TV adverts make me sad.
Warning: Waffling...

There are some fantastic works of art out there in TV ad world at the moment. Despite how annoying I find it (and discovering how utterly, utterly useless the company actually is), the Compare the Market/Meerkat ad campaign is marvellously contructed. You've got cheeky, likeable CGI characters with storylines running over several months, they've got facebook pages where they post regular updates, you can download ringtones of the jingles, and I've heard kids excitedly singing it several times.

You can fucking BUY a churchill dog. You can... you... y... you can PAY your own money to ADVERTISE a company.

Howard from the Halifax TV ads was the "star" opening a new branch of Halifax a few years ago.

The ubiquitous WeBuyAny... yeah you know... has has people remixing their tunes and playing them in clubs.

People are willingly doing advertising work for free, and they're enjoying it.

I could (and quite often do) go on and on and on about this.

The thing that utterly KILLS me about this though is the fact that I'm finding more and more that TV ads are better than the programs they're actually sponsoring. This used to be a cliche, but it really is becoming more and more apparent. There are some brilliantly creative and imaginative minds working in advertising. I'm assuming it pays much better than writing for actual telly programs.

We've got litres of homogenised slop being farted into our eyes by TV channel execs worrying so much about whether their target audiences will like what they're making that they don't want to take any risks releasing something original... bloody karaoke style talent shows bringing absolutely nothing of any worth to our screens and lowest-common-denominator crap from people they've discovered on youtube (I'm not bitter. Honest.)

However, in TV commercial land, there are loads of imaginative, catchy, memorable, original commercials from people that aren't afraid to be different. People that want to try new stuff. People with jobs that mean they *have* to stand out from everything else.

Sure - there are good and bad TV programs, there are good and bad adverts, but as it stands at the moment, TV ads have the best balance.

TV ads are paid for by companies to get us to give them more of our money. And not only are we doing this, but we're actually helping them sell their products by eagerly talking about them and referencing them like we used to talk about classic TV shows or music. "Oooh, did you see that drumming gorilla?", "Those meerkats are brilliant aren't they?", "AVE IT!", "Hey, I fancy one of them cars made out of cake", "Moooonpiiiig dot commmmmm!!!", "Accrington Stanley? Who are they?", "WAAAAAAH BODYFORM!".

Adverts. I both loathe them and appreciate them. They're necessary but they're manipulative. They're created simply for financial gain, but we remember the GoCompare guy better than we remember last week's Dr Who.

Adverts: I hate what they stand for.
The advertising industry: Some of the most talented people in the world.

I hate them. I love them.

Help me.

Additional: And when I heard kids running around singing "one one eight! twenty four seven!", i had to try very, very hard not to weep uncontrollably. I know Jonti has to make his money, but I do wish people would appreciate the original more :-/
( Mike Fishcake teamfishcake.co.uk - better than your mum's face, Fri 16 Apr 2010, 15:51, 3 replies)

Advertising is lower than child porn or soldiering for fortune.
You like them because millions were spent analysing people for years to come up with the most captivating adverts possible.
I'll attempt to quote here "If you're in advertising then just kill yourself. No, I'm not kidding, kill yourself".
Advertisers are scum who use every trick they can to coerce you into doing something you know you should not.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Fri 16 Apr 2010, 18:09, closed)

Dilbert
I believe that there was a Dilbert cartoon about a 40k Calorie Doughnut with shards of glass in it. They did not have to market it: "It tastes so good. I know that it is bad for me, but I am only having one"
( The_Commander_of_Skips wears his sunglasses at night, Fri 16 Apr 2010, 18:37, closed)

i've actually got my niece
to sing the magical trevor song every time the 118 24/7 ad comes on
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Sat 17 Apr 2010, 21:05, closed)