I’ve not done one of these for quite some time, but I am currently being driven to distraction by the most annoying TV advert of the year. It’s for TUI Holidays, and it features an irritating, gap-toothed woman, and a thin, whiny female voice singing an already-irritating song (“Ain’t Nobody”, by Rufus and Chaka Khan). According to one source I used, the actress in the ad, Bethany Louise Slater, is also the singer. However, a reader has recently written to me to inform me that they used a separate singer. Whatever and whoever, the singing is crap.
It’s made worse by the fact that TUI appears to be sponsoring Sky One this Christmas, so the bloody thing is on at least twice every 5-7 minutes – i.e. at the start and end of every ad break.
Edit: And it’s not just me. TV Ad Music refers to the music thus:
Such a shame, then, that they’ve chosen to soundtrack the ad with a terribly insipid cover version of… The trend for anaemic covers of classic songs in TV ads is long established…
Campaign describes it:
Turkey of the week… It’s a cheesy ad with poor singing and dancing…
And a lot of others feel similarly.
Incidentally, after a few weeks, Sky toned it right down, and although the annoying muted piano intro still appears with the same regularity at either end of ad breaks, the full version is thankfully much less frequent. I wonder if Sky will ever realise that they could well lose customers if they persist in showing really annoying sponsor adverts at saturation levels every year?
When will it stop?
Well, I’m writing this update in mid-February 2018, and the bloody thing is still being shown. Every ad break. And I’m getting more and more people finding the blog on search terms amounting to “when will Sky stop showing it?”
The short answer is that I don’t know. But one thing I do know is that I have been avoiding Sky One like the plague, and switching channels when the ad comes on. Furthermore, I will never book a holiday through TUI now on a point of principle. And I very much doubt that I’m the only one.