FADVERTISEMENT

A New Home!

2010-02-28T16:29:00.000-08:00

Hello, all.

If you're looking for Fadvertisement then you can now find it at its cosy new home here!

http://fadvertising.wordpress.com

See you on the other side!

Blackberry - Do What You Love

2010-02-14T13:52:00.000-08:00

Thank you to Holly Smith for the submission ('cause yes, we do take them).

Oh, Blackberry. You are the masters of inserting a complicated plot line into your adverts. Here we see our hero or "The Fonz" as I'm going to be calling him (despite him looking more like a rejected extra from Grease), turning up in one of those trendy places that trendy people with Blackberry phones congregate. I'm going to call them Twat Palaces. So here we have The Fonz turning up to a Twat Palace but credit to the advertisers here. They manage to establish that he's late without actually showing him running or looking at his watch or anything like that.

That would detract from how trendy he is.

Amazingly, it turns out that he's there to meet the Zooey Deschanel lookalike who was sitting in the window checking, yes, you guessed it; her Blackberry. She's not pleased though. Surely someone living in the 21st Century would have phoned ahead! Surely he would have emailed?! Or Tweeted?! Or even just a humble text message to say that his hair was taking a bit longer than expected and he'd be along ASAP.

It all gets a bit heated (in a four second sequence- beautiful storytelling) and she storms out of the Twat Palace in a cream puff. Suddenly her Blackberry goes and The Fonz has been in touch. He's a damn quick typer! Suddenly her heart is lifted as a piss-weak cover of The Beatles' 'All You Need Is Love' brings it home for the smug patrol.

I wonder what he said. I assume it must have been something short but sweet and I thought I'd have a bash at what he said.

"Bought you drink, lolz."
"I want to be on you."
"Come back, bitch." (For all you twats out there)
"Don't go. Our bluetooth is locked in."
"Guy with iPhone. LOL!"
"UR jacket is tucked into knickers, LOLZ!" (I'm sorry for assuming that this guy uses LOL a lot)
"I'm wearing ur pants."
"I'm the best, look at my phone."
"UR the one that I want"
"Eyyyyyyyyy! *thumbs up*"

These aren't the best, I'm quite sure and I'd urge you to have a go at what romantic little ditty you think got The Fonz laid that night. Why not leave it in a comment? That would be nice. We could have a Mockery Party.

Why not let this fantastic parody by The Hales Group inspire you:

Super Bowl Special

2010-02-14T11:42:00.000-08:00

Yes, ladies & gentlemen I know the Super Bowl was last week but it takes a while for this nonsense to get its way over the Atlantic and then to disseminate to snarky bloggers like myself but it's finally here. The Fadvertisement guide to the Super Bowl.

First of all there's something you've got to understand if you've never seen the Super Bowl. It's all about the ad space. No-one cares about the game. Imagine taking the FA Cup Final and then having an ad break every 10 minutes and most of the action stops at that point. It gives the players a chance to wife-swap, or whatever it is that footballers do nowadays.

I'd like to thank Mr. Daniel Vergara for keeping me abreast of these ads. If it wasn't for him, you wouldn't be getting to read this. So I guess you can blame him.

TACO BELL - "It Rocks, It Rocks"

This is definitely one of my favourite Super Bowl adverts. As you can undoubtedly see for yourself the ad is an attempt to glitz and glorify a bargain box of what I can only imagine is food to eat yourself into oblvion with.

I do absolutely love the choice of former basketball player "Sir" Charles Barkley (UK readers may, or may not, remember him from Space Jam) as a spokesperson for this NBA-branded product. I'm not sure if it's the fact that he looks more uncomfortable in a suit than Nick Griffin or the image that I have of the 'NBA Five Buck Box' being surgically grafted to his hand by some over-enthusiastic production assistant which makes me enjoy the advert so much but then again, it could be the Keates-worthy poem which he recites as he takes a walk down the magical 'Parquet Road'.

Oh, I should interject into my own rant here and say that this product looks fucking disgusting.

Anyway, in typical Fadvertisement style, lets run down the chain of events. For a start we see Charles' massive face fill the screen before he starts on a mixture of poetry and... uhh... song. I wanted to say rapping but I'm pretty sure that would be an insult to even the very worst rapper on Earth. I'm itching to type out the whole 'poem' and tell you that my 3 year old cousin could do better but a) I can't be bothered & b) I'm not 100% sure she could.

I imagine the stage direction for this next part was 'nonchalant stroll' but our man Charles manages to carry it off like a constipated Velociraptor wearing its mother's nightgown. This is quite apart from the fact that he's just jumped into a locker only to emerge on the other side in some sort of West-Side Story version of Narnia.

