Adverts are the bane of a TV lover’s life. Unless adverts are what they love about TV. You really would have thought brands had picked up on the fact that they need good/not annoying adverts by now – this lot proves that hope false.

Glade Air Freshener

People do not like poo. It smells like shite, for starters. So it is not a good thing to include in an advert, even if it is for a product that masks bad smells. People know that the toilet is the place where poo goes. Mentioning the toilet will do. Mention the toilet and we will hide our grins behind our outstretched fingers and whisper ‘Tee hee’ to no-one in particular. Because that’s where poo goes.

People do not like annoying kids. Annoying kids include those who don’t go along with perfectly reasonable requests, and all other children. The makers of this advert appear to not remember what being a child was like.

The Mum should be saying something like: ‘You want to poo at Paul’s? You know that Paul watches you poo don’t you? Through a little hole in the wall? And he’s re-routed his piping so he can collect all your poo? And he’s building a life size statue out of you. Using your own poo. Now, do you still want to go to Paul’s?’

‘Yes.’

‘PAUL IS THIRTY FIVE.’

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Special K Bar

A lady sees a muffin in a shop window, as you do. It is double chocolate chip, and therefore highly desirable. She wishes to eat it. Nom nom nom. But she is concerned. The muffin from Ye Olde Muff Shoppe might be fattening. And make no mistake, this lady is fat.

She’s a huge, rotund mass. She looks like a hippo that swallowed a bouncy castle. She’s skipped chocolate fingers and moved onto chocolate arms. She. Loves. The. Cake.

Eating this muffin, and I do not exaggerate here, would cause her to weigh so much that next year will last 368 days as we drift away from the sun. This muffin would make Edinburgh resemble Siberia. This muffin is the destroyer of all things, the death-bringer, the End of Days.

Or, on the other hand, maybe the skinny bint should eat the muffin?

Look at it. It wants to be eaten. It’s sad that you choose the new Special K ‘Mainly Oxygen’ bar instead, and now it’s all alone. And how are you? You’re thin and sexy are you? Good. That’ll be some compensation when your boyfriend’s penis emerges from your spine BECAUSE THERE’S NOWHERE ELSE FOR IT TO GO.

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Gotomypc.com

Then there’s the gotomyPC.com advert, which is a potentially useful service that has the misfortune to be advertised as if only complete idiots ever use it. The ad consists of a man, about to do a presentation, who has forgotten his computer. His desktop computer. The only kind of computer in the world.  Not a portable computer, no. A desktop computer. If only some kind of portable computer could be invented, then this man would be able to bring his computer with him without as much hassle.

So, in an attempt to sell their product, gotomypc.com have presented an idiot who has left AN ENTIRE DESKTOP COMPUTER at his office on the day of a big presentation who apparently has never heard of laptops, e-mail, back-up files, USB memory sticks or cards, not-forgetting-the-desktop, writing it down, flip charts, CDs, floppy discs, mobile phones and NOT BEING A TWAT.

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Life Insurance

It isn’t just this advert, it’s others like it. You know the kind: someone who used to be on TV (and is old) reflects on their glories. You may have some yourself, they seem to say, knowing that this is an utter lie. In this case the worrying thing is the way Cilla Black’s mouth appears have been excavated from the rest of her face, leaving most of the crust on the surface unmoving while the mouth and jaw, presumably unearthed after an episode of Time Team, are moving freely several strata below.

More generally, these adverts are effectively a polite way of going up to someone’s Gran and yelling ‘You’re going to die soon, old woman, but we’ll give you a free alarm clock is you pay us to comfort your wheezing, saturated uncommunicative offsping! Alright? ALRIGHT? *pinch cheeks, slap face* DIE HAPPY NOW NANA! DIE HAPPY!’

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Knock-Off Nigel

Anti-Piracy ads are rarely helpful. If anything, this one actually encouraged people to download things illegally just to spite the people who made it.

Nigel is portrayed as a penny-pinching twat, yet our sympathy is instantly with him. Possibly he decided not to hang out with his work colleagues, who all dress like extras from a bad Hammer Horror film and are led by a man so garish he would be considered extreme at a regional final of the UK Noncey Geography Teacher competition. He looks like he insists on anally penetrating all his conquests, all the while talking about how smooth he imagines his penis to be. In his wet dreams he has sellotaped a tennis ball to his will and disguised himself as swing ball at a lesbians’ naturist camp, except they’ve run out of rackets so have to use their faces instead and then he converts them, because he’s just that manly.

Whereas illegal downloaders are grubby little poor people with no class or charm whatsoever.

Well done, whoever made this advert, for insulting and ostracising the majority of people. In no way have you completely missed the point of advertising.

words Andrew Blair.

This entry was tagged as glade air freshener, go compare, gotomypc, knockoff nigel, life insurance, shit adverts, special k bar.