If you ever brave the murky depths of cable channels, you’ll find yourself swamped with hundreds of tiny advertising nuggets. These aren’t proper ads. They’re visual and sonic assaults on the mind designed to tattoo a brand on your brain with deft swiftness. You fnd yourself remembering the product and the company name completely involuntarily – usually items which are of no use to you whatsoever, taking up valuable brain space you’d alloted to be filled later on in life with the works of Heidegger, Kant or Linsey Dawn McKenzie.
Jamster, the mobile ringtone, wallpaper, gimmick and pornography augmentation service, indulge in such examples of advertising. Their marketing output is the equivalent of an infectious sales-rottweiler, dribbling on the sidelines of MTV2, ready to pounce when the ads come on and happy to sink teeth into your temples when you’re buried to the hilt in the middle of their ten minute ad breaks.
The ad that got me scratching my head and shouting at the television set (again – I must curb this habit) came on this morning without warning, and was attempting to sell an X Ray mechanism that you can apparently download onto your mobile and, as a result, see through your hand and, at a push, LADIES’ PANTS using its incredible machinations.
I am an adult and am aware that this is guff. Though if I were a child, I might not. I invested in some X Ray Specs from a ‘Smiffy’s Joke Shop’ catalogue (anyone remember them?) when I was pre-10, so if I were a nipper now and blessed with a cell phone – they seem to dish them out at birth these days – I’d probably waste a fiver or however much they sell this shit for on this useless, unamusing and rip-off rubbish.
Even more disturbing is the advert for a mobile phone ‘Partner Tracker’.
Apparently this enables the user to find out where their other half is using mobile technology. So if you’ve jumped to the conclusion that your beloved is up to no good, you can find out if they’ve gone where they’ve said they’ve gone as you sit alone, drinking own-brand gin in your bedsit. Healthy!
So, jealous lovers, if you’re an untrusting brute or you feel you’ve been saddled with a two-bit, cheating swine who may be making a cuckold of you, for three or four quid you can use this application to ruin your life whether your suspicions are confirmed or not.
Brilliant!
Except it’s not brilliant. The small print sadly gives away the cold hard facts… and they make for saddening reading. I’ve been duped.
This software is for entertainment purposes only and does not require GPS or a network connection. It doesn’t locate your real whereabouts but nevertheless it is a fun application
I’m sure it is, Jamster. I’m sure it’s a lorry load of neverending fun, you shameless, no-good shysters.
Tags: Advertising, Culture, Entertainment, Jamster, Marketing, Media, mobile, partner tracker, Technology, Television, TV, Uncategorized, x ray vision
January 19, 2009 at 11:19 am
Hurrah!
I saw this ad a few weeks ago and was shocked that they could market such a deeply unpleasant application. But, as you point out, the adverts have a small disclaimer at the bottom saying it is a joke. I AM POSITIVE that this disclaimer wasn’t there when the ad first aired though.
January 19, 2009 at 11:36 am
Did you shell out for it, Clarry?
January 19, 2009 at 11:45 am
It’d be fun to use this application to keep track of other folks’ dogs. “Oh, hello,” you’d say. “Mr. Bones at number 22 is off for a walk.”
I’d like that.
January 19, 2009 at 11:50 am
The small prin on cosmetics add are great too. Mascara smallprint makes a the whole advert pointless as it states that the example shown had been “electronicaly enhanced”.
5 pictures that changed fashion BBC4 was bloody marvelous!
January 19, 2009 at 11:50 am
That’d be good, except it would give you a fictional account of Mr. Bones’ whereabouts. What’s the use in that?
And where the bloody hell have you been, Nappers?
January 19, 2009 at 11:51 am
*sheepishly turns on xbox360 despite huge backlog of work*
*hopes nobody has noticed*
January 19, 2009 at 11:52 am
Yes I bought three…
I would be interested to see how the ‘joke’ works. Surely if the purchaser knows it doesn’t work it can be only used to trick other people (unless the target audience are stupider than we first thought). For example do you say to your friend ‘Hey look I’m a serial killer in the making, look I can see where my ‘girlfriend’ is’? Or does something happen to the unsuspecting victim’s phone that suggests to them that they are being stalked? Ho ho ho, how we laughed as my girlfriend got a restraining order out on me.
