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Saturday 16 May 2009

"In a world where...."

I love television ads.

Okay, no, I'm not a complete moron, most ads are drek, and there are two strains of advertizing that seem to be on the rise right now that I detest -- one presents its target consumer as either idiotic, obnoxious or evil, thus telling the viewer that "if you are an imbecile, a boor, or a scoundrel, this product is for you!"
The other is just as deliberately disgusting as its pea-brained creators can imagine in order to get attention, (the miniature adult in the baby-carrier who says he like breast milk, for instance, fall in this category.)

But there's a lot of wit and visual imagination out there too.

And I particularly like film commercials (they actually save a lot of time and money, because for certain genres, every single frame of any interest makes it into the 30 second montage, no need to sit through the rest.)

I am fascinated by movie ads, and the practice of excerpting a phrase from a presumably non-partisan source, that seems to praise a novel, or television show or film, and that often, in context... well, to not quite.

But there's an ad I've seen and heard a lot recently that says, "better in every respect than...." the movie to which the current release if a sequel.

This cannot fail to be true.

But that is because the last one was the most colossal, inept bore imaginable, and I could be wrong, but I think almost universally acknowledged as such.

Why would anyone base an ad campaign essentially on the premise that "this isn't as bad as...."

Surely they could have found a better quote?
"This is better than that other pile of steaming dung" just isn't very persuasive.

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