Merry war, Christmas is over.

Merry war, Christmas is over.

January 4th, 2011 // 4:00 pm @ andy // 6 Comments

HELLO THERE. Sorry to shout but I’ve been away so long I thought I’d better make my presence felt. First of all, how are you? Had a good Christmas? New Year? Yes? Oh good. Me too thanks. Oh, you know, quiet. Family and all that stuff. Still, good to be back isn’t it? It isn’t? Oh well, suit yourself. Come on, it’s a brand new year and there’s lots to look forward to. More VAT on everything, more libraries closing down, loads of charities losing funding and a shitload of shit new ads all over your telly. Great innit?

Looking on Twitter, ( as I have done lots over the Christmas break ), it seems the TV ad that’s really getting on everyone’s twits at the moment is that new ‘More Than Freeman’ spot. ( Well three spots actually but I can’t be arsed with more than one of them. )

Everyone seems to have an opinion on it. Sadly, the reaction I’ve had has been that kind of speechless despair usually reserved for terrorist atrocities, natural disasters, famine and the like. Quite simply, I don’t know where to start with it. Everything, every single thing about the ad leaves me open-mouthed and bewildered.  The impression’s dodgy enough but when you want to wax eloquent with what is essentially long copy in the voiceover, taking care over the words might be nice. I mean, it’s all a bit cack-handed isn’t it? What does that ‘whole red army marching back to Moscow’ bit actually mean? It doesn’t really suggest anything roof-tile related to me. More it seemed a good line at the time so may as well use it, which seems to be a bit of a theme. I feel sure that somewhere within the guilty agency or even client side ‘More Than Freeman’ was a completely brilliant gag. For about 15 seconds. How it ever became the huge production it now is completely beyond me. Perhaps when I can bring myself to leave the ad on without changing the channel I’ll ‘get it’ and form a more coherent statement that I can put on the blog. Till then I’ll continue banging my head on my desk and considering a career outside of advertising.

In all honesty though, I think I’ve found one that’s much, much worse. It’s the new Co-operative campaign, brought to us, ( it pains me to say ), by TWBA Manchester. In these things the two, equally detestable, halves of a couple give us a list of all the things they hate about shopping and all the things they’d rather be doing. That is to say, walking hand in hand along a rainy beach, throwing each other up in the air or, heaven forfend, having sex. Apparently, shopping at the co-op will somehow mean that you miss all the shitty stuff and have loads of walks, loads of throwing about and loads of middle-aged sex. It’s just not right is it? And, having looked at the pair of them, I’d really, really sooner be down the shops.

(TBWA Manchester reveals multimillion pound local Co-operative campaign from How-Do.co.uk on Vimeo ).

And another thing. I don’t like the way that bloke calls me ‘darling’ at the beginning and ‘gorgeous’ at the end. Perv.

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