Or is the joke aimed at the freak that buys it when they realise it doesn’t work and they get charged £2.50 a week for the rest of their life?
January 19, 2009 at 11:56 am
Oh. Its all a joke is it?
*deletes application from phone*
*flicks through yellow pages for infrared telescope manufacturers*
January 19, 2009 at 11:57 am
I watched that programme about H&S inspectors last night, it was surprisingly brilliant.
January 19, 2009 at 11:57 am
£2,50 a week? How does that work?
Roszz – Skins starts soon – can we rely on you to review?
January 19, 2009 at 11:57 am
PS – Skins starts on Thursday!
Review for you on Friday, Mr SH?
January 19, 2009 at 11:57 am
oooooh, synchronicity…
January 19, 2009 at 11:59 am
I’ve been ‘busy’, Swineshead. Obviously, ‘busy’ in my world isn’t the same as ‘busy’ in other people’s, but I’ve been as busy as a lazy sod with what amounts to a part-time job can be.
So anyway, that’s my monthly ten hour’s work out of the way, and now I’m raring to go at the much more fun task of doing as little as possible. I’ll be writing for you again this week, and it’s about time some of the other laggards on here did the same, I reckon.
January 19, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Also, I must get round to taking down my Christmas tree …
January 19, 2009 at 12:00 pm
BAGSY SKINS. I know how you love it, NC.
January 19, 2009 at 12:05 pm
SH – I don’t think it actually costs £2.50 a week, but I believe that some of those phone applications do. For instance you can have shit jokes or porn texted straight to your phone for a weekly fee – my friend did this and surprisingly it was almost impossible to remove yourself from it.
January 19, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Skins? Really?
January 19, 2009 at 12:08 pm
is no one going to mention tony hart? no one???
January 19, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Skins is all yours roszs. Noone else can put up with it, after all.
WWM mark 3 will be ready to go live soon – exciting ain’t it?
January 19, 2009 at 12:12 pm
That bloke off that Smart art show NOW Tony Hart. Where will it end?
January 19, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Neil Buchanon must be looking over his shoulder…
January 19, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I thought he’d already kicked the bucket, Badger.
January 19, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Naps you obviously weren’t paying attention last time we talked about it. SH did a post about him having to hang up his pencil due to ill health NOT being dead.
January 19, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Tony Hart – RIP.
It’s a sad day, for sure, badger.
January 19, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Damien Hurst is shitting himself!
Rolf Harris is holding it together….
January 19, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I’m drinking coconut tea.
January 19, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Clarry – I’d forgotten that conversation. I blame the booze.
January 19, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Patrick McGoohan as well.
Rubbishes.
Mebbe they’ll reshow the Prisoner though, that would be good.
January 19, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Clarry – yes really, I LOVE it.
Although we shall see what has happened now they’ve ditched the old cast.
January 19, 2009 at 12:56 pm
OMG – Patrick McGoohan is dead???
I loved the Prisoner.
January 19, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Apart from playing Edward I in that shitty Braveheart film and a couple of Columbos, what has Patrick McGoohan done since The Prisoner?
January 19, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Nowt wrong with own-brand gin. Apart from the taste, obviously.
January 19, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Nowt, but the Prisoner was so good it doesn’t matter.
Oh, Ice Station Zebra or whatever it was calle.
January 19, 2009 at 1:09 pm
‘Ditched’ the cast of Skins?
I was hoping they’d cull them.
January 19, 2009 at 1:15 pm
How do you ditch a whole cast in one go? Is it like on Emmerdale when the plane crashed into the village and wiping out most of the rubbish cast. Or the explosion in Brookside?
January 19, 2009 at 1:16 pm
I was hoping they’d taken eyebrows outside and stoved his head in with a shovel.
Mornin’ everyone.
January 19, 2009 at 1:19 pm
P.S Roszs – was that H&S officer prog a repeat? The one where the bloke says ‘It’s no coincidence that the word ‘garden’ is an anagram of ‘danger”?
January 19, 2009 at 1:20 pm
The Prisoner bored the pants off me. I still to this day don’t get what the fuck it was meant to be about, and the ending was fucking weird. If I was forced to watch old television, I’d plump for Randall & Hopkirk or The Persuaders.
