AdTurds was three recently, so I thought I'd better mark the occasion. I thought about mocking up an award of an actual turd - yer genuine Dirty Fido - and sticking it on a plinth, then going to the headquarters of not just the creative agencies but the companies in question and presenting them there.
Then I realised I didn't have the time, money, inclination or Channel 4 camera crew - to follow me around filming me failing to gain access to even the lift of those outfits before being ejected by security - to make such an endeavour worthwhile.
So I created an overview of the worst adverts that have been on the television since AdTurds hit the web. The ones that infuriate me; the ones I think are kinda despicable; the ones I simply think are total shit.
These are they. Feel free to add any you think I've missed. But they must be the absolute nadir. The ones that have you reaching for the remote, for ear plugs, for that loaded Smith and Wesson you just know is in your desk upstairs, next to the half-empty bottle of scotch...
Confused.com
The motherload. A series of adverts pulling every trick out of the bag - including what appears to be sexual molestation in its most recent ad - to make you sad, angry or possibly even dead.
The CIA used to blast horrible noises - rabbits being tortured and the like - at South American socialists; understanding that hideous, repetitive noises can be useful in driving people legitimately out of their minds.
It revived that trick when torturing Guantanamo detainees, using a mindless nursery rhyme to send prisoners round the bend until they started babbling a load of made-up nonsense just to make it stop.
That's what Confused.com does with its adverts. Only there is no end to it. If you use their service the adverts do not stop. Imagine being tortured. Imagine that, in an effort to make the torture stop you complied with the wishes of those inflicting pain on you. And then imagine that they keep torturing you anyway.
That's what Confused.com does with its adverts. They may be non-lethal weapons. But have you ever taken a Taser hit? They're non-lethal too.
Needless to say, this is an advert on a parallel with a binbag full of festering food remains and cat litter tray content bursting all over your freshly hoovered and washed kitchen floor. Then you fall over in the shit, get some in your eyes and mouth; stand up; slip on it again; bash your head on the corner of a work surface and die.
It's all of that. But I think it's how awful WeBuyAnyCar is in other respects that elevates it so:
BMW has a little bit of a brand problem - the public think they're cars bought by dicks. And while that may not be true it's not something you want to court. Why, then, show off two people who seem photo-fit descriptions of the word 'dick', smugging on about their brilliant lives?
Bad for a long, long time now - but who was your least favourite front person? Katona? Biggins? Donovan? Or Stacey Solomabs (as she's know by several AdTurds readers)?
For me Donovan was the front-man for the most offensive of the lot - an insane trip-fuelled odyssey through a nightmarish Lynchian world that provided an insight into what it might be like to experience a particularly vicious acid-induced mania. Genuinely hellish.
Kris Marshall never seemed a particularly charming feller to me - before the BT adverts he was chiefly known as a man who played an absolute bell-end in vile sitcom My Family. So, what better person to front your new, decades-long TV ad campaign?
Not only is the unlovely Marshall fronting these ads - he's pitched into a baffling, awkward step-family situation that someone at an ad agency obviously thought would be a neat reaction to the decline of the nuclear family. The end result is an advert that even nuns despise.
This is another company that I have a beef with, for what it does as well as how awful its adverts are. Hyper superannuated LOL! puppets playing techno and saying stupid things go some way to highlighting Wonga's target demographic.
Has anyone, anywhere ever welcomed someone noisily and aggressively interrupting a quiet moment that requires some level of concentration? The shock itself of a sudden loud noise, coupled with a group of people rushing towards you is enough to drive one to unthinking violence. But then it gets far worse - a little turd starts patronising you about your grooming rituals.
I'd like to see other private moments interrupted in this way in adverts. Perhaps someone on the bog, cracking one out in a shower - or balls deep in the missus perhaps?
"Woo! Hello buddy - how's your sex? Have you heard of Yorkshire Tea?"
It might be because Barclays spends so much time on making its rich clients even richer by locating arcane and unlikely tax loopholes that mean these people - people who have so much cash they literally shit it - can avoid paying taxes. Taxes spent on things like, oh, the NHS, schools and Portcullis House fig trees.
But it could also be these adverts, voiced by Stephen Merchant, that have been making people groan with the sort of nausea one associates with a migraine. The unwelcome, undeserved smugness of someone who doesn't know everyone hates them - precisely for being smug.
Cut almost from the same cloth is VanCompare's pitiful effort from a couple of years ago - the original write-up of which resulted in a torrent of hilarious abuse from idiot Sweet fans.
I made it up with VanCompare's CEO in the end - but this effort featuring The Sweet's Andy Scott remains possibly the most inept advert to grace TV screens for some decades.
In the same way that air-raid sirens once signalled imminent disaster, the rat-a-tat-tat beat of Here Come The Girls now heralds one of the most debilitating series of adverts to ever grace television. Stick on a tin hat, head down to the Anderson shelter and await faceless death from above.
