Advertising Standards Bored.

I wrote this today when I was shackled to the switchboard at work, not for any real purpose and not knowing what to do with it. Then I remembered that ads kind of come under the category of television, so I published it here, even though the list is a bit South Australia-centric (it appeared in The Advertiser - make the most of every day!) and nobody apart from me and three other guys live in Adelaide.

So the ten most offensive ads according to the Advertising Standards Board (how do you get on this board, I ask you) of 2008 were:

1. The one with the dad vomiting into the toilet and the little girl asking if he’s okay. While I generally find these “shock” ads to be a bit flaccid, especially if they’re government funded (yeah, thanks Government for telling me what’s cool and what isn’t), this particular series of ads I think are really effective. All the losers who get ill at the sight of dramatised violence and, in this case, vomiting into a porcelain bowl: like, grow a pair, maybe? And perhaps realise that your response was precisely the point of the ads in the first place.

2. A billboard for erectile dysfunction advertising ‘longer lasting sex’, which was altered after complaints about the word ‘sex’ flooded in. Right. I have to drive past this billboard when I go down Goodwood Road and I think, if anything, the ad is even more stupid and lame after the heinously shocking word was redacted, just because it’s such a stupid thing to censor when the whole ad is vile. I hate being reminded that some men, much older and grosser than me, either blow their load too soon or can’t get it up in the first place in the boudoir. Keep your unnatural and manhood-impugning afflictions to yourselves, okay?

3. That ad for tampons or pads (or whatever), featuring the woman taking her beaver around and treating it to manicures, etc. Not that offensive. Certainly not as offensive as those rubbishy feminine hygiene ads featuring the guy who naively asks his girlfriend what the mysterious pad in the bathroom is used for, and then reacts with disgust when enlightened by his exasperated girlfriend. Sexist cocks in the media, I hate you all.

4. Some ad that I’ve never seen before and therefore cannot comment on.

5. The Ingham’s chicken ad which says ‘if you don’t like chicken, there’s something very wrong with you’. Ummm…. All I can say to this is: If you don’t like chicken, there really IS something wrong with you. Even vegetarians sometimes cheat and eat chicken, and I don’t begrudge them for a second because chicken is the best meat ever.

6. Oh, THIS one I hate. The ad for Adam internet with that fat naked guy. EWWW. I had to turn my head in revulsion whenever this ad came on. Seriously, it’s tacky when ads feature gratuitous nudity to sell something that isn’t related at all to nudity (water bottles, for instance), let alone when the naked people are FAT, HAIRY MEN. Ick.

7. The ad on Foxtel with the parents trading their belligerent child for a better one. Are people kidding? This ad is gold! The first time I watched it, right before the punchline I was thinking ‘ho hum, this ad sucks, they’re going to trade the kid’s toy for something better’ but in a comic twist worthy of Shakespeare the parents trade the kid instead. Cue ROFLs.

8. Those boring ‘creeper’ commercials targeting speeding drivers. At first I found them a bit creepy, and wondered whether they were a teaser trailer for some horror movie, but then when the reality of the ads’ intention became obvious, it was a bit like… oh. Meh.

9. Another ad I’ve never seen.

10. Those absolutely insipid KFC ads with the one joke in the whole series: essentially, one guy is munching on a spicy KFC wrap, and the other guy asks how it is, and the first guy turns and slaps the dude in the face, ostensibly to demonstrate the taste explosion occurring in his mouth as a result of the KFC twist. I detest these ads. Not because I hate violence; just because they’re stupid and tacky and boring boring boring. If I had an aneurysm one day and decided to ask a random person about the KFC they were eating, and they responded by slapping me, I’d surgically remove their testicles/ovaries.

I guess you could treat this post as a trailer for The Gruen Transfer, which I love, the second season of which is due to premiere... some time this year! Wow, informative.