I personally enjoy the convenient placement of a 'guy with dreadlocks' just as the poem calls for it. Thank god for that. Then there's a heartwarming appearence from the former members of the Pussycat Dolls who were culled just before the release of the first album and then onwards! To infinity! But no, not to infinity. To some sort of strange world where 'reporters' still use giant '50s style cameras and old men pontificate about tacos in exhange for cash.

Then one of the Lakers shows up. I'm pretty sure that's why it rocks but to be honest, I got lost in his eyes and missed the last few seconds.

BUD LIGHT - "T-Pain's Voicebox"

This one gets my goat for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's a blatant attempt by Budweiser to come up with something as memorable as both "Whassssssup!" and the "Budweiser Frogs" by using a celebrity with a broken Autotune program to endorse their product.

A couple of observations, I'm not going to go through the whole charade of pretending I care enough about this to make a full run-through of it. This character at the beginning decides that when his girlfriend brings home a giant six-pack of Bud Light it is his solemn duty to get the party started. Something in his eyes makes it look as if he was tasked by God himself to turn six bottles of Bud Light into a party. So he rings up his friends.

Important Fadvertisement Top Tip: Four guys drinking six Buds does not a party make.

His friends are right up for a party but presumably that's because they all appear to be living fairly mundane lives and think "Wow, that's one each with two left over!" The party begins with the six Bud Lights. No more beers appear to have been bought. Oh, what a night!

I'm not even going to mention those stupid voicebox things. It hardly seems worth it.

BUD LIGHT - "Light House"

Yes, Bud Light get in again for our last slap at Super Bowl advertising because this guy, this crazy character has made a house out of cans of Bud Light! What a card he is! What I truly don't understand is why, in an age where the world is so concerned about climate change, a company would just mock the whole thing. Oh, wait. It's America. Sorry.

They're not empty! Hurrah! Let's RIP THE PLACE APART. Can you imagine the construction costs to get a working lamp made of full bottles of beer?! I wouldn't be ripping it apart but suddenly, and in a theme for Bud, there's a full-blown party. Then a competitor for America's smartest man notes that there's Bud Light in the fridge. Made of Bud Light, no less. Well of course it's going to be made of Bud Light! It's hardly going to be the only thing in the house made of bricks and mortar is it? Patronising fucks.

There are a lot more and there were some really good ads from this years Super Bowl and you can find them all here but until next year, I'm going back to taking the piss out of British adverts.

Advanced Hair Studio - Helping the Smug

2010-02-07T03:52:00.001-08:00

I'm actually in the middle of working on another post but I saw this and thought "I must have this," so here we are. Let's have a look, shall we?

Yes, crippling cricket bore Shane Warne is back and he's still loving his miracle hair growth from Advanced Hair Studio. Previous adverts for the 'service' looked like a particularly cheap 'Cash my Hair' advert. This time though, they've clearly drafted in the new Stephen Spielberg, Max Crapowski to direct this new advert and thank the heavens that they've chosen to go for class over cheap jokes and embarassingly poor stereotypes.

Oh.

So the advert opens with a shot of "Warney" winning at some cricket, which apparently he used to do quite a lot. They do this because he retired from cricket quite a while ago and doesn't have that same 'household name' appeal that he may once have had amongst people who don't like cricket.

It then cuts away (beautifully, I might add) to the ex-cricketer signing autographs for a couple of guys who don't actually look like they have any interest in cricket, Warne or the advert being made. This is to reinforce the fact that you should know who he is and how dare you if you don't, you cretin!

There is then another beautiful cutaway where you feel as if you're careening headlong into the White Cliffs of Dover before you realise that it's actually someone's teeth.

Yes, dear reader, it's our hero of the hour or "Sergeant Smug", to give him his full military rank. This cheeky chappy/master of dares decides that his mate should be asking their cricket hero about the fact that he's lost his hair. It's a sensible idea, I mean; the guy's only one of Australia's most famous cricketers, it's surprising they don't ask about his breakfast.

So off the gawky-looking lad pops to ask a man about being bald. All incredibly hilarious. Apparently. If you're not convinced by now then maybe a pun will help? Of course they will. That pun in full:

Is it true, or just great spin?

Exceptional stuff. Warney then explains that without Advanced Hair Studio he'd look either like a bright red cricket ball or a Cylon from Battlestar Galactica

Close enough?

Don't miss the real point of the whole advert though, readers. Warney says that without 'Advanced Hair Studio' countless men would have heads like an enflamed, shiny spot. Countless. When you count to zero, that's countless too isn't it?

NB: I'm aware this advert's from Australia but there is a UK version which has a different number at the end (obviously).

