Baby you can drive my car...

Someone I follow on Twitter, not mentioning any names (@Sir_Rants_Alot) is responsible for this post.  This morning on my journey into work I was sitting on the train, totally minding my own business and he tweets “Girl on the platform smiled”.  That was enough to have the bloody song from that match.com advert going round in my head OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND I CAN’T GET IT OUT.

This got me thinking about my favourite adverts over the years.  I am relying purely on memory here, because I gathered that if I couldn’t remember the advert then it clearly wasn’t one of my favourites.  Obviously there are the ones that everyone went mental over at school, such as the Budweiser adverts – I like the frogs saying BUD, WEIS, ER  and clearly the best one was the guys on the phone shouting WASSSSSSSSSSUP – if I had a pound for everyone that had said that to someone else on the phone over the years, i’d be the female Donald Trump (with slightly better hair hopefully).

Here is a low down of my favourite ads:

The iTunes adverts where you had the black silhouettes dancing around to different songs with the multi coloured background.  I even liked the Paul McCartney one where he sung Dance Tonight and the background was like being on acid – that’s really saying something too because I HATE PAUL MCCARTNEY!!!! 

I LOVE the advert Sienna Miller is in for Boss Orange.  I love the song (a rehash of Drive My Car by the Beatles) and I know a few people that think the ad is really bent and I don’t even particularly like Sienna Miller, but I just like the advert – she looks so happy at the end, and it MUST be because she is wearing Boss Orange, there is literally no other explanation for it.

The John Lewis ad that had 90% of women in absolute bits.  You know, the one where it starts off with a baby and then goes through her whole life until she is a grandma walking along with her matrimonial sausage and her grandkids.  My sister was pregnant at the time this ad was on tv and she said it got to the point where she couldn’t even watch it as it used to make her cry, which is understandable when you are hormonal I suppose.

Another one of my favourites is by none other than Burger King.  The guy is sitting down like he is talking to a date, but he’s actually talking to himself, basically saying he got a surprise and at the end he’s like “A STEAKHOUSE ANGUS” in a squeaky voice and is all excited about it – that always makes me laugh.  Can't find a video of it though, sorry :(

There are also a few I don’t like at all.  The Go Compare adverts for example, SO ANNOYING.  I wasn’t keen on the Compare the Market ads with that stupid Meerkat that just WON’T DIE, and I also hate that STUPID STUPID advert for Envirofone, the one where the fat bloke goes WONNNGGAAAAAA.  I hate that advert so much.  I also tend to dislike any adverts for things like loan companies, WE BUY ANY CAR, mazuma mobile etc – all the adverts you can tell cost about £10 to make and just have someone REALLY annoying in them because it’s cheap and gets your attention.

The Dairy Milk adverts all got a bit random for a while too... the Gorilla playing the drums to “In The Air Tonight” by Phil Collins was random but amazing, but the following one with all the stupid cars driving around to “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen was just weird.

There is one advert that I was left a bit disappointed by.  I can’t remember what it is for (Sainsburys maybe?  Effective marketing anyway...).  They have a couple, one where a dad and his kid are making a cake, and another where the dad that has a day out with his kid... he takes him on a train to the seaside and they are mucking about, and then they get home and fall asleep together on the sofa when the mum walks in.  I initially first watched that advert on mute, and I thought it was the same as the Waitrose advert – I must have been having a bit of a bad day, because I actually cried watching that advert for the first time!  The next time I saw it though I realised the song in the background was ‘Bare Necessities’ from the Jungle Book, and it totally made the advert not that sad anymore.  It was a bit of a disappointment really, I like crying over adverts...

I’ve asked my Twitter followers (as usual, interactive blogging) what their favourite adverts are, and have had quite a few responses.

The general consensus is that most people tend to like adverts that are funny.  A few of the examples are:

1.   The McDonalds advert where the woman is having a baby scan and her husband is late and she’s fuming, then he tells her he got a McChicken Sandwich for £1 and she isn’t annoyed anymore. 

2.   The Dairy Milk advert where the kids wiggle their eyebrows up and down.

3.   The advert for Hainoken where the woman is showing her friends around her new house and they all squeal when they see her walk in wardrobe, and then you see the blokes all screaming when they see the massive fridge full of Hainoken – that’s a good one.

4.   The Cow & Gate ad where all the kids are laughing – it’s a relatively good ad and I defy ANYONE to watch it without laughing at them too.

5.   Usain Bolt for Virgin Media, pretending to be Richard Branson.

Clearly having been a keen media student I know the power of good marketing and why adverts are SO important, but it’s important that an advert makes it very clear what product/company is being advertised.  I would personally never produce an advert with just music, as I know that 9 times out of 10 when adverts are on I am doing something else so i’m not watching the screen, i’m just listening.  Surely an ad is pretty pointless if by the end of it you remember what happens but can’t remember what the advert is for? 

What are your favourite adverts?  Are there any you love that I haven’t mentioned?!  My friend Charlie loves singing along to all the adverts when we are watching tv, she does it ALL THE TIME hahaha!