Has anyone else noticed that there seem to be an unusually high number of really bad adverts on TV at the minute? My current pet hate is the new Citroen C5 advert. Apparently, the car (not the ad) is “unmistakably German”. I’m not sure how the car is German – perhaps if they drove through Rome it would be “unmistakably Italian”? And what’s that got to do with it being made in France or not? I’m confused.

Is there a strange group of people out there that this advert appeals to? OK so perhaps I don’t “get it” because, being a 28 year old female (shhh, my birthday isn’t until the weekend), neither the car nor the advert is aimed at me. It seems I’m not alone though. Even the car enthusiasts don’t buy into the car adds if this fellow blogger is any kind of example: Link

However the kind of advert that is aimed at my demographic also puts me off the products, including, for example, the “Live Academy” – hair dye that is used by women “who need help” – psychological help? Or the new Teletext Holidays advert which seems to be advocating leaving your pets on their own when you go on your holidays.

And… while I’m on the subject, what kind of weird planning is going on when an advert for the release of Disney’s “Enchanted” on DVD appears in a break in the film about everyone’s favourite fictional serial cannibal, Hannibal. Who is that aimed at?

I admit I’m biased. I’m not a fan of advertising in general. Being a “PR Girl” it’s always more difficult to prove the value of what we do as we don’t get that guaranteed result, but (in my opinion) we do offer better value. The main reason is that we don’t mess about trying to be cool and expect our audience to dig through 100 layers of nonsense to work out what kind of message we’re trying to deliver. We tend to stick to a (hopefully subtle) point – “Our client does X. It’s useful/appealing to you because Y”.

Oh dear. The car advert is back on again now. What utter rubbish. Perhaps they’re trying to distract us from the fact that it’s an ugly car?