SURE - Natural Minerals - BE INSPIRED!

2010-01-28T13:00:00.000-08:00

OI! YOU! YOU LIKE NATURE?! OF COURSE YOU DO. EVERYONE DOES. SO WATCH THIS!

Sure Natural Minerals Advert

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, gone are the days when a lassie 'going natural' meant she'd have underarms like Shaft's head and smell like a miner's cap. This is 2010 for Christ's sake! The people want to experience nature in the way they see it on TV. Unfortunately for the gimboids who made this advert, that appears to be on I'm a "Celebrity"... Get Me Out Of Here.

Let's start at the beginning, it's usually the best place- that way you don't get lost in my rant. There's this girl, right? Got that so far? Cool. She's up a mountain. INSPIRED YET?! She's put some Sure on. You'd better believe that the spirit of adventure is now in a can or otherwise how will you ever climb that mountain? This isn't just a literal mountain, ladies. This is the glass ceiling, this is the challenges that are constantly put in your way! INSPIRED YET?!

Wait! She's in a forest now! The world's a forest, isn't it? So hard to see what's coming! So hard to see the challenges that are coming? Isn't it girls? Does it scare you? Does it make you perspire? What can mother nature do to help? Well, I don't know but Sure can stop you smelling like a Fisherman's boot. This wasn't my first thought of course, my initial fear was that our Lara Croft-esque heroine had escaped from Ant & Dec and decided to see what the real world's like.

She's beginning to panic though, methinks. Now she's standing by a waterfall. The azure torrent of water pouring down into the river below. Like the torrent of problems that women have! The glory of metaphor! Of course it's possibly a more literal fear. Perhaps she's beginning to get scared that she's going in circles and may end up back in the clutches of PJ & Duncan.

YOU WILL NEVER ESCAPE, WOMAN!

It does rapidly become like a scene from a massively suspenseful horror film. Standing in front of a rock, pondering her next wonderfully fresh and vibrant move some polystyrene rocks randomly fall on her. Luckily for her, they form a perfect rock bridge across the river. Serendipity. Surely this is the friendly hand of Sure saying "Hey, girls. Use Sure. We'll make everything alright in the end." before the marvellou s tagline:

"Nature Can Be So Inspiring."

See? I told you that you should have been inspired before now and how wrong you were to doubt me. She's over the river of uncertainty and she's escaped back to unemployment and obscurity, inspired by nature.

I could leave it there but the fact that the message changes massively right at the end of the advert really gets to me.

"Join Forces With Nature."

Yes. Now you're superheroes. Uniting to fight against your common enemy. SWEAT! Use the natural minerals (which look uncannily like Kryptonite) to battle your foe with your trusty sidekick, nature. Female empowerment through comic books. Right on, Sure!

LET IT ALL OUT : But don't say what you're really using it for...

2010-01-23T11:14:00.000-08:00

Kleenex, one of the most famous tissue brands on EARTH and probably in space too, has got a nice new set of cinema adverts where 'famous' people show exactly what they use their Kleenex for. Take a look:

As you can see that there's a mixture of sadness, anger and unrequited joy at being a bit snottery. The ad opens with actor Tom Hardy (don't worry- I had to look him up too) crying like a baby while snuggling into a dog. One can only assume he's watching someone far more well-known do something far more heart-rending that what he's supposedly done. Poor guy, I've no idea who he is and that's my fault not his. I think. Maybe he should do more things I like. Bastard. But still, he's crying at a film, grabbing his Kleenex before his dog pisses over the sofa.

The action then cuts to Bob Geldof laughing as he heartlessly mocks people who are forced to wear suits to their day job. Whether he turned up there to apply for a loan or whether times are even harder and he's actually applied for a job as some sort of super-smug loss adjuster. Anyway, he's screaming with laughter and the four boremen of the apocalypse look suitably unsettled. It's all very punk.

Then things get a bit odd. I mean, I think Emma Bunton's just been dumped but then there's none of the usual chocolate-inhaling, wine drowning nonsense and listening to Coldplay that usually occurs when women are dumped in the magical land of Ads. Instead Emma decides she'd rather throw some roses at the camera before making some half-arsed sign which wouldn't be out of place at an Iron Maiden tribute gig before throwing stuff around and jumping around on a sofa to some sort of Jonas Brothers' DVD but yet all she does is throw them across the room. She's clearly too outrageous for that. Her lack of use of Kleenex does throw up a concern for me.

It's almost as if she was filmed for another campaign but the seven seconds they managed to get of Vernon Kay furiously rubbing one out into a man-size was deemed unacceptable by the Kleenex representative and they just grabbed a file in an edit suite.

