That bloody Berocca advert!

I was sitting in my living room the other day in a brand spanking new pair of pants (underwear ’pants’ as opposed to trouser ‘pants’) when an ad came on the telly that sent me hurtling back in time to a period when I was a very irritable young man; about nine months ago I reckon.

For the two people in the world who haven’t seen it this is a bloody brilliant 2006 music video by OK Go for their single ‘Here it Goes Again’. The Holy Wikipedia tells of the 17 takes required to capture these three minutes of Trish Tsie choreographed genius. The video is an ever-so-slightly higher budget sequel to the arguably even more brilliant ‘A Million Ways’ video. Both showcase indie-pop gems mimed by bald OK Go bassist Tim Nordwind and not hairy-headed OK Go singer Damian Kulash. Both videos are static single shots. Both videos are magic.

Fast forward a couple of years to school summer holidays 2008 and I’m sitting down to watch the brilliant Wall-E at the cinema surrounded by a bunch of offloaded spoiled brats. I’ve never been one to sit comfortably through the stream of pre-feature garbage they throw at you in cinemas. Regardless, this particular cinema experience is more uncomfortable than you would expect, and it has nothing to do with the little shoeless kid whose feet smell like Billingsgate Fish Market. Some bloody bastard has filmed, as an advert, four people dancing around on treadmills to a catchy indie-pop song (‘Living on the Ceiling’ by Blancmange) and whacked a glass of orange piss-dyeing liquid into the mix. There’s even the bald protagonist for comic value. Berocca it claims makes you feel like “you, but on a good day”. Not today then. Not after witnessing daylight robbery! Well, projector light robbery at the very least. How blatant is this?

I assume, unless bloggers are blind or senile, that this must be one of the most blogged about topics on the net. It has taken me a good few months to blog about it as I didn’t have a blog at the time. However, I wanted to go on record and blog with my two pennies worth.

Uhum… JWT advertising agency; you shameless, uninspired, ethic-less sacks of steaming devil-turd. The fact that a “professional advertising agency” would identically reproduce an artist’s concept insofar as to use the exact same choreography while trying to pass it off as their own work is insulting enough. The fact this “professional advertising agency” would feel they could raise production value through use of montage technique points to artistic ignorance, lack of appreciation, or at best laziness. The fact that this “professional advertising agency” would use said concept to promote a pharmaceutical firm such as Bayer simply adds insult to injury.

Why, oh why is this travesty still being broadcasted onto my telly? Blog over.

KennyX