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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
5 2 October 2016
ds are expensive and are intended to be
effective. They tend to bring up the spirit of
the age. So why are ads in 2016 so boring, so
annoying? Is our time sterile and passion-
less? Has consumerism become not just the
only lifestyle but the only idea? As Google pivots to world
dominion have our glistering global agencies started
employing yellowpack copywriters for TV and radio?
What happened to teaching the world to sing or taking
the horse to France? It’s as if no one
feels the need to be clever, to
provoke.
If I ask my nine-year-old daughter to
finish her greens she now recites ver-
batim the Ulster Bank ad until I relent.
“Help for the movers and for the shak
-
ers. Pure innovators. Help for the
dreamers. Help for the fingers that
work with the soil. For hands that know labour and
hands that know toil. From the swearing of vows to the
sharing of platters. It’s helping each other that’s help
for what matters”.
I forget about the uneaten brocolli and make for the
exit, my teeth grinding off my bleeding tongue.
The video is fine, it’s the verbal clichés: “movers and
shakers”; and the nonsense – "helping each other that’s
help for what matters". And coming from a bank, of all
unhelpful forces! Ulster Bank have now updated the, still
mediocre theme. The same over-extended, ever
ancient-hat shuffle with the universe: “It’s not just the
big things. Because helping each other is help for what
matters”. And they’ve been sponsoring RTÉ’s
'Drivetime'.
It’s all a bit like the ad for Specsavers where the car
gets bashed by the automatic garage door. “Dad, my car
is broken’. Or the bad toes in the Scholl nail ad.
How did it come to this? Aren’t they trying to get us to
like them, to do what they want?
Village doesn’t get any ads.
Here’s why.
What happened to
teaching the world to
sing and taking the
horse to France?
Ford
October 2016 5 3
Advertising was always about really bad mes-
sages “Coke: The Real Thing”, “I’m with the
Woolwich”. But the great agencies are now pur-
veying big messages that enshrine sweeping
bad advice.
Ford advised the great gormless brexited Brit-
ish public to “Unlearn everything”. Hyundai
implores us that “Change is good”.
And on what basis is Change Good? Because.
They. Say. That Change. Is. Good. “My name is
Hannah Ware [whoever that is. It turns out she
played Sara Hanley in the ABC primetime soap
opera 'Betrayal' (2013–2014)]. Acting allows me
to explore. To change. It’s the unexpected that
attracts me. Why? Because Change is good?
Hyundai because Change is Good”.
Were we not brought up not to do things
because of what others say? And isn’t change
often…well, bad?
Nor even with a honeying Jeremy Irons inton
-
ing it could it ever be true that 'better' and
'Sky' fit in the same sentence: “Sky.
Believe in better”. In fact Sky will
make you worse. George Hook
who did the ads a few years
ago was a better fit because
he knew that.
Less ambitious , though
intriguing are the pointless
ads that now drive our soul-
less private utilities.
Vodafone, I mean you. “Lovely
to finally meet you”. Ring any
bells? “What do you think she’d like
to watch? There’s someone I want you to meet.
Her name’s Sue. Hallo Sue. Oink Oink. Music.
Oink Oink Oink. Oh Suu-oo”. Or the other one
where the tv unwinds: “Oh we missed the
beginning”, and the whole ‘family’ troop through
the romantic cottage to get a fondle of the pig.
Joe.ie surmise that the story here is that the
canoodlers’ love-making is interrupted by the
quinquagenarian’s ex-wife, who he improvises
to call Mam to throw the innocent new girlfriend.
The fascination comes from the incongruous
ages. 50-year-old bloke, 30-year-old girlfriend,
so who can the 55-year-old fat one be? Lovely to
finally meet you indeed.
Phone companies struggle to assert anything
interesting simply because they are not:
“Brewing up a storm. That’s data as it
should be. 3”. Roll on the day
when, after a long lunch in
Dublin 2, 3 becomes 4.
