When I was growing up, I was in love with a magazine called ‘Viz’.Viz was basically a politically incorrect ‘comic’ featuring a whole host of charming characters including SID THE SEXIST, SPECCY TWAT, JOHNNY FARTYPANTS and the FAT SLAGS to name but a few.
However, as much as the strips were hysterical [and the letters page was sheer bloody genius] the bit’s I loved were their fake ads.
I won’t go into detail about them as there’s simply too many to mention – however if you have the chance to do a quick search, you should check them out because they’re bloody brilliant.
Anyway, years later when we started cynic, I approached some of the VIZ guys because I basically wanted to have them as part-time copywriters – however whilst that didn’t work out, we got friendly with quite a few of them and they helped us write our original website copy as well as our creds.
The reason I’m bringing this all up is because I’ve just come across an ad that on first glance, could easily of come from Viz in its heyday, except it’s not a joke – it’s bloody serious.
Yep the classic ‘before and after‘ shot … however in typical VIZ style, they bare no resemblance to eachother whatsoever.
OK, so I guess that is the point … but come on, this is ridiculous.
The ad is actually for a stretch mark treatment and once I worked out it was for real, I genuinely thought they’d got the pictures the wrong way round – but regardless of that, it’s abit bloody unfair, let alone unrealistic, to compare a picture of a woman heavily pregnant with how she ended up looking after giving birth.
[Plus we don’t actually get told when that AFTER photo was taken – it might be years later!!!]
It’s the equivalent of showing a picture of Arnie when he was aged 3 and then when he was in his Mr Universe phase and claiming some bloody nutri-shake for the effect.
To add insult to injury, at the bottom of the ad in very small print, there was the statement that there was no scientific proof that none-operational techniques could get rid of stretch marks.
So not only are the bastards going for the biggest exaggerated BEFORE AND AFTER since VIz’s Camilla Parker Bowles ‘Horse To Queen’ pisstake, but then they have the audacity to basically admit that everything in the ad is potentially false.
Seriously, someone at The Sun or The Sport should sign them up – or maybe even Viz – because these guys are hysterical though they’ve obviously got money to burn if they’re happy to spend a big wad on just taking the piss.
What next? Slimfast claiming Kate Moss used to be Bernard Manning?