Finally, the montage you've been waiting for. All the memorable bits from the BT family adverts, especially the bit where Adam and Jane tell all their family and friends that Adam is dying from an incurable disease.
Curiously, there's no appearance from the one that got banned for BT exaggerating the speed of their internet provision. And there's the bit where Adam and his stags watch some hardcore Swedish grumble together. Charming.
I think it's utterly insane that people actually want to watch this stuff, but then again over 10,000 have people have watched it on Youtube. So what do I know.
Why on Earth anyone would want to do this is beyond me, but there you go.
As for AdTurds readers, they voted for Adam throttling himself with his phone cord in frustration at BT's poor customer service, narrowly edging out 'Jane is constipated'.
But if all that's a little too scatological for you, here's the amazing suggestions that BT really liked on its site:
I feel Jane should be pregnant scared and confused. Of course it is Adam's and Adam is over the moon he jumps on the plane flies over and says lets get married....NOW! The whole family goes to a registry office and gets married ! It then jumps forward 9 months to show the baby and they are all smiling and phoning their family x
I think that Adam and Jane should marry, have a baby and become a nice family. I also think that Jane's ex will also find a new partner for himself and also have a child then all can meet up on a regular basis and be friendly for the sake of the children.
Jane's ex-husband will text her and say we need to talk about the kids, they should meet up and he will tell Jane he still loves her and wants to make it work and then he will kiss Jane
Fucking fascinating we're sure. Here's some suggestions from viewers on BT's own Youtube page. The first is the 'most popular' response.
I don't know whether this is heroic social media chops from BT or heroically insane to allow comments like this, but there you go:
Jane continues to rub her stomach, dropping the phone to the floor. Her right hand goes to her breast, stroking and teasing her nipple softly. The camera pans back.
Jane's left hand has slipped under the waistband of her trousers. Her hand moves further in, her fingers quite obviously stroking and rubbing her most intimate area.
A low sultry gasp escapes her lips, her right hand moving from her breast, sliding under the pillow for her vibrator....
what happens next ? I know ! he finds out that his best mate and her and having a affair and well he aint happy ! so what he does is get a knife and go round her house and stab her 57 times in the belly killing her and the baby in her !
then he robs 30 banks in a row give all the money to NASA so that he can fly up to the moon. On the moon he meets 5 aliens who are planning to blow up Earth and he decided to help them.
The line suddenly goes dead - they ring the BT faults department and find out that there's a fault at the exchange! It turns out that an engineer accidentally disconnected her line when they were turning on a neighbour's broadband connection.
Cue a montage of them on the phone to the faults department and checking the fault status on the website, lifting the receiver to see if it is working yet, days flying off a calendar. The advert ends with the woman sobbing and rocking gently in the corner.
Once people start voting on the outcome of ads they are finished as human beings!
Adam meets up with Jane at the weekend. Jane is acting weirdly. Adam is cautious, but in an instant, a chestburster alien bursts out her chest. But instead of attacking Adam instantly, it fuses with Jane's bottom, to become an evil alien hybrid known as the Jane-uss.
The Jane-uss leaps at Adam, but Adam manages to whip out his wang in time, firing several litres of acidic ninja sperm at Jane-uss. The Jane-uss subsequently is impregnated creating the Ninja-Sperm-Jane-Uss Alien Hybrid.
The End
All of which seems far more entertaining to us. Anyway, here's the stunning reveal:
BT seems to be labouring under the illusion that we're all on the edge of our seats, wondering what manner of fascinating event the next exciting installment of the BT family will bring.
The Adam and Jane saga has wended its tiresome way across our screens for five years now, with the tiresome inevitably of a semi-regular bout of the shits.
There's been a few suggestions that the series, not even derailed when Kris Marshall was run over by a car, is coming to an end, and now this gimmick where we're being asked to vote on what happens next.
As Jane spends the advert being hormonal and rubbing her belly, it's fairly obvious that the choice involves pregnancy. Those who actually bother to log on to the BT website will be met with this earth-shattering choice:
A> Jane is pregnant
B> Jane isn't pregnant
Replies on BT's own Youtube channel have a few more interesting suggestions, suggesting the general public aren't especially enamoured of the couple. They include:
My idea is that he goes into her facebook account and discovers she's a crack whore with loads of clients. He poses as a client wearing a Mexican wrestling mask and drills her in the bum mercilessly until she explodes.
Miscarriage
I vote for a termination
How about, Jane comes home to find Adam balls deep in the daughter, then BT get a huge surge of new customers in Norfolk
She dies in childbirth
And they're among the more considered choices. There's always a certain amount of this sort of thing that goes on when companies open up their marketing campaigns to the public, but BT has rather misjudged the mood in my opinion, with the public ripping an unloved company and unloved campaign.
Given that BT's options amount to something of a Hobson's Choice, I've compiled a few myself. Vote below on your favourite.
