Entertainment For Lively Minds
Do all adverts have to have a breathless indie girl singing?
Posted by PaddyH on 1 October 2010 - 9:07pm.
I've noticed that the advertising industry seems to be using a soundtrack of offbeat indie girls in recent months to punt any number of things.
It follows the relatively recent trend for mobile phone companies using up tempo new wave/ indie (Dandy Warhols and The Only Ones) and a few other trends I can't summon the interest in to look-up.
So after Nivea used Kaki King covering The Cure to hawk skin cream, here's two more.
Does any one here work in advertising? How these trends happen?
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Fiji tourism ad
This is one doing heavy rotation here, seems to be along the lines of what you are describing.
This one's getting on my nerves atm...
90% of contemporary ads will contain one of these elements...
● Feyer-than-fey singer-songwriter with kooky "I grew up listening to Joni Mitchell (S Club 7, actually) but sound like a cutesy cutesy five-year-old" voice
● Jaunty whistling
● Nursery rhyme tune that even a total imbecile could remember after one hearing
● Tasteful use of electronica
● Animated nuclear family skipping up hillside to their dream home on a beautiful summer day
● Voiceover mentioning without fail "caring", "sharing" or "responsible" business practice
The trickery of those that sucketh on Satan's cock. Do not fall for their insidious blandishments.
Some good points,
but be careful what you wish for. I have no scientific evidence to back this up, but I'd be willing to bet that the likes of 'Go Compare' has much greater recall value than the type of ads described above. Equally, the much lampooned Cillit Bang ads (Bang! and the Dirt is Gone!), Ronseal 'does exactly what it says on the tin' etc. So, given that advertising is always with us, you pays your money and you takes your choice...
Certainly, ads for the likes of Guinness, Apple and Honda exhibit fantastic creativity and high production values. I have hugely enjoyed these ads over recent years but have not felt compelled to buy a Honda, do not have a Mac and Guinness, well...
My favourite advert
is 'We Buy Any Car' or at least it's the only one I can remember
I get more annoyed by
the constant stream of adverts involving golden showers of corporate "we" - surely this has reached saturation point?
Winsome female singer-songwriter for advert soundtracks...
... is the equivalent of the standard-issue soft Scottish/Irish female voice used for 90% of voiceovers - "nice", vaguely likeable, unlikely to offend anyone...
Currently an awful one doing the rounds
I would echo Patrick, above.
At the moment I am trying to avoid a new one for a brand of skin cream which features as its soundtrack the worst of those traits mentioned. Lazy voiced, kooky, female drawling to a simple yet truly awful melody. Is it the Kaki King one mentioned?
Either way it's terrible.
Kudos to Halifax for replacing one appalling ad campaign (Howard singing) with another even worse. The eye-gougingly awful radio station one. ISA ISA Baby. Fuck off.
Halifax
The only advertiser to drive me into the arms of their competitors by their advertising.
ISA ISA Baby
That sounds horrific.
For some reason a Mercedes advert provoked an "oh fuck off" from me yesterday. I think it was when it said, gruffly and butch-ly "Game On" at the end.
All adverts...
provoke an "Oh fuck off" from me.
SEX PISTOLS
"Pretty Vacant" - the original version at that - is now the soundtrack to William Hill's betting ad. But why? What has it to do with on-line gambling?
Oh wait...OK as you were...
The wonders of Sky+
It is becoming an ever-increasing joy to be able to fast forward past all the adverts, which seem to get stupider by the day.
As an aside, my children decided to record X Factor last night and start watching it a few minutes after it started so as to be able to whizz past the adverts and the 'coming up/last night' bits. For one reason or another, they ended up starting to watch it half an hour after its start time but still caught up with the on air transmission before the end. 45 minutes of show and 30 minutes of dreck (or 75 minutes of dreck, depending on which way you look at it).
Do all adverts have to have a breathless indie girl singing?
That counts Florence out then.