Wonders in Adland 3
I’ve had a surfeit of candidates for this column – a sure sign that ads are getting more and more bonkers. They’re certainly getting more and more hyperactive: I’m grateful to friend of Damesnet Ellen for pointing out how many ads feature dancing. The mere mention of insurance or selling your car, for example, seems to result in the participants ‘wriggling their guts; it drives me absolutely nuts’, to quote Noel Coward.
By contrast, my first ad is peddling calm. This is the ad for Twining’s soothing tea. In it a young woman lolls on the bonnet of her car parked up on the beach, drinking a mug of tea while a mellifluous voice-over promises a ‘moment of calm’: I doubt it. She is lounging in the kind of position that is guaranteed to make your collar bones ache, she’s still got the tea bag in her mug and the bonnet of the car must be roasting in all that sun.
Questions arise: how did she come by the hot water? She doesn’t look like the type to own a Primus stove, still less to carry a Thermos. How is she going to get the car off the beach? Surely the minute she puts it into gear the wheels will just spin round in the sand and dig her in deeper. If I were ever to find myself in her situation, I would be feeling very far from calm…
Next we go nuts again. In an advertisement for The Grape Tree, purveyor of health foods and wellness products, we find telly’s Dr Ranj Singh in a curiously helpless state. Despite being an NHS clinician, he is all at sea in the Grape Tree store and needs to approach the shop assistant for advice on natural products that will improve his bone health, balance his cholesterol, and address fatigue. Clearly the assistant’s pharmaceutical knowledge surpasses his, and she is able to point him in the right direction (pumpkin seeds, walnuts and cashew nuts respectively, since you ask). Give the woman her own pharmacy, say I.
Finally it’s the turn of Smarty Mobile (an off-putting name, if ever there was one, conjuring up smart alecs and smart arses). In this ad a bride who has just nipped out of her wedding reception (to go to the loo, perhaps) is being denied re-entry to it by an officious hotel clerk as she can’t produce an invitation. Cue the voice-over: ‘What a load of malarkey! Smarty keeps things simple: less malarkey, more smarty.’ What is the connection between the two? What does the pig-headedness of the clerk have to do with the apparent simplicity of using Smarty Mobile? Could there be a bigger non-sequitur?
The Programme for International Student Assessment has found weaker critical thinking in young people, with many attributing this to the rise in the use of AI. On the evidence, this is certainly true of today’s crop of (m)admen (and women?). Where are the witty, subtle – and logical! – ads of yesteryear, such as those for Hamlet cigars, Cinzano and Heat Electric (the ones with the Aardman animations)?
There is a theory that a terrible advert is a memorable one but I don’t agree.
I used to ( in the dim and distant past) even enjoy cinema advertising which was different from TV. No so now.
Sadly those entertaining ads of yesteryear seem to have disappeared. It’s fun to remember them though!
I’m not sure how successful ads can be if you remember them for the wrong reason. Having had my rant, I will say that I do rather enjoy the Uber Eats ad featuring Javier Bardem, who has tired of his bid for world domination and retreats with a takeaway to enjoy Happy Days!