My favourite ad at the moment is for Sony Bravia tellys - the one where explosions of colour splash over a Glasgow tower block. Sometimes, when a big client gives an ad agency a big budget, they spunk it away on shitty concepts, but this is a rare example of a big budget being used for a good concept which has been well-executed. Their previous ad was equally as good - the one where loads of coloured balls bounced down Russian Hill to a twangy Jose Gonzales soundtrack (incidentally, for all those people with kids, this can be convincingly recreated by dropping multi-coloured balls from a ball pit down a staircase. This was discovered by accident while moving house recently.)
Another ad I like features uber-cockney Ray Winstone extolling the virtues of some forgettable cereal or other, for no other reason than the fact it's got Ray Winstone in it. Just when you think the man can't be any more stereotyped, he goes and usurps himself. Another legend is Barry Scott on the Cillit Bang ads. Just imagaine the jaunty jangling of all that loose change (squeaky-clean after dipping it in that pink stuff) in his pocket when he walks; you could probably hear him coming a mile off.
At the other end of the scale is an ad for some car or other which features shitty little actors pretending to be adults (with the adults pretending to be kids) in a less-than-hilarious exchange of parent/offspring roles. This is lazy agency work and comes from the school of concepts that assumes all kids and animals are cute and can be used for the promotion of any product. This approach is responsible for producing Kandoo toddlers or anthropomorphic creatures like Andrex puppies and is just lazy. Kids and animals can be used to good effect, but the inclusion of one (or, god forbid, both) in an ad doesn't guarantee its quality. Additionally, in this case, it doesn't help that the kids are odious little creatures with about as much talent for acting as I have for making souffles. The ad's so bad, I can't even remember what car they're advertising, which is a shame because now I can't go out of my way not to buy one. Maybe that's their master plan.
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2 comments:
This is very strange, Steve. My dear wife's two loathed ads are the one for Sony Bravia tellies (I reckon THAT'S the plural) and the one featuring Ray Winstone.
The former she hates due to the ad. agency spunking money up the wall. And the latter she hates because why should she listen to a fat biffer in regard to what she eats.
Oh, and for the record, she hates the one with those kids, cos she can't understand a word that they say, due to them being northerners and all.
That is all.
Dan.
Hmm, I dunno... "Tellies" just looks a bit odd and too much like "Jellies", I much prefer the aesthetics of words like "monkeys" and seeing as there's no precedent for pluralising it yet, I'm bagging that one.
Yeah, point taken - Ray is a bit portly, though he gets away with it due to his menacing cockney tones. "Well don't look at me, I'm not going to tell you what to do." He might as well say "I couldn't give a mankeys, I'll slit ya froat as soon as look at ya. You slag."
Speaking of accents, those kids were undoubtedly chosen due to their accents as ad people always choose regional people when they want them to appear earthy and "normal". "Aww, they're tired." the fat one says in a monotone like an emotionless Vulcan. Crap.
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