Christmas TV adverts

Don’t you just love the build-up to Christmas? Tinsel in the shops when you get back from your summer holidays, Santa juxtaposed against pumpkins at Halloween, wall to wall TVM’s on Channel 5, and best of all, those wondrous TV ads that transport our imaginations to a winter wonderland where everything is perfect and magical and sparkly (at a price!)

 

Let’s not forget the highlight of the 2012 ad breaks which of course was the lovely Brad flogging Chanel no. 5 - ‘inevitable’.  In this mini masterpiece, you can actually see the exact second when his soul dies. This might even have topped Nicole Kidman’s effort from 2008 for the same brand (‘I’m a dancer!’) for cringe-worthiness.

This year’s selection box of perfume ads does of course tick all the boxes.  They are reassuringly glitzy, ridiculous (see Gaultier’s On the Docks for a classic example), infused with subliminal triggers and as a result, downright weird.  Charlize Theron as the ‘Icon incarnate’ must feel a bit silly having to say ‘J’adore Dior! ’in that ridiculous French accent (if it is indeed her) whilst walking into camera.  And then there’s the elephant trumpet noise about 30 secs into the soundtrack (a horny bull elephant I am reliably informed). What people do for money, eh?  Not that any of us mere mortals would turn it down if given the opportunity to earn a few mil for a day’s work.

The supermarkets have mainly gone for the angle of selling the dream of the perfect family Christmas (see Sainsbury’s for example).  I don’t know about you, but I have never experienced one of these. In fact, I can’t think of anyone who has.  Even when purporting to have had an enjoyable family Christmas, when asked, people say ‘yes, it was lovely thanks’.  You can tell in their eyes that what they mean is:’ it was okay; no-one killed anyone’.  Why do people put themselves through this hell on an annual basis with all the pressure of having to pretend to have a good time amidst a pile of unwanted knitwear, undercooked turkey and fights over the remote control?

The high street shop crop fair no better, ranging from flogging unattainable glamour and sexuality to sentimental twaddle. For example, the John Lewis offering – a very unchristmassy cover of a whiney song by the pointless Lily Allen provides the soundtrack for cute cartoon animals to hop about, and features a lame gift of an alarm clock. Are we meant to think ‘Ooh!  An alarm clock!  What an excellent idea for an original present.  That’s my Christmas list sorted.'

One thing that has puzzled me year after year is the sofa adverts.  Ignoring the fact that I don’t actually get the whole sofa thing (do people buy a new one every year or something?) why on earth do you have to order the damn thing in September to guarantee Christmas delivery?  I can go on Amazon (other on-line shopping sites are available) and order practically anything I want ranging from a book to a garden shed and have it delivered within a few days.  What’s so special about sofas?  It conjures images in my mind of a workshop full of elves frantically trying to fulfil a Christmas seating order backlog somewhere in Lapland.

Mind you, the retailers have done a sterling job of dragging us all into thinking about Christmas earlier and earlier every year.  I have noticed a worrying trend on social media over the past week which has led me to the conclusion that a lot of people now truly believe that Christmas starts on the first of December.  I even saw a post the other day with the banner ‘On the seventh day of Christmas....’  ‘No you knob head!’ I inwardly yelled, ‘It’s the seventh day of December! The festive season officially starts on Christmas day and lasts for 12 days from then!'

I blame America (well, why not?) After all, they now seem to have turned Thanksgiving into a sort of early Christmas, which appears to, consist of eating a huge dinner followed by four days of shopping.  We have the actual thanksgiving day on the Thursday, followed by Black Friday in which people actually die buying shit, then there’s’ Cyber Monday (also called Mega Monday and Tech Monday) just in case you haven’t spent enough in the shops, you can go mad on the internet to round things off nicely.

Happy shopping everyone!