Retro Yakking

Aleksandr says ‘hit the read more link, or else’.

And so we stumble blindly on to the final(?) part of Retro Yakking’s Review of the best and worst television advertisements from the past twelve months.

Now before I go any further, may I remind you that there are tons of other ads that haven’t featured in this three-part special because we simply don’t have the space. Yep, Retro Yakking’s head office consists of small broom cupboard equipped with an Acorn Archimedes and two floppy disks, so it isn’t really conducive to productivity, or anything but large periods of downtime.

But enough excuses, because there are still a few more ads we want to cynically critique before the day is out. Oooooh yess… can you tell what it is yet?

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 Calgon’s pointy finger bloke reminds us to read the small print.

In Retro Yakking’s last instalment of this multi-part television commercial review of the year, we addressed budget ads, incompetent bankers and farmyard frivolity with much cynicism and (admittedly tired) moaning old codger ethic.

The Yak’s Commercial Breakdown resumes today with more Credit Crunch-themed armchair criticism, so if you consider yourself a bit of a telly know-it-all then this is the series for you.

Continuing on the theme of cynical cash-ins, advertisers are all too keen on stealing other peoples’ ideas in these times of financial hardship, mostly to flog their shoddy or broken merchandise. Nope, I’m not talking about eBay cowboys or even Del and Rodney pinching con tricks from The Real Hustle, but those guys that decided it would be a good idea to send a chair into space with the aid of a large helium balloon. Oh, I can’t even remember what it’s an ad for…

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If you hopped in a time machine and went back just five years to 2004, you’d probably be surprised at the amount of cheesy, gimmicky, expensive and flat-out cynical television advertisements filling our ad breaks with pointless drivel. That is, if you didn’t decide to make a cup of tea or go to the toilet when the little black and white rotating thingy appeared in the top corner of the telly.

This, however, is 2009. With the country, and indeed most of the world, in a state of financial turmoil, advertisers are looking to cut back on fees for lavish celebrity endorsements and production costs (David Beckham advertising pens, anyone?) by revisiting their past and rehashing a host of old advertisements from back in the day.

In recent times, Milky Way, Fairy Liquid and whatever that watch company John Cleese advertises have embraced the fashion for all things retro by launching ‘new’ ad campaigns based on old commercials. Even Hellman’s are getting in on the act by reintroducing a festive jingle from the days before black and white television. I believe it was called ‘radio’ and didn’t have any pictures in those days.

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The new Mongoose cricket bat, currently under experimentation in the domestic Twenty20 tournament, is set to face some strong competition from a new entry to the fray: the Meerkat.

Yack Products’s newest addition to the range of bats available for the modern cricketer offers a “completely new concept set to revolutionise batting as we know it”. Whereas the Mongoose eradicates the bat’s splice, effectively removing ‘dead wood’ from around the blade’s shoulders, the Meerkat offers the polar opposite: a bat made completely from edges.

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Is the Credit Crunch causing you problems? Struggling to survive on the breadline due to the rising cost of living? Then the Clear Plastic Containers Company have the very solution for you…

Clear plastic containers.

Yes, clear plastic containers, the answer to all your troubles!*

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