More interesting though
hardly pinpoint relevant is
the dot.ie ad which, knowing
– like the gas-boiler com-
pany - that their whole
business is tedious focus
instead on some national paro-
dies: “You know you’re Irish when
you can’t stop talking about property
prices…you say like a lot, you call your mother
mammy”. Over 100 businesses sign up daily to
dot.ie the official website for Ireland. Official but
boring.
"Help for the
movers and for
the shakers. Pure
innovators"
5 4 October 2016
Car ads are the most loathsome, promoting
the smuggest, most damaging products that
cost the most. For these metal dinosaurs ano-
dyne messages are best: “It’s time to rediscover
Toyota. There’s never been a better time to buy
a Toyota”. “Renault: Passion for life”. Love that
colon.
The Mitsubishi Outlander apparently puts
“the Air into extraordinary, the spec into spec-
tacular. All other can take a back seat”. A. Back.
Seat.
“The all-new Hyundai Tuczon. It’s a game-
changer”. Isn’t game-changer a phrase you’d
dump your girlfriend for using – why is it being
used as if it was a good thing for a car to be?
Volvo at least has attempted to counter the
sterility of car advertising. Volvo “comes from a
different place”, “with a different mindset”,
trumping the others. “We care about
everyone”.
Ideally car ads –especially for SUVs – embrace
a status undertow.
The irritating VW Tiguan ad features cool kids
embarrassed by their parents followed by the
coolest of the kids with her cool dad, watched by
the other open-jawed cool ones. Knuckle bump.
“There’s never been a better time to buy VW”.
Unless you dislike implicating yourself in
lying, corrupt planetary destruction.
But that just tickles the skin when compared
to the Trivago Bunny. Pretty as pie yet some-
whow with no personality. “Remembah. Before
you book check on Trivaigo. Saive Thuddy puh
-
cent. Hotel. Trivaigo”. The ad misfires. Beautiful
surely, she just doesn’t seem much fun.
Pretentiousness seems to be a current vogue.
“Patrick is about to enjoy his third oyster of
the day” on the Atlantic Way when their ad inter
-
rupts him.
“Meadows and Byrne. And cushions and rugs
and al fresco dining. And the distant sound of
other people’s lawnmowers". Could this be a
pitch for people who think it’s poshest not to
mow? For Autumn the ad features Stephen Hawk-
ins Reading Keats' 'Autumn'…"Seasons of mists
and mellow fruitfulness".
"And here’s the tweeting of an actual bird".
For autumn "it’s an actual owl".
"And new store now open in Naas"…
I’ll load up the kids in the Tiguan. We can stop in
Kildare Village on the way.
Some ads deserve credit for subtlety. Who
loves Aldi? There’s nothing to love. And it’s
taking local jobs. Hence (from someone who
sounds like Ian Dempsey): “Aldi, I buy it”. If he
buys it why shouldn’t I? Or even better since you
can’t love it, it will be progress to like it: “Love
Life, Like Aldi”.
Some ads latch to a progressive political
cause and I’ll forgive them a lot.
“Because I’m a woman do you think I’m going
to crack under pressure. Always”. The same
tampon company promotes the idea that teen-
age girls should keep at sport. Bravo.
The stupid ones tend to annoy the most:
“The world belongs to those who dare. Alli-
anz”. Isn’t that an insurance company? In
practice, they will block you if you dare. They will
double your premium. If you want risk, insure
yourself with Quinn.
‘Earlier in the week my husband was in pain
and couldn’t move but not tonight. Voltarol’.
"Tonight’s all about us – Panadol".
What’s any of this got to do with a headache,
then?
When the product is cheap and cheerful
there’s scope to unleash real fingernail-down-
the blackboard irritation and no need to import
any elements of style. Recognise this one?
“The last quarter showed promise and in
terms of the economic forecast for the year
ahead it looks like… Forecast…economic bore-
cast more like. Just look at ‘em. Let’s go crazy.
Crunchie. Crave that Friday feeling. Obey your
mouth”.
Some ads get their own product wrong. The
Irish Times clearly doesn’t recognise its own sec-
ond-rateness. This exposes it to the risk of
smugness.
“The Irish Times. Own the Weekend. You are
what you read”.
A jaded and derivative mouthpiece for demi-
bourgeois South Dublin?
