The WTF advertisements
Posted by JoJun 30
The word “Soosoo” in the local Malayalam dialect refers to urinating and is used while talking to children. “Mone, do you need to soosoo now?”, you would hear parents asking their little ones. Or the kids drawing attention of their parents to tell them that they need to pass “Soosoo“. Anyways, I’m not writing about any toilet ads here but some ads that definitely needs to be flushed out.
The Zoozoo ads by Vodafone have become very popular and it has a huge fan following in You Tube. The ads filled the TV space and the fans praised it through their blogs and email forwards. The concept and character creation of the Zoozoo ads are totally cool and I very much liked it. However, I felt odd by watching some of their ads in the Zoozoo series. I actually felt bad by watching a particular ad. It is the one given below.
Such a violent ad! Agreed, that there is no blood or explicit gore, but didn’t they get any better script to point out that you can set a busy message in Vodafone? Towards the end you will watch it with an odd feeling while you hear one of the Zoozoos screaming out and the phone ringing. Reminds you of some kind of a horror movie! Did they really think that it is funny?
But the above mentioned Zoozoo ad is nothing compared to the “Sweet Bomb” ad of Cadbury Eclairs. After you enjoy the initial background music and the smiley faces in the ad, the heads of the people begin to explode! Yes, explode!! I don’t know about the others, but the explosion of the heads in the chocolate form actually terrified me. For a moment, I thought I was watching a movie like Hostel or something. It was so gory! Watch it below:
I just don’t understand what these ad agencies were thinking while scripting/conceptualizing these ads and I wonder if there is no one from the companies to check out the final form of an advertisement before it goes on TV. I mean, WTF!!!
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12 comments
Comment by Ramya on June 30, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Hmm.. Abt tat violent zoozoo ad, I guess its the ghostly laugh n screaming which gave that feel. And its zoozoo ‘ promotions n sum nice ads which made it popular I guess. Its not so cute n all like hutch dog. This cadburys ad when I first saw it thought it was an ad for anti tobacco or smoking indicating it would explode one’s life, it would have been great had it been for that, that initial music was also like something like thriller(vry similar to gajini’s bg). But I hated it when I saw it was for cadbury’s. There were some great ads for cadburys and This,omg, sick, huh!
Comment by Jo on June 30, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Oh yeah. If it was for a cause, I could understand. There is this ad where it shows a man coughing and his lungs jumps out through his mouth and when he tries to grab it, it runs away.
But that was an anti-smoking ad, so it serves the purpose.
Comment by Sandeep on June 30, 2009 at 8:10 pm
i loved all the zoozoo add, esp their expressions and sound. if you notice the world tour advt, you can hear malayalam words “puttu kadala” and “karimeen”
even i didnt like chocolate advt.
Comment by Jo on June 30, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Yeah, I think the Malayalis in the team made them say it.
Comment by Din on July 1, 2009 at 11:32 am
Aaah
That eclairs ad sux big time. Exploding crap
Hate these kinda ads.
Comment by Paul Nixon on July 1, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Strabgley enough, I was eating those sweets last night. I hadn’t seen the ad and, I’m pleased to say, my head was still on my shoulders last time I looked. But you’re right, it’s a bizarre and somewhat disturbing advert.
Comment by Jo on July 1, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Din: Yeah…
Paul: So the head didn’t explode or anything? LOL!
And yes, the ad seemed disturbing to me too. I don’t know why would they come up with such an ad.
Comment by Which Main? What Cross? on July 2, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Actually, I liked both the campaigns. But then, I’m in advertising and I guess people in advertising have no idea what consumers like!
Comment by Jo on July 2, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Comment by Sreejith K. on July 3, 2009 at 11:47 am
Not sure what was wrong in the first zoozoo ad. The characters in the ad were cartoons or look-like-animated and whatever they do should be treated as jokes. We dont feel bad when Tom or Jerry falls of from the cliff and breaks his leg, do we? It in fact was funny for me. I liked the feeling that one guy was busy to answer the phone because he was inside a crocodile’s mouth.
The second ad was an attempt to visualize the saying “the taste just explodes in your mouth”. It was a great idea but poorly visualised. From a graphics prospective, it did not look like the taste exploding from the mouth, but looked more like a copy and paste of a chocolate explotion on his head
Talking about vulgarity, the ads that I hate the most are toilet cleaner ads. Everytime I see them, I feel like puking.
Comment by Jo on July 3, 2009 at 11:56 am
The characters in the ad were cartoons or look-like-animated and whatever they do should be treated as jokes.
Then we shouldn’t be having any problem with using Japanese hardcore anime porn for our condom ads, should we?
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