guys). The advert opens with some harried-looking housewife watching in horror whilst her pair of angelic, tousle-haired children do something stupid like drink from the toilet bowl, and then a gravelly-voiced voiceover says in a serious tone "Imagine what germs might lurk in your lavatory."
I'm sorry? Imagine what might happen? So the only sales message they could possibly think of for this product was to encourage people to pretend there might be something wrong with their bog? Some advertising creatives with names like Julian and Jocasta got paid a five figure sum for that. Even as I type steam is coming out of my ears and making noise like a train whistle.
However, my favourite current advert is one which I'm sure people have commented on before. It's this one from quickquid, who appear to be a gestalt entity formed from the merged bodies of mafia loan sharks and Gordon Brown's economic advisers. As usual, we see the harried housewife and the gravelly-voiced voiceover man (note to self - if I want a job in advertising, I need to start smoking more) saying in a serious tone "Bills piling up? Can't make it to the end of the month"? However, what he doesn't do is follow that up with sensible advice like "Stop spending so much money on crap and learn to budget, you imbeciles! Oh, and get rid of your television as well. You're obviously too stupid to own one." Instead, he goes on to suggest that you take out a short term loan at 2376% APR and then - in a masterpiece of understatement - goes on to suggest that this shouldn't be used as a long-term credit arrangement. Not unless you want to owe them your kidney in a fortnight, anyway.
Curious, I popped onto the quidquid website where they have a handy loan calculator and asked if I could borrow a pound until tomorrow. Of course, was the reply. You'll just have to repay £8 in the morning.
Now, when I was at university I was sensible with my cash and ended one year fairly flush meaning that I took that as an opportunity to loan-shark to my friends, but even I never tried to gouge that sort of return out of people. It all just makes me angry - not at the lenders (because criticising sharks for acting like sharks is pointless) but at schools which turn out people ill-educated enough to fall for this sort of crap.
So that's television advertising. If you ask me, we lost something when they banned cigarette advertising. Cigarettes are less harmful than 2376%APR, and they didn't half make better adverts.
On the other hand, the downside of not owning a TV is that when I have access to one for a few days I find it has an irresistable siren lure. I slump in front of the dancing lights with a large supply of booze and nosh and spend a few days watching entranced and slowly expanding until my arse fills the armchair - which is how I just spend my weekend.
The television programming itself was fairly boring, but thatnks to freeview I had hundreds of channels with nothing on them, and by the time I'd surfed all the way around the horn and come back to where I'd started there was something else on which wasn't worth watching so as a pastime it...well, it passed the time.
Despite the telly being rubbish, the adverts were fascinating in a slow-motion-car-crash-horror sort of way. As media has expanded so the available budgets for TV advertising have declined, and boy, it shows. Possibly most irritating are the German/US adverts dubbed by British voice actors for the home market (note to advertisers: If you can't be fagged to make an advert for the British market, then I can't be fagged to buy your crap). After those there were the "We're really desperate to sell our product but have nothing unique to pitch" types. The best example I can think of was for some toilet cleaner or other (I forget which. Great advertising there, guys). The advert opens with some harried-looking housewife watching in horror whilst her pair of angelic, tousle-haired children do something stupid like drink from the toilet bowl, and then a gravelly-voiced voiceover says in a serious tone "Imagine what germs might lurk in your lavatory."
I'm sorry? Imagine what might happen? So the only sales message they could possibly think of for this product was to encourage people to pretend there might be something wrong with their bog? Some advertising creatives with names like Julian and Jocasta got paid a five figure sum for that. Even as I type steam is coming out of my ears and making noise like a train whistle.
However, my favourite current advert is one which I'm sure people have commented on before. It's this one from quickquid, who appear to be a gestalt entity formed from the merged bodies of mafia loan sharks and Gordon Brown's economic advisers. As usual, we see the harried housewife and the gravelly-voiced voiceover man (note to self - if I want a job in advertising, I need to start smoking more) saying in a serious tone "Bills piling up? Can't make it to the end of the month"? However, what he doesn't do is follow that up with sensible advice like "Stop spending so much money on crap and learn to budget, you imbeciles! Oh, and get rid of your television as well. You're obviously too stupid to own one." Instead, he goes on to suggest that you take out a short term loan at 2376% APR and then - in a masterpiece of understatement - goes on to suggest that this shouldn't be used as a long-term credit arrangement. Not unless you want to owe them your kidney in a fortnight, anyway.
Curious, I popped onto the quidquid website where they have a handy loan calculator and asked if I could borrow a pound until tomorrow. Of course, was the reply. You'll just have to repay £8 in the morning.
Now, when I was at university I was sensible with my cash and ended one year fairly flush meaning that I took that as an opportunity to loan-shark to my friends, but even I never tried to gouge that sort of return out of people. It all just makes me angry - not at the lenders (because criticising sharks for acting like sharks is pointless) but at schools which turn out people ill-educated enough to fall for this sort of crap.
So that's television advertising. If you ask me, we lost something when they banned cigarette advertising. Cigarettes are less harmful than 2376%APR, and they didn't half make better adverts.
