My World: TV advertising is getting a little dicey

It was about 2am (obviously wasn’t on a school night) and I was nodding off to sleep when an advert came on for Herbal Essences hair products.

The advert followed its normal format (which is strange enough anyway) when something grabbed my attention. It shook me out of my semi-snoring state and woke me up with a bit of a start.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was, but my girlfriend could.

“Did you hear that too?” she asked me.

We rewound (the joy of modern TV)the adverts and watched the Herbal Essences one again and right at the end, right when the advert was in its last shot and about to vacate the screen, a ghostly whisper spoke.

“Go buy our shampoo,” it said.

I rewound again and watched again and rewound again and watched again. I was in a mild state of shock.

Ok, so this isn’t any form of subliminal messaging, I understand that. In fact, it is quite the opposite. It is blatant instructions to go out and buy their product.

But I found it eerie, slightly creepy and a little conniving.   

The fact that is was on that early in the morning, when people would possibly be asleep with the TV on, just didn’t sit right with me.

Another advert that has really ground my gears recently is a Bet Victor one.

They are pretty hard work normally, with that annoying Noel Fielding/Russell Brand crossover guy coming out with cockney rhyming slang and whatnot.

But their latest one, it really is in bad taste.

For a quick summery, former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson is portraying the peculiar role of a train conductor, while playing with a toy train set.

The train derails and crashes, while the aforementioned Fielding/Brand love-child pops his head out of the set and talks his usual gobbledygook.

Reading that, you might not grasp why I have an issue.

The issue is that during the whole of the advert, the music that is synonymous with Alton Towers is playing quietly in the background.

Now, stop me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that in slightly bad taste given the events that unfolded a few months ago at one of Britain’s biggest tourist attractions, when a rollercoaster ACTUALLY crashed, and numerous people were ACTUALLY seriously injured?

Even if the advert was aired before the tragic accident, one of the bigwigs at Bet Victor HQ should have showed some compassion and stopped it from going out again.

To my knowledge, the advert is still going out to this day.

So what do you think? Am I over-reacting to some clever marketing ploys, or have I got a point that TV advertising is getting a little dicey? Let me know by commenting on the story below, or by tweeting me @josephcawthorn.