You’re Crying at Adverts
So it’s November which means a host of Christmas adverts have already been on for about three months. It’s very fashionable to complain about Christmas adverts – the forced joy of child actors, the plastic looking food on a gigantic table in an advert that assumes we spend the holiday period in the castle from Duck Tails – and it’s become a thing to highlight it.
‘Corr, Christmas, eh? AGAIN? Ha! Are we right? I mean: *sigh*, right? Anyway, buy this sofa.’
Which is fine – or, at least, it fits in with the general evil nature of advertising as a whole. It’s responding to a social consciousness, while being far enough away from Christmas to underline how early it is but also able to lever in a Yuletide reference via an unnaturally smiley woman. It’s fairly standard, generic, slimy, disgusting nonsense from a company who would spit on your children if it meant earning another pound.
This anti-advertising, as it isn’t known, is however infinitely better than the actual Christmas adverts out at the moment. Let’s start with Michael Bublé – and when I come to power, trust me, he is someone I will find myself ‘starting’ with when I release the bears into the pit – and the as ever arm bitingly bad Iceland adverts. Not content with ruining Autumn with their depiction of a new love interest between a red haired woman and a leather faced man who works at the supermarket as a van driver, they continue the intriguing saga into winter and the holiday period; attending a party (via sled!) at a log cabin. There is a brass band and a buffet, and to complete the alliteration, Bublé. He’s not actually there – they spent all their money on the log cabin and weird fried prawn snack things (seriously, have a look at those things, they look like a fish drowned in dried whale vomit) – but his voice certainly is.
Iceland – Welcome to the Fuck Lodge
His version of Jingle Bells is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard. If he’s not drunk then he’s jacked up on something else. It’s not jazz, it’s nonsense. It’s not a ‘new’ version, it’s the same song but done very badly. Every time it sounds like he’s regained control of the song and is about to sing in time he seems to lose it again, leading me to conjure an image of Mike scrambling around the studio picking up the lyrics he just dropped, making the order up as he goes along because he’s only got the money for one take and the producer is already looking kind of flaky. It’s so terrible.
Continuing the theme of nonsense, Marks & Spencer went for an Alice in Wonderland/Wizard of Oz vibe, and it’s fair to say they succeeded in one thing: when you see the start of the advert, you know you’ve got a good amount of time to go and put the kettle on, or make a roast, or paint your bedroom, or build a cathedral. It’s so long!
M&S – How Magical!
But that’s not to say it isn’t completely worthwhile: what a story you get. A woman’s dog falls down a manhole, then she falls down the same manhole (clumsy), then she hallucinates a series of events. She eats dinner with a man who has a top hat and has a beard made of felt, in front of a table of food and gifts with instructions on them (the food says ‘Eat Me’ by the way, just in case) and a final meeting with Helena Bonham Carter who is playing a witch. MERRY CHRISTMAS, MY PRETTIES! Don’t you feel just so festive now? Presumably this is playing out in her mind as she spends Christmas in an institution.
Tesco have gone for the nostalgic angle, splicing together a series of home videos of one family whose members have aged just 3 years over the course of two decades, save for a strikingly bright streak of grey in the mother’s hair. All those Christmas days and not one of her nearest and dearest has bought her that hair dye she clearly needs. Maybe it’s just an unspoken family thing, like when she caught their youngest smoking or when grandma put her handbag in the bin towards the end.
Tesco – THE VOYEUR
We’ll also ignore the fact that they’re playing outside in the middle of winter.
Morrisons have decided to steal the ‘See My Vest’ song from The Simpsons, which immediately makes them the most evil thing ever. In fact, they’ve not even tried to hide it – it even has the same rhyming structure. Ant and Dec sit around a table of food – again, in a rather grand setting from Duck Tails – and proceed to eat the lot like the fat sell-outs they really are.
Morrisons – Be PJ and Duncan’s Guest
The only thing you can do to combat it is sing over the top of it. ‘These slippers are albino, African endangered rhino…’
Before my final point may I just point out that anybody who says ‘it’s officially Christmas now!!’ after seeing the Coca Cola advert will be sent into the bear pit after Bublé.
And so we get to John Lewis. Okay, obvious choice, easy target seeing as they seem to throw all their money into one advertising campaign. No longer is Christmas No.1 sought after (either X Factor or the anti-X Factor brigade will usually prevail and preoccupy the hoards of idiots who need help tying their own shoes), instead it’s about having the longest, cuddliest, warmest feeling advert. Three years ago, in 2010, they produced this, which not only paved the way for more sentimental adverts but also ruined a perfectly good song by having Ellie Goulding quaver her way through it. In 2011, they had the kid who couldn’t wait to give his present to his mother, with a chilling final scene where he stares at her in bed with a present in hand like the kid from the Omen. The advert was all about the kid and his impatience for Christmas Day, but not for what YOU thought, you fucking idiot! He doesn’t give a shit about his OWN presents! He wants to give HIS present to HIS parents! Shame on you. For shame. You scum.
Last year, of course, was the case of the snowman who set off on a long journey in order to buy gloves and a hat to murder his wife, so he could run away with the young, sexy snow-woman he met at badminton club. Or something. It was clearly a reaction to the previous two years’ success with the idiots who claimed to have cried at their Christmas offerings.
Now, let me just tell you, that if you are crying at a Christmas advert, you are dangerous to the world. Nobody should be that highly strung without being on some sort of register banning them from ever owning a gun. Seriously. If you are so emotionally affected by the marketing for a shop, then you should really try and dry hump the guy who stands with the giant McDonald’s sign down Oxford Street instead of crying at a John Lewis advert.
This year it’s a cartoon offering with – shock – a twinkly version of a song, sung by a popular female artist who won’t be named because I thought she was remotely cool once. Again, the actual substance of the advert isn’t anything bad, it’s the reaction. Look at the comments – one of the first I see is a man defending the advert with the sort of outburst that is reserved for depressed mothers. Come on – if you are going to pour your heart out over a drawn animal, then people are going to take the piss or do their best to ruin it for you. It’s how the world works and if you are not 7 then you should be aware of that by now.
John Lewis – The Bear and the Hare and the pit Buble is thrown into
I love Christmas, I really do. I love the notion of spending long days indoors with friends and family and not feeling even remotely claustrophobic or riled by people’s presence, instead coming together and getting battered on anything you can find and eating without reason or limits. That’s great. But keep the television off please.
Moan. 
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