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Annoying thing of the week - and it looks like it’s spiralling out of control - is little vocal jingles at the end of adverts.
It started with the ridiculously unwieldy “Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline”, and we all had a chuckle at our quaint transatlantic cousins. Then the appalling “Mmmm, Danone” which you could just about explain away given that it’s a French company.
Nothing followed for a few months, and we thought no more about it. But then came Herbal Essences - a woman singing “Herbal” then whispering “Essences” - which very nearly led me to put my DMs through the old HD-unready. And yesterday, I caught an advert for Scholl - who, I believe, make foot deodorant and affiliated utterly unsexy products - and a woman whispered the company name “sexily” at the end of the ad. GAAAAH!
At least with insurance / debt management adverts you can spot them early and either turn the TV off or, if the remote’s, erm… remote, go “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA” for a couple of minutes. These are far more insidious, giving no warning before offering a wasp-sting of concentrated annoyance with no possible comeback apart from a primal roar of “NOOOOOOOOO!!!”
What next? “Mmmmm, Kwik Fit”? For fuck’s sake, make it stop!
This entry was posted on Friday, November 24th, 2006 at 8:47 am and is filed under General, or uncategorized due to sloppy editing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Know what you mean. In sharp contrast to today’s penchant for husky-voiced naughtiness I rather liked the Viakal sink unblocker slogan of yesteryear. This typically aired between segments of “Bullseye” etc. and had the northern housewife firmly in its crosshairs: a flat Manchester accent would intone “It’s the Viakal fizz what does t’bizz”. Simple.
There’s nowt wrong with t’ Great British slogan - eg “Baked Beans - does exactly what it says on the tin” - it’s specifically these little breathy vocal afterthoughts that make me want to scythe down vast swathes of humanity.
I know what you mean, Shit. All those examples mentioned above are pretty bad, but I think medicine ads are the worst culprits; there are few things more outlandish and cringe-worthy than a woman striding confidently into a pharmacy and loudly asking “Have you got something to treat my thrush?”, and, like those ads mentioned in your blog, it starts innocuously so there is no escape.
I haven’t seen any such adverts, Prof, but then I don’t keep student hours. I’m guessing that a great preponderance of the thrush ads in particular are during Hollyoaks….
Actually, come to think of it, a woman huskily intoning “Mmmm, Anusol” might just make me more likely to buy the product in question.
My most hateful advert is on the radio. Sometimes after a megastress day at work, I’ll run a bath, put some candles on and listen to ‘Smooth Classics at 7′ on Classic FM. (I’m acutely aware that if I only liked cock, I’d be a raving homosexual).
The show is great, the music is super chilled and it really does help the stress of the day wash away… until the adverts. And in EVERY advert break, there’s an advert for Autoglass. It always starts with some woman singing:
“Autoglass Repair… Autoglass Replaccccccccccce”
The ’s’ sound in ‘replace’ is like fingernails running down a blackboard. Then you get some twat from Dudley going on about chips in the windscreen with a thick black coontray accent, and his voice goes up at the end of each sentence.
I invariably let out an involuntary shriek and hide underwater until it stops.
I think they should not be allowed to play adverts like this during smooth classics. 15 minutes of relaxation is completely undone by 30 seconds of hell. Bastards.
That thrush ad was from a couple of years back so I can understand why it might have escaped your notice; it was actually one of those ads that appeared on daytime TV (so not just students, but also the elderly, unemployed etc. may have been its target audience.) And I’m a little offended that you think I watch Hollyoaks! Luckily, being in my final year, I’m doing a research project, so my hours are more 9-5 these days (thus succesfully avoiding the dark abyss that is daytime television.)
Can I cast my vote please for those ridiculous adverts where the lip synch is nowhere near, well, in synch.
These tend to be stupid Norwegian type ones for bacterial yoghurts and the like, also I think there was a recent one with Andi McDowell who used to be a bit of a babe but haas since become all plasticy and also has trouble speaking to the extent that the sound of the words lags slightly behind the lip movements required to produce them - how DOES she do that?
Also, on the subject of radio ads, anyone from the Essex region (just me I guess) will know and love the following (which, if you haven’t heard it, is done in Chas ‘n’ Dave style)
This was more recently followed by one which went something like;
I must admit to a bit of a soft spot for radio jingles. Who could resist the dulcet tones of:
Or the jaunty:
And there isn’t a person in Ipswich who can’t tell you the phone number for Eclipse or Homestyle, even if they (as I) have no idea what those companies actually sell.
It could be worse, though. The Cillit Bang advert could have a jingle. *shudder*
But seriously, Chez, imagine how simple life would be…
I won’t have a WORD said against Cillit bang thank you very much. And while I’m on the subject, I was a fan of CB well before it was mainstream…
habla a cuba…
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