My Advert Critique

Confused.com

Everyone knows this one. It's probably the sole source of income for daytime British TV. Forget Top Gear repeats, this is the cornerstone of Dave's daily programming.  The whole thing is thrust forward on the strength of the announcer's facial contortions. So much so that you leave wondering what the whole thing was about and worrying that the sales technique of the car insurance industry hasn't changed since Goebbels was head of Propaganda and Enlightenment and Henry Ford was so grateful that he pumped a load of dollars into Hitler's glorious Third Reich/second-hand car lot.  Then Adolf started making Volkswagens and that beautiful, racist partnership was over.

Perhaps it's due to the over-saturation of loosely car-related shows on Dave that they pump so many car insurance adverts into the gaps. A kind of Polyfilla for the reckless driver.  

Maybelline

My knowledge of cosmetics is pretty much limited to sprints through the entrance halls of department stores as a child. The overwhelming smell of synthesized whale urine combined with the other-worldly throbbing glow of the girls who stand behind the counters was enough to ensure I never considered a career as a drag-queen.  And so, I find it appalling to be continuously affronted by these models with bleached... well, everything on my television.  And models are exactly that, this advert shows that they are essentially golf-balls covered in different types of fudge sauce. 

However, the absolute worst piece of propaganda on this dismal attempt at marketing has to be the breathy catchphrase narrator. I can't decide whether they were going for the 'I hear voices.'  approach. or trying to prove that once you go far enough down the road to cosmetic aestheticism your soul does actually separate itself from your body and go looking for somewhere less toxic to spend it's time. 

Gillette

It's just horrible. As if there aren't enough preconceptions of what makes a man a man; cars, sports, beer, verbal and mental bullying, Ben Sherman shirts and the ability to make incomprehensible noise on high-streets, we can now add shaving to the list. Previously, shaving had been a chore to take a reluctant part in once a week or so and mostly for reasons of comfort. Those extra few micrometers to get me closer to my bare flesh really, really won't make a difference.  It'll be back in a day and the ritual of putting it off as long as humanly possible begins all over. 

But now Gillette have inextricably linked shaving to sport. I can understand that if you're a professional tennis player or footballer then the negligible aerodynamic drag could effect your performance and you'd lose your multi-million dollar contract.  That only makes sense. 

'I'm successful according to my equally ape-like friends, I better shave well and accurately so that I don't become impotent. Medical science prove me wrong!'

Iceland

Every time they let Kerry Katona off the leash to dive into the front pages of some idiotic gossip rag or rehab or wherever it is that dried up pop-stars being propelled by the power of small-business waiting rooms go, something goes wrong. She's the type of person that figured out a few years ago there was no point clinging on to any dignity if she was going to compete with the first-class talent being skimmed off reality television. 

So now she does Iceland adverts. Possibly the highest point of the perverse and perved-on train wreck that is her career and life. At least she gets to sing in this one, and we get to listen and remember why it all happened. 

Hastings

Car insurance companies really have it made when it comes to brutalising taste and decency. So we end where we begin.  Hastings isn't necessarily the worst, but it's a memorable piece of scape-goating. The link between the Battle of Hastings, referenced through a miniature cartoon Norman soldier named Harry and cars is never quite made clear enough for us to have any grasp of what the advertisers were thinking, but we're happily distracted from this by everything else. 

His voice, infuriating as it is alone, reaches it's peak on the repeat phone-number jingle. Once again, the car insurance industry has plumbed the depths of the Nazi party's propaganda  ideas and dug up the old classic. 'The bigger the lie, and the more it's repeated the more believable it is.'