Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts

Friday, June 03, 2016

Off for a Lloyds...

I’ve been meaning to have a go at the follow-ups to the ludicrous Lloyds bank adverts – yet another of those where they show people turning from attractive children to attractive ‘older people’ via being attractive adults.  And rescuing teddies and stuff.  Lloyds is the one (I think) where a big horse gallops through the maternity ward and whatnot.  At one point the horse gallops past a couple in the street.  A (presumably) gay man is clearly proposing marriage to another (presumably) gay man.  He’s decided to do this in the street while a horse runs past.  As you do when you're pretending to be gay in an advert.  He’s gone for the whole 'ring in a box down on one knee' thing.  In the street.  Any homophobics are presumably too busy looking at the horse to cause any aggro.  Or he can’t think of a better place to do this than in the middle of the street.

Something tells me that this couple were originally going to be a heterosexual couple.  Bet your life someone at the advertising agency simple squeaked with delight at the whole instant inclusive right-on ness of making them a gay couple.  Then they squeaked even louder and treated themselves to a game of ping-pong instead of lunch when it occurred that they could make one of them black.  Should have also put one of them in a wheelchair but they clearly never thought of adding that particular egg to the advert pudding.

But then!  Then someone suggested that they go for that whole the fuckwitted British Public love a character thing.   They spend hundreds of pounds on insurance to get a meerkat toy, they really really love that opera singing insurance bloke and they’d sell their own grandmothers for one of those Brian toys.  Then they ‘like’ the Facebook page and Tweet their friends and talk to their mates about how they’ve taken these lovable characters to their hearts because they’ve clearly got nothing else going on in their lives…

So now there’s a follow up advert – the gay couple again, just them on a poster.  There’s a picture of them hugging and it says ‘he said yes’!  Dancing in the streets!  We’d all been wondering if the made up (presumably) gay character played by an actor who asked the other made up (presumably) gay character played by an actor to marry him in the middle of the street as a horse galloped past had said yes or ‘don’t do the whole hetero cliché thing on me and watch out for the homophobic thief just behind you’.

So…if you’d like to believe that the fictional characters in the advert are real in some way and that there was a proposal and ‘he said yes’, go on, knock yourself out.  If you’re lucky there’ll be a Facebook page about them which you can ‘like’.  You can Tweet your friends about them and possibly follow their progress.  Choose the wedding venue and what they’ll wear and the kind of sex you’d like them to have.

Actually, I think there can’t be more than half a dozen simpletons who care and actually this is just the advertising industry milking another doltish (or coltish in this case – boom boom!) company into thinking that even though they screwed up the economy and everyone hates them that if they make up a gay couple one of whom is black then everyone will just love them.  Unless we haven’t got every penny of our money back.


In which case we still hate them.

And look!  Get that damned banky horse out of the maternity ward!  Please don't bother to check the advert out though.  You'll need really sturdy buttocks well used to clenching.  And it'd only encourage them...




Saturday, June 21, 2014

Fun World Cup game!

Hey folks...I just tried this - the Doritos 'Score and Win' game aka the Doritos Penalty Shootout.

Here's how it works...Now don't forget the code on the packet - the one that's not printed correctly?  OK, can't use that packet, let's try the other one...

Here we go...this'll be fun.  Enter your code number in the box.  Wonder why nothing has happened.  Try it again.  And again.  Squint at packet to check you have this right.  Think of giving up.  Take ages to read the 'what's this' advice associated with the code number box.  So...take the middle number in the 'best before panel.  Take the letter off the end of that number.  Go to the next line and take just the first four digits of the number there - don't forget to ignore the colon...Add these 4 digits to the end of the first number (see above).  That's your code.  Unless your packet is one of those printed in another format in which case scroll through by clicking the arrow to tell you how to decipher your alternative code.  Now, add your email address twice, tick the 'terms and conditions' box and sign up for exciting news about Doritos. 

Now, to prove you're a person, try to read the unfathomable jumble in the box that might be letters.  Enter something random into the box hoping to get another set of letters that might re readable this time.  Try this around a dozen times until a jumble comes up that you can half read - if you're lucky you might be right.  You can then play 'the game' by dragging a football across your computer screen.  1 in 5 chance of winning a free pack, 1 in 7 chance of winning a tenner and 1 in 12 chance of winning £100.  That'll be 1 in 420 chance of winning £100 then I think, not 1 in 12.

Then, travel to Doritos head office.  Ask to be directed to their marketing department.  Ask for the person responsible for the 'score and win' promotion.  Bend them over their desk and insert packet of Doritos up their backside.  Then ask for their email address so you can hassle them again in future.  Tell them their 'game' is rubbish and that England have not been involved in any penalty shootouts in this world cup.  Tell them that any world cup themed adverts are counter-productive. 

Go and buy some Tescos 'everyday value' tortilla chips.  Note the differences in quantity and price compared to Doritos.  

Moral of this story 1: Don't ignore the colon.  Moral of this story 2:  Adding 4 digits should do it...

Thursday, February 13, 2014

It's not just goverment you know...

Here’s another belter of a question from a recent YouGov poll – “Do you think Special K having an exclusive partnership with Kylie Minogue where she helps promote their products would be a good thing for Special K?”
 
Well?!  C'mon...answer dammit!
 
Clearly I wanted to give them the full benefit of my opinion on this.  Just in case you were interested – my opinion is that Special K is cornflakes for the sort of people who go on diets and succumb to ‘marketing’.  Smaller box, less calories for your money, all that stuff - but lots of pictures of strawberries and thin women with floaty scarves...least that's how I remember it...
 
By the way, you could spend ages deconstructing that Kylie question – why for example should anyone waste a second of their time thinking what would be good for a ridiculous brand? – mine you, I still worry about Commander Black Cherry helping out the fruit starved Yogons...I might even make a list of ridiculous advertising stuff that I remember for no good reason.  But first I have to chat to my girlfriends about 'serum'.