The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Thanks to Age, I can now lead you to the bollocks television commercial for the Nurofen ad I slagged off here.

Go and see it then come back and read the rest of this post.

Off you go then  …

Back? Already?  Did you really watch it?

Alright … alright … I believe you.

Wasn’t it a total pile of bollocks.  Seriously shit?

Well now read what the CD of EURO says to justify his abomination on society …

“We not only wanted to give the product an elite positioning, but we wanted to use humour and suspense for cut-through and engagement. We believe we have redefined what has up until now been a very predictable category”.

OK … I have some issues with all this.

1. WHAT THE FUCK IS ELITE ABOUT THAT POSITIONING?

Seriously, blatantly ripping off a shit movie from 8 years ago is hardly progressive and high-end.

Come to think of it – what does ‘elite positioning’ actually mean in the first place?

2. WHERE IS THE HUMOUR?

I’ve watched and re-watched the ad and have come to the conclusion the only people who would find it funny are the sort of sad-fucks who stay in on a Saturday night to watch “[Insert Country] Funniest Home Videos”

3. WHERE IS THE SUSPENSE?

I’ve had more edge-of-the-seat moments watching the ‘Antiques Roadshow’ than that 30 seconds of crap could ever produce.

Now I appreciate Rowan [the CD of Euro] has to defend his work – but if he really believes that is great advertising [even in the shitty ‘headache pill category’] then I suggest he takes 500 Nurofen or however many it takes to stop him talking absolute fucking shite in the public domain.

I HATE this sort of thing – especially as the mediocre-middle-management-client probably believes it’s truly ‘cutting edge’ mainly because the slimey account management team told them “THERE’S NOTHING LIKE THIS IN THE CATEGORY” and they blindly took this as a ‘good thing’.

Well it’s not a good thing and it’s not a good ad.

It’s not interesting, engaging, humouress, suspenseful, cut-through, engaging or motivating. Infact it’s shit in every way possible … utilising all the cliche elements a brand with nothing to say falls back on in a desperate bid to justify their outrageous media spend when all they are really doing is investing in audio and visual pollution/wallpaper that either is being avoided or laughed at by the general public.

[By the way, can anyone explain to me why after she set off the alarm, she did a bunch of fucking cartwheels rather than just run over to the fucking jewellery? And what a surprise, another ad making men [security guard] look total thick fuckwits. ARGH!]

This isn’t advertising … it’s badvertising … and I hate everything and everyone who had something to do it.

[Though to be fair, the TVC does have better production values than the print, which is what the original rant was all about, hahaha. Mind you, this leads to another HATE of mine … which is when a print ad is basically a still from the TV ad. When will companies learn that isn’t idea intergration, that’s fucking execution duplication – and I’ll be going on a humungous rant about that when I’ve calmed down from this heaving pile of shit!]

Alot of people think individuals who talk about ‘high production values’ are the sorts of tossers who only drink red wine, wear black turtlenecks, watch independent movies and dine on alfalfa sprouts or mung beans.

They think these people are arrogant, condescending and out-of-touch with what the general public needs … wants … appreciates.

Alot of clients also seem to think ‘production value’ translates to ‘agency making more money’ and are becoming more and more miserly with their budgets … whilst simultaneously being more and more demanding in their expectations.

Now while I’ve met some individuals who suit those character-assassination attributes … and there’s been more than one agency that has raped a client interms of production costs … the reality is that how communication ‘looks’ can have an incredible impact on how well it resonates with society.

Don’t get me wrong … I’m not advocating style over substance … nor am I saying clients should continually give in to spiralling production costs … and I am certainly not equating ‘high production value’ with cliché-driven ‘status’ communication … I am just saying that if you don’t appreciate the importance of ‘visual treatment’, you can end up with something like this …

For those who don’t know what it is … it’s supposed to be a ‘take’ on the Catherine Zeta-Jones / Sean Connery movie ‘ENTRAPMENT’ [which came out in 1999] … except they’ve used a fat chick with a J-Lo arse and the most convoluted ‘back pain’ shot ever. It makes Nurofen look like a cheaper-than-cheap ‘own-brand’ and demonstrates …

1 The client had a small budget

2 The client was told/felt it this ‘idea’ [used VERY loosely] only required a small budget

3 The agency didn’t realise this was a shit execution

4 The creatives forgot the importance of production value – so if the idea needs money to make it ‘work’ [and the client hasn’t got it] … it’s better to think of a new concept or try and increase the clients budget [which this idea obviously DOESN’T DESERVE] than to go ahead and produce this sort of monstrosity.

However, as Nurofen seem happy to produce god-awful, lowest-common-denominator-of-imagination work, I’ve come up with my own executions which I am more than happy for them to use for a fee – and I can be dammed sure it’ll cost a hell of a lot less than their agency charged them for this bollocks. 

Sort it out Nurofen – your ads shouldn’t give people a headache, unless that is part of some cunning sales strategy! Ha!

Mind you, whereas these are just some crappy spoofs from my crappy brain – a few years ago we did a rather fun [and controversial] ad for Panadol in India …

[The line say’s “ONE IS ENOUGH”]

Then there was the spot we shot in Oz which showed a queue of people waiting to drink from the Holy Water because they all said it made them feel so good … however when the camera panned upwards, you could see 10 monks dropping Panadol by the bucketload into the stream where the Holy water was taken from. 

Nice idea but got banned, hahaha!

So Nurofen and your agency … the ball is now in your court … up your game or face more shame! [… and that wasn’t supposed to rhyme!]