January 19, 2009 at 1:22 pm
There’s a woman on the radio who works for a company called ‘Diversity Solutions Consultancy Limited’. Whoever owns that company must have really thought outside of the box when they came up with that title.
Oh, and they should be burned alive.
January 19, 2009 at 1:24 pm
NP: I hate those types of names. You should see some of the companies I have to right to. ‘Impressive business service’ been my favourite so far.
January 19, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Replacing the entire cast with new people has got to be better than when they get a new actor to play an existing character, like they did in “Neighbours” with, I think, Cheryl? Or was it Madge? Anywho, it was stoopid.
January 19, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Ugeine – They drive me potty. I was introduced to some wanker in finance (via my missus, who works in that dark field), who called himself ‘a consultant’. I started asking him about my bowels, and when he asked me what the hell I was on about, I pointed out that a consultant is a fancy doctor you don’t even call ‘doctor’ because he’s THAT fancy. He didn’t speak to me again, and I later learned Osama Bin Laden and his boys had done for him in Tower 2 on September the 11th.
So that means I won that one, effectively.
January 19, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Via the medium of Jihad.
Fear Napoleon.
January 19, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Clarry – yeah, that’s the one. That man is brilliant.
NC – The Prisoner is brilliant. I was obsessed with it when I was about 15, and made my parents take a detour to Port Meirion (sp?) when we were in north Wales, then realised when I came into contact with them there that Prisoner super-fans on the whole are a decidedly odd bunch, so kept a bit more quiet about it then.
January 19, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Apologies for horrible repetition of ‘brilliant’ in previous post, the synonym part of my brain isn’t working today…
January 19, 2009 at 1:55 pm
I still don’t see what’s brilliant about it. Permanently pissed-off man spends ages in weird village full of weirdos, then it ends abruptly. I could be wrong, but didn’t the last episode even involve some Benny Hill-style fast motion (it’s been about fifteen years since I watched it)?
NOT MY CUP OF TEA.
January 19, 2009 at 2:02 pm
There is no fast motion in the last episode, I can guarantee you.
I got into it cos I was into all stuff sixties as a teenager, and really liked the general concept of the programme, and the writing. Its so stylistic too, it just looks good. A product of its time, I s’pose. They’re remaking it aren’t they? I am Dubious.
*sends giant white balloon off to smother NC*
January 19, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Hmm .. must be thinking of something else that had fast motion. Anyway, I still didn’t care for The Prisoner, despite the wild enthusiasm lavished upon it by those devils that made me watch it – The Swineshead Clan.
January 19, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Heh.
I am going to Sleaford next month for the first time ever. I am very excited.
Any Sleaford hints and tips, Lincolnians?
January 19, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Avoid all the pubs, don’t look anyone directly in the eye and, if you’re a woman, don’t go out without an escort unless you fancy getting raped.
January 19, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Ooooh I can’t wait! It sounds magical!
January 19, 2009 at 2:29 pm
By the way: With all the booze I drank over Christmas, I’ve completely forgotten whether we ever got to the bottom of that whole human / dancer question. Was a definitive answer put forward?
January 19, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Roszs – It is. I was there a few weeks ago, and a young man asked me what the fuck I thought I was looking at within moments of my getting off the train. Brought back such happy memories.
January 19, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Roszs – WHY would you be venturing to these parts of your own free will?
January 19, 2009 at 2:33 pm
And why were you here NC?
I don’t recall anyone asking my permission…
January 19, 2009 at 2:35 pm
I though “Rhythm” was a dancer….
January 19, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Clarry – I have relatives in Great Hale, Dorrington and Ruskington. It’s a curse, but at least I only have to venture to Sleaford once or twice a year.
January 19, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I thought it was a form of cancer…
?
As for Sleaford, Roszs, the best bit of advice would be to not go out at all. not even to the shop.
But if you insist on sightseeing, do visit the Rec where most people first got drunk and put index fingers in parts of people. Opposite the rec is my old house. Be sure to go to the wine bar and get a volley of abuse off the fat bitch behind the bar. Check out the Waggon and horses… and prepare yