Because I’m an old man with a cynical black splinter of a heart stuck at home during lockdown, I’ve been swamped with TV adverts and I hate most of them.
These are the three that make me want to commit homicide-suicides the most.
Spark whale shanty for non binary millennials
A non binary woke millennial falls in love with a whale shanty that goes global and half way through the frenzy, other non binary woke millennials point out it’s a historic whaling song and hilariously they all turn on it and cancel it. It’s like Mao’s cultural Revolution if Mao had been a monopolistic telecommunications corporation. The advert should end with a library on fire.
Westpac Where the Wild Things are knock off/possible pedophile monster
I’m not sure what the fuck this is all about but anytime a NZ advert has higher production values than your average Taika Waititi film, I’m always suspicious. The message here from Westpac is clear, the only way children in NZ ever have of owning a house is if a giant magical Yeti builds it for you. Does anyone else notice that the monster grooms all these children and then once its won them over, lifts them up and steals them into the forest? Shouldn’t someone call the police?
Breast cancer Dalek voice from the pretentious first year art school dimension
Whenever this advert comes on, my cat freaks out and runs out of the lounge. Dogs start howling and milk curdles. The weird alien Dalek voice from the pretentious first year art school dimension grates like broken glass on bone marrow. It reeks of Wellington in a way the Spark whale shanty for non binary millennials advert does. Islamic State terrorists would confess to any crime after just 5minutes of this other world Dalek doom voice advert on loop.
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Fuck me how does a hard leftie like you and a right-of-(Seymour)Act like me come to the same conclusion….gen X cynicism I guess.
The last ad is in the same category as the 1pm pressers and the passive-aggressive covid-lady – my family has to turn the TV off to stop the Tourette’s…..
I agree with your first paragraph Frankie however your second could be replaced by Nationals previous election slogan as in ” Building a Brighter Future”. Swallowing down my cup of cold sick whilst that ad was on mute, tasted better.
In fairness that fucking rowing add was a one way ticket to shitsville in a lada. I vaguely remember throwing up in my mouth while watching that.
At least the dancing Cossacks ads were amusing……
Hehe
Funny you should mention dancing Cossacks. I’ve been thinking. I’ve been thinking that with all the doom and gloom in our lives, the breast cancer people could give all the chest people a break, and set up some flash mobs, with wonderful music and singers and dancers and cheer everybody up instead of adding to our woes when we have enough to worry about.
I still don’t know what the Westpac ad was about – in fact I don’t believe that it is a Westpac ad at all, it’s a trailer for The Wombles totally stuffed up, or one of those gloomy Polish short stories which make us appreciate having KFC.
Bert You’re sounding like John Key’s “ cusp”…
Agree. And look also how many really naive or better stupid men are in adds compared with their smart, all-knowing and elegant female partners.
Alexandra
Alexandra. Where you gonna get some good looking men ? Italy? Spain ? Greece ? Set yourself up as an agent and start procuring a few dream boats who don’t look as if they need a shave and a decent haircut and you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank – but clearly, not Westpac in some crummy old dinghy.
It could be worse. At least it’s not honour your whakapapa by loving your testicles.
crack up!
Started watching television again a couple of weeks ago, then the commercials came on, so I stopped, again.
The MoH wouldn’t have to be spending taxpayer money on eg the mammogram ad, if the PHO’s were doing their jobs properly. That was the whole point of PHO’s. My GP communicates with patients directly about mammographies, cv smears, cholesterol checks and so on.
Oops – my mistake. It looks like it’s the Breast Cancer Foundation splashing out here, not the MoH. I believe that the Cancer Society has pots of money, so I guess that the Breast Cancer people have as well.
Can i also throw in the 3 water ads – talk about moronic.
Martyn absolutely agree.
Those ads are simply nauseating.
They are only surpassed by the 1pm “ Podium of Truth.”
A calculated political advertisement.
Look at that – unanimity. Those are cringeworthy ads.
Disagree. “Do do do do something blue” was easily worse than all of them. Combined. Never try to make an advert ‘blokey’. NEVER!
At the risk of repeating myself:
(Right Wingers take note and if you’ve forgotten how to write, you can draw wee pictures.)
‘Idiocracy’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
Plot
In 2005, U.S. Army librarian Corporal Joe Bauers is selected for a suspended animation experiment as the “most average” individual in the entire armed forces. Lacking a suitable female candidate, the military hires a prostitute named Rita by bribing her pimp Upgrayedd. When the officer in charge is arrested for running his own prostitution ring under Upgrayedd’s tutelage, the experiment is forgotten. Over the next five centuries, societal expectations lead the most intelligent humans to choose not to have children while the least intelligent reproduce indiscriminately, creating increasingly dumber generations.
Are there ANY decent ads? They’re all moronic. How anyone paying for them think they increase market share – let alone have a presence – beats me. Or is the world out there really that stupid. The only winners are the agencies who dream up this shit. And the cast. Ok, you gotta make a living in this world. Noticed also how a good many are simply social engineering. Must be some sort of ministry fuck. Yeh, I promise to get out more!
Bozo. Many many years ago, there was a good television commercial commercial. It may have even been my introduction to Yeats. It was for Bremworth Carpets, and it ended, “ tread softly, for you tread on my dreams.”
The narrator also had a really good speaking voice – like David Delaney who used to do stuff for DNTV-2. After that, it was all downhill. You may have been born too late.
Flattery won’t win any favours Applewood! But you’re right, I may have missed a few.
Hang on…you actually watch TV? Get a life!
Watching adds these days have made me understand the shit we are in, that they work for the advertisers show just how gullible our population is.
All TV watching requires a significant suspension of disbelief. But I believed in the anti-bullying monster, and you have entirely destroyed that for me, Martyn! Jeez I need a happy pill.
I see practically zero TV ads these days. No terrestrial TV. Only exposed to it when visiting family (hard to do when stuck in Auckland). uBlock Origin on all browsers. AdGuard on my iPhone. Not signed up to any streaming service. Download content via nefarious techniques. Maybe I’m a control freak.
Only the occasional poorly targeted Youtube ad, or barely noticeable radio ad, gets thru the defenses. Sanity remains intact, albeit fragile.
Good for you roblogic. Maybe self-control freak? I use duck duck go browser, netflix, neon, youtube, adblock if have to use Google, free downloaded torrents and on-demand if desperate. Mute any ads promptly, but still feel violated by them. Advertising and marketing in general including propaganda has always struck me as preying on human weaknesses to to separate you from your money or convince you of something. It’s deviously effective, and oftentimes arguably necessary, unfortunately
Who ‘still’ watches mainstream TV?
I work in that business and I don’t know how the fuck these clients signed off any of those concepts. They are fucking terrible commercials. Westpac, our govt bank, being the worst. Here’s how it happened. Suit presents:”Research (at a cost of $2million) tells us the ‘little guy’ (us idiot citizens) thinks that Westpac is an ogre…a bad monster. So let’s show them we’re a kind monster (like our govt).” Client (aged 23): “That’s so cool…and we can have a unique song that’s never ever been used before, and a cool slogan with ‘together and greater” in it!” And so a budget of $10 million was signed off. And to this day, going by that commercial, nobody knows what the fuck Westpac does. Bring on Stickman!
I’m a bit suspicious of Westpac’s big advertising campaign, they were threatening to withdraw from the New Zealand market not that long ago and all of a sudden they’re going all out on a big PR move? I’m not sure what’s going on there.
Napierboy – “ What’s going on here” ? The Dance of the Dying Swan. Done cheap.
How about focusing on those irresponsible SUV ads? Appealing to unreconstructed macho males who get their identity from the latest gas guzzling, high tech, eco-destructive machinery, these ads should be banned under the directives of the climate emergency. As John Berger famously said, society is mad!
And this is how $5.5b gets siphoned from NZ’ders by the ‘Big Four’ Australian owned banks.
Exporting the profits offshore is a good business for them.
Being on the autistic spectrum one of the few perks is, I have no idea what 90% of adverts are trying to get at. The first two are particularly irritating, luckily I’ve not seen the third.
Reading this post and the related comments brought back to me memory of a picture penned some years ago by the insightful Melbourne cartoonist Micheal Leunig where a father and son in their home were huddled around at television set watching a scene of a sunset whilst over their shoulder and out the window was the very same sunset in glorious real life.
As Timothy Leary once voiced way back in 1966 “, Turn on, tune in and drop out.”
Turn on” meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers engaging them. “Tune in” meant interact harmoniously with the world around you—externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. “Drop out” suggested an active, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. “Drop Out” meant self-reliance, a discovery of one’s singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change.
Still watching television…why?
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