The advert closes up with Ice-King Sven Goran Eriksson blowing his nose before scrunching it into a ball and 'scoring a goal' into the bin in a football stadium's changing room. He goes mental. Pulling his incredibly sensible sweater over his head in sheer joy. Presumably the only good moment he gets having moved to Notts County. He then drops to his knees, triumphantly! One of his players then 'walks in on him'. He looks too ashamed to just have been doing a simple keepy-up with a tissue.

"Kleenex: Let it Out."
You see where I'm going with this?

Now there's very few ways to really sell tissues in an exciting way because we all know exactly what they're for. Crying, blowing your nose, cleaning up... uhh... unsightly messes or using them as a rudimentary pocket square. So why not get some celebrities showing that they too have need to use tissues and the brand these thoroughly famous and not at all hateful people have chosen is Kleenex. It's been around for ages and they should know the best way to catch various bodily fluids.

Given the number of voyeuristic "don't get walked in on" references, I just feel they could have saved a lot of money by having someone standing, holding a Kleenex tissue saying,

"Look. We know what you need and rest assured if you use our tissues, you won't get it all over your hand. Buy Kleenex."

LYNX TWIST - Lifeline for the Socially Awkward?

2010-01-22T14:59:00.000-08:00

Well, you should probably watch this first before I go on a vicious rant about it.

Ladies & Gentlemen, I give you the new advert from Lynx for their new citrusy deodorant. I'll quickly run through what appears to be happening in the advert. To begin with our loveable loser (or you- as the implication rides) is on a date with an attractive young lady. This is where the theme of the advert first comes out. For some inexplicable reason he begins to play peek-a-boo with the woman leaving her looking irritated and little bit thrown.

Fear not though, loveable loser! Conveniently there's a robot which just happens to be chilling out in the background just desperate to give you a makeover! Now, I know this character has clearly seen Flight of the Conchords more than he's ever seen anything else but there are lessons to be learned from 2001: A Space Odyssey; ROBOTS + SHARP IMPLEMENTS = BAD (took some license with that one, shut your holes). Anyway, the robot manages to change his look completely while his date tweets "LOL WANK" to her army of braindead followers, leaving him looking like a cross between a pervy geography teacher and a Topman mannequin. This is clearly what she's into and he gets to Stage 2: Walking Her Home.

OH! He's blown it again and she's opening the front door but have no fear. Here comes his trusty robotic stalker to change him into a quiffed tractor operator with a needlessly smug grin. He's back in and for some reason a sleeveless shirt and walking like a raptor just gets her rockin'.

Now here's the oddest part. Surely if she's got as far as asking him up to her flat, ostensibly for a damn disappointing evening, she wouldn't get bored with him and she doesn't. But oh no, the robot's been in the lift up with them and it's got something else on its mind. Our trusty hero gets something done to his naughty bits! Oh my word! How thoroughly hilarious! Her eyes light up, he looks at her like he's just seen a priest slide across a frozen lake and we're led to believe that he satisfies her until the morning light.

All well and good, usual Lynx staple. Until the voiceover kicks in and Gaz from the pub tells everyone at home that:

"Women get bored easily."

You hear that girls? WOMEN get bored easily. YOU LOT! I personally can't believe it took me this long to notice that it's all girls' fault. Unless there's a different smell every five minutes you're all frigid bitches.

"Lynx Twist: The fragrance that changes"

Buy Lynx guys, it keeps those pesky wenches interested in case they suddenly see a shiny hubcap and throw themselves in front of a passing car. That's the last thing you need! Who'll take care of your needs if she's in traction?

So what's my conclusion then? If you're a sweaty, alarmingly socially-awkward, irritating boy so desperate to attract a woman that you'll conform to the sheer idiocy of a brand that constantly implies; 'Women: they're a bit shit unless they're sucking you off.' then I insist that you pick up a can of Lynx Twist, spray it on and inhale victoriously as it goes from smelling like sweat, to air freshener, to desperation and then finally and beautifully (for everybody else) shame as you're still too much of a prat to attract a woman. After all; failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

Welcome to Fadvertisement

2010-01-22T14:32:00.001-08:00

Ladies & Gentlemen,

Hi! Allow me to introduce you to Fadvertisement- a really obvious Screenwipe rip-off where I mock my way around the advertising world either trying to show you what the ad men are really saying or, if it's really crap, just twisting the message until no-one can ever look at the advert in the same way again.

I'll be doing as many blogs on it as I possibly can and if you like it you can find and follow cut down Fadvertisements on our Twitter feed. Please tell your friends if you enjoy what you read here because I'll only get the glory and good feeling in the pit of my stomach if you whore me out all over the shop.

Happy reading!

Michael.