“Smithwicks since 1710. Superior then. Supe
-
rior now”.
Absolutely everyone will know it wasn’t, and
isn’t.
Worst of all are the purveyors of greed. A par
-
ticular detestation is the 'Late Late Show' holiday
competition, including its advertisement for a
well-known travel company. Shovelling loads of
cash at the everytown audience on premium
rates.
Some ads deserve ridicule for being short but
even still getting it wrong: “Neurofen Sinus.
Breathe easier”. Have they never heard of an
adverb?
Or being illogical: “It’s not funny when it’s
your money. Insurance Fraud”. It’s not your
money, it’s theirs.
Or the tv licence. Close listening shows they
just tell you to get one.
Some words are voguish: Passion.
The strapping Irishy Bord Bia guy who struts
around, cutting the joint and surveying his land
-
holding before pronouncing on an energetic
exhalation: “Food: It’s our Passion”.
A clever skit from Brady’s ham focuses on the
all-singing Irish guy but this one’s got a sense of
humour. Tesco don’t. “At Tesco we’re big on
bringing you 100% Irish meat 100% of the time.
For the car industry’s
metal dinosaurs
anodyne messages
are best: It’s time to
rediscover Toyota
October 2016 5 5
We’re passionate about Irish meat”. “Renault:
Passion”.
Some voices too are voguish. Who’s the guy
who used to do Vodafone and now does 3,
Supervalu and RTE, with an adolescent frog in
his throat? Son, you’re the voice of youth, 2016.
Posh never goes out of fashion: the ad for
Topaz Oil and its efficiency is posh.
That’s definitely a former Mount Anville girl
cheering her well-spoken heir in “go for goal,
Charlie” on behalf of mud-ambivalent Persil.
Yer wan doing the ad for La Boheme at the
Bord Gawsh has definitely seen the inside of the
Big Houses. “A Tale of life in Pahris”. You’ll hardly
go to the opera if you’re not toney, you see.
Posh and old is over-used also: Mr Kipling did
a line in it.
Alan Stanford is still good for panto-posh and
must rake in a good bit from it. Bill Golding, Rory
from Wanderly Wagon, does everything from the
Farmers Journal to Old Mister Brennan.
“I wasn’t her daughter any more I was her
carer but I didn’t have the time or the expertise.
All I could offer was love. But most of what I felt
was guilt. Then Sarah suggested home instead.
The names says it all. Homeinstead, senior care
to us it’s personal”. Tra la la. And the posh Mister
Kipling guy comes on crackingly: “Find out maw
at Homeinstead.ie”. Who’d want their old ones
in the hands of someone from the wrong side of
the tracks?
Then there are ads that have absolutely no
ambition. VHI. Boring but reassuring; “I’m from
New Zealand. I’m back at work. I’m actively play-
ing golf. I’m on a new path. My name is Trevor
and I’m glad I’m with VHI”. Good luck with your
new heart, Trevor.
"You’re amongst friends with Friends First".
Indeed of course all of the bank ads lack ambi-
tion – they don’t want to poke the hornets’ nest.
Of course production techniques are always
improving and some ads can move as well as the
best art. Ikea, consumerist icon and bane of
those who dislike the throwaway or queues in
warehouses, made the most evocative ad of
2016, assuredly summoning a grandmother’s
memories of the 1960s, and her prime, to invest
a lot in the little: always the best theme for guilty
admen.
It opens with a studio scene recalling how
painting a modest room felt to a newly-wed
couple – the grandmother and her dapper hus-
band - in the dappled, mottled, faded 1960s. We
follow them through middle and old age. A back-
yard badminton victory becomes, in her head, a
mixed-doubles win at Wimbledon. Buying a car
feels like driving in a Grand Prix race. An anni
-
versary dance was as good as performing on a
Broadway stage.
Adweek considers that: “Their shared experi
-
ence, though ordinary, brims with personal
triumphs and private joys. Nothing's insignifi-
cant. For them, life has been pure magic. Each
memory shines”.
Advertising: the wonderful everyday.
A backyard
badminton victory
becomes a mixed-
doubles win at
Wimbledon
