Forget being DJs and stick to being cashiers
Jul 31 2010 Huddersfield Daily Examiner
Forget being DJs and stick to being cashiers
THEY are the TV moments we love to hate. Adverts. You’ve had a tough day, you’re stretched out on the settee and you don’t want to move.
And on they come. What’s even worse, you can’t even be bothered to switch them off you’re so tired.
They always seem louder than the programme you’ve just been watching. And they irritate.
They burrow into your brain. The advertisers probably hope they leave a little egg which then hatches next time you go shopping, want to change your insurance or fancy swapping banks.
But which is the worst?
It probably all depends if you buy into the concept they’re putting across.
Top of the hit list for me at the moment has to be the Halifax.
Now times are tough and many would say the banks put us in a position where we are all way worse off than we were a couple of years ago.
And yet the Halifax staff have time to run a radio station … and run it badly.
On the one featuring the female staff she knocks over a cup of coffee.
A tad dangerous with all that technical equipment around.
Then the blokes get in on the act with one asking silly questions while the other turns up some levers with Yeah Yeah Yeah playing loudly.
Bloke one then asks if he can have bloke two’s car keys. Bloke two pushes the Yeah Yeah Yeah levers and bloke one simulates driving off in his chair.
Hilarious? I don’t think so.
Of course Halifax has form for this kind of nonsense.
It took hundreds of them to deliver a fiver to a customer who had a current reward account. Not the best use of resources.
Bring back Howard. At least he was fun.
It’s hard to see what message the Halifax is trying to get across.
It seems to say it is way overstaffed and has plenty of time to have fun and mess around.
Or perhaps I’m just not getting it.
I’m sure current Halifax staff probably groan in anguish every time it comes on. And it seems to be every evening.
Then there’s Go Compare. The big bloke with the silly moustache opening the letterbox and belting out Go Compare through it. That’s got to go down as antisocial behaviour.
He needs an ASBO – and quickly.
Safestyle UK have brought Cannon And Ball in to push their products. Cannon and Ball? Sounds a bit destructive for a product that’s supposed to be promoting safety, warmth and security.
And, let’s face it, if Cannon And Ball turned up to fit your windows and doors, would you have confidence the job would be done right?
And has anyone ever bought a suite from DFS that wasn’t in a sale?
Whatever happened to the classic TV adverts.
The earliest I can recall is Nimble with a woman floating serenely away in a hot air balloon.
Then there were the Hamlet cigar adverts – a soothing moment after everything’s gone wrong – and the best was the small guy with the terrible hair comb-over failing miserably to get his photograph taken in a passport photo booth. Pure brilliance.
Even Huddersfield got a mention thanks to the tin martians laughing hysterically at anyone who would think to peel a spud when Smash was around.
Having tasted Smash, the King Edwards had the last laugh.
If you want a blast of TV ad nostalgia, check out www.classictvads.co.uk
