Gym, but not as we know it

As I have mentioned in the about section and my first post on this blog, this blog will contain many posts about advertising and marketing. However this post contains, in part, a complaint about advertising! I love well thought out marketing communications and planned correctly through the correct medium these communications can reach the target audience effectively. However when done poorly its just horrible! This is now happening in the gym that I go to, normally on the in house music channel there are occasional adverts for products such as Lucozade Hydro active and so on, demonstrating the benefits of such products for fitness purposes (ok its a little White Goodman in Dodgeball (Call that a push up!)) but it starting to turn into a chick flick fest! Over the last few months we have had adverts blurting out messages for He's Just Not That Into You or whatever it is called and more recently Confessions of a Shopaholic or whatever that is called. I don't know why these are placed in this situation, OK there are a few girls in the gym who it is intended for (they're the ones who bring in their shiny silver bags into the gym with them, the ones who read heat magazine on the treadmill while walking for 10 minutes or the ones who come in dressed like their about to go on a night out), but its only a handful at anytime time. The rest of the women range into three categories the weight loss group (the ones trying to lose some serious weight), the ultra fit ones (not talking looks here, the ones that can lift more weight than me or the ones that look they could run a marathon without breaking a sweat) and the blue rinse brigade that come in mainly for aqua aerobics/classes. Out of those groups only one or two (generalisation) I would say would be interested in these movies so why are they on when the target audience is so small (OK the national market is probably big, but I'm moaning about my particular gym!).  At any one time there are more muscle heads in the gym than the target for these movies so maybe it would be better to advertise more action movies at the gym. Actually no, if it doesn't have anything to exercise then it should be banned from the gym! 

Bolero

Oh my god there its is BOLERO!!! For goodness sake its a good dam dance on bloody ice. Great they won a medal at the winter Olympics, well done them but come on lets not go overboard about the bloody thing. Whole programmes on ITV about how the came up with the dance, every week talking on dancing on ice about the "legend" that is Bolero! Its like Magnum in zoolander, the world stopped and marveled at the holy grail of ice dancing, Bolero! There making it out like it was a pivotal moment in life, where people would look back in years to come and remember the exact moment that they saw Bolero, as if it where on par with the moon landings, 9-11 or even more recently Barack Obama's inauguration. Well I'm fed up with the whole thing (and fed up saying the word Bolero in this piece!). Surely a more pivotal moment in the history of ice dancing was Todd Carty on the show, not even the "ice gods" that are Torvil and Dean could have pulled of that dance with such perfection! Maybe you had to be there to truly appreciate Bolero? But as I wasn't all I can say is I cant see what all the fuss is about!

"I don't think they realised it but Bolero was them"

Viral Mystery?

One of my favourite virals of the last year or so has to be Nike Convert is the next level staring Fernando Torres.



Well he's at it again. This time there is a bit of mystery surrounding the actual origins of the virals. Some suggest its just him helping out his amigos businesses, some say its a nike viral campaign (as 2 out of three show people wearing Nike branded products, but not the hairdressing one) while others (I think im goin with this one) say its a viral campaign by the Spanish bank Banco Gallego. I dont realy get why its for a bank. Maybe the bank is trying to show support for small business in times of financial trouble? Whatever the brief or purpose of the ad its got to be better than some guys singing about what great saving rates you can get while their bank crumbles around them. Is the credit crunch all Howard's fault??? Anyway I quite like these virals even though I dont really grasp what they are for and dont understand them as they are in Spanish but the comedy factor is amazing especially Torres' walk into the hair salon!

Rubbish Ads

Having spoke in my previous post about complaints culture and ads that have been banned due to complaints I have decided to show some that that should be banned, not because they are "offensive" or of a "delicate subject matter" but just because they are rubbish. This feature will probably crop up time and time again, so this is the first in probably a long line.

Ill start with Glade Touch' N Fresh, now this isn't the first time they have brought out an ad that is, excuse the pun, a pile of s**t but the latest offering is the worst offender. When I was young the reason I pleaded with my parents to go round to my friends was to play with their new toys. I remember things such as Power Rangers and Transformers but most of all when they had new technology, I remember when a friend of mine got a PC! I used to beg to go round to his house so we could play on Microsoft Encarta! I also remember my friend getting a NES and how I pleaded to go round to his house so we could play on Duck Hunt and cheat with the gun pressed up against the TV screen. Kids are very different nowadays (if this advert is to be believed!), the reason they want to go round to their friends house is so they can have a "poo" just because they have a Glade Touch' N Fresh. So to all parents out there forget your iPhones, Playstation 3's and LCD televisions just get a Glade Touch'N Fresh that should keep the kids happy for a while. The adverts also take joy in people going into toilets after their kids have done the business and taking a good old whiff! There is something wrong with that. Another thing you have to think about (in the first glade offering) is what the hell did he use to draw that picture! You'll see what I mean!

First Glade ad


Latest offering


Another one that is doing my head in at the moment is Foxy Bingo "Foxy's Back". I wish he would just f**k off and never return! In fact all of these bingo ads can take a run and jump, who the hell goes on these sites anyway! Foxy is probably the worst closely followed by Wink Bingo! What's Bingo got to do with dancing anyway??? and whats all this "Too the left" is he training to become some aerobics instructor, i don't really blame him, when this bingo bubble bursts he will have to find something else to do. Somehow there's a site dedicated to the brilliance of Foxy bingo ads which amazingly is a site set up by foxy bingo themselves! (as if anyone else would set this up). Although it looks like a general fan site they give themselves away a little by quoting TNS survey studies of what adverts people remembered celebrating the fact that they were the third most memorable ad for a particular period, these figures are usually found in industry magazines such as Campaign and usually the results feature possible the worst adverts at the time (as they are the most memorable), if i remember correctly other "memorable" adverts from these polls include DFS "Rockstar" and Picture Loans "Dads found ya Scooter" but there's a difference between memorable because its great and memorable because its so bad!

Foxy’s Back with £1 ..
Watch the ad...

Finally as if Foxy wasn't punchable enough the odious cretin that is Michael Winner has made it back onto our screens with more of his "calm down dear" nonsense! I don't feel I have to go into anymore depth than that!

ITV National Weather..
Watch the ad...

Complaints Culture

We have been hearing a lot about complaining lately, Joe has done a nice post on his blog mainly directed at the Daily Wail and its constant complaining about the BBC and Jonathan Ross to be specific, trying to get middle England complaining about "nowtrageous issues". To be honest the whole issue has been done to death so I don't think I can add anything new to the whole issue. I would however like to bring up the issue of sanity. Some people shouldn't be allowed to complain, maybe there should be some sort of test (like your driving theory!) before you can register your complaint. This will hopefully cut out some of the nutters that write and ring in to complain about absolutely stupid issues. Now I'm not saying everyone that complains is a nutter or that issues such as the "Sachsgate" issue aren't worth complaining about but the facts about ridiculous complaints/enquiries are everywhere. Take for example the issue of 999 calls. Every year some police force in the country releases ridiculous 999 calls made about issues such as (Avon and Somerset) grey squirrels having no hazelnuts in its tree, asking what year the Internet started for a college essay and people ringing in to complain their other half has gone out without leaving any food in the house. Greater Manchester has a women ringing in to complain she cant get through to vote for strictly come dancing, a man complaining staff at a take out had wrongly put mushrooms on his pizza and a priest calling 999 when staff at Manchester Airport WHSmith wouldn't let him use their toilets. I suspect that a lot of these idiots are the same ones ringing up to complain about things that have offended them on T.V. I think T.V channels should also release complaints to the public just to show how ridiculous they can be. I know they get many ridiculous complaints as a good friend of mine works at a TV channel, they often share with me some of the ridiculous complaints they get such as people ringing the police with the registration of cars used to commit crimes that happen in soaps, people moaning about certain shows using their alleged 2 Oscars and 3 Baftas as a point authority on the subject and people complaining about the amount of Asian people on a certain soap. Why not take on board Charlie Brooker's comments in where every complaint can be erased with a counter complaint, whatever way I think its time to weed out the maniacs!

Advertising has also seen it fair share of complaints recently that are just stupid, Oasis Cactus Kid was banned because people said it was encouraging teenage pregnancy (i'd rather complain it was encouraging drinking a highly sugary drink over water if anything), Heinz pulled its Deli Mayo male kiss advert after around 200 outraged viewers complained that it was "offensive" and that it inappropriately raised the "difficult subject of same sex relationships" the ad was pulled by Heinz which inturn caused more complaints from gay rights groups and lead to said groups boycotting Heinz products and the brilliant Polo dog was banned for cruelty to animals because the dog was shaking. However the one that really makes my blood boil is THINK! wear a seatbelt campaign that is banned before 9pm due to its graphic content. Ok it is a bit graphic but its the truth! I'd rather see it in on a computer generated advert than in real life, anything to get the message across is good by me and why not show it before 9, I say show kids the effects of what might happen by not wearing a seatbelt it might actually have an effect! Oh and speaking of THINK! campaigns the awareness test has to be one of the best around!

God that was a long rant, or was it a complaint against complaints? (and dont complain that I just used the word God!)

Orange Wednesday

Joe and myself were meant to be going to watch something tonight with orange wednesday, but I totally forgot about the Liverpool Everton match (just about to start extra time, and I wish I hadn't bothered, we could have even got out in time to watch the end of the match). Anyway as if half price cinema tickets (which are pretty extautionate without such an offer) were not enough they are now doing buy one get one free meals as well. Thats right buy one get one free at Pizza Express and also free goodies such as garlic bread and dough balls. While the credit crunch is still biting more and more people are going to be choosing to stay in rather than go out and spend, this is a fantastic idea and one that may be put to good use on are monthly boys 'date' night out in Liverpool.

My First Blog and Blog Post

Having been 'lurking' in the world of blogging for some time i've decided to jump into the "blogosphere" (god that sounds nerdy) and give it a go! To be honest at first this blog was going to be all about advertising (mADman, get it? no its not that good is it!) as its the industry i'm trying to get into (with little sucess!) but i dont think I'm going to stick to that particular subject so its basically ad talk mixed in with general thoughts about general things, probably just to myself for the moment as a record of my thoughts but maybe, one day, someone else might actually read this!