This article is very old. It’s still very true, though.
When you do a lot of driving you listen to the radio for traffic news. But I wish I knew who it was who comes up with some of those adverts!
They’re mostly just stupid, but every now and then you get one that is just so annoying you want to scream.
A couple of years ago – around Christmas – there was one which had children and babies coughing to the tune of Jingle Bells, or We Wish You A Merry Christmas, or something like that. Nasty, wet, catarrhy coughs advertising some childrens’ cough syrup.
Then there is anything to do with Kelloggs Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. Listening to and watching actors big up the basic function of eating is annoying at the best of times (even Del-boy, Rodney, or Uncle Albert eating in one of the best and funniest UK sitcoms ever – Only Fools And Horses – is bad), but when you just have to listen… aaargh! Those Kelloggs ads are infuriating – just an excuse to have actors hamming it up by talking with their exaggerated mouths full. You can just imagine the milk running down their chins (and don’t get me started on TV adverts which involve children eating).
One of the latest ones is some idiotic ad for Volkswagen which has the actor mooing loudly (in a kind of accelerating car-kind of way). God only knows what the point is, or what car they’re advertising (because I don’t let it get anywhere near telling me before I turn off or change channels). This follows hot on the heels of a recent safety ad for motorbikes where the actor is saying ‘one-two-three-four’ in a similar way. It hurts your bloody ears. Like I say, the radio goes straight off when one of these comes on.
There’s another current one about tax credits and how to claim money if you earn less than a certain amount. They have this telephone conversation between the agent and a client, with the agent asking three basic questions: ‘Do you work more than 30 hours a week, are you 25 or over, and do you earn less than £17,000 a year’. The client is 26, works over 30 hours (with a snigger), and earns £9,000 (what a loser). The agent then tells him ‘it’s just what you’re entitled to’ – pronouncing the word ‘entitled’ as ‘en-ti-tooled’. Aaargh again!
And there’s a new one today – it’s just telling you about changes to the education system: a few paragraphs of information. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Except that the advertising genius responsible has used about 50 different people to say a few words each, and since all the voices are different – obviously to try and encompass ‘yoof culture’ in its entirety – you can’t focus on what is being said. Listening to it is like getting cramp in your brain.