Stuff and money

Well, it had to come up at some point, didn’t it? You can’t put an advert like that on TV and think that there wouldn’t be some discussion about its ridiculousness here. Anyone not living in the UK, thank your lucky stars that you have not been exposed to this advert.

There are plenty of awful awful things about this advert, it’s hard to know where to start. I guess we should start with Barbara Windsor, AKA Peggy Mitchell from Eastenders, or ‘Stenders, as it is *lovingly* known. I say *lovingly* with undisguised overtones of sarcasm. O god, she’s awful. If you don’t already know who she is, picture this.

She’s a bit too old for the bright blond piled-on-top hairdo that she sports. She’s small and, typically of small people, she’s very loud. And very rough-London. Her laugh is her most awful feature. It fires out, at five billion decibels, violating your ears with its machine gun fire-esque sound.

The advert in question is the latest in a series of adverts in which she wears brightly coloured court jester-type clothing and laughs a lot. “AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH!” Loud and insistent. Maybe she says some words too, I couldn’t tell you. I’m too busy recoiling from the TV in horror.

In this latest advert, maybe they’ve realised that no-one is listening to her words actually, because the whole advert consists of a song with two words.

The words are STUFF and MONEY.

And the song goes like this, are you ready for the inspirational genius-like work which must have gone into creating it?

Verse 1
Stuff stuff money money stuff stuff.
Stuff stuff money money stuff stuff.
Stuff stuff money money stuff stuff.
Money money money.
Stuff stuff!

Verse 2
Stuff stuff money money stuff stuff.
Stuff stuff money money stuff stuff.
Stuff stuff money money stuff stuff.
Money money money.
Stuff stuff!

Inspirational words, hey? From the song, I have concluded that it must be a betting place telling you what you can win if you give them all your hard earned cash. While this song goes on and on, SillyBollocksMachineGunLaugh sits on a big throne thing, grinning maniacally and kind of arm-dancing along with an audience, who are all up on their feet, clapping and cheering. There are also an array of strange inexplicable things and people on the stage with SillyBollocks, as though there’s a gameshow happening.

Now I don’t really know anything about the advertising world. Maybe approval is only needed from the boy who fetches the tea in the office, which explains how this awful advert made it into my front room. But I was under the impression that there are more levels of approval needed before it could be broadcast.

Someone must have thought it up, pitched the idea to their boss, taken it to a brainstorm meeting where all the ideas were presented, that one idea must’ve been picked (the ingenious idea to make it consist of just the words ‘stuff’ and ‘money’ must have been too persuasive), they must have had to get it approved to film and made it and watched it back and gone, “Yeh, this is really good.”

I just can’t understand why no-one stopped them at any point in that process and said, “Guys, you can’t make this advert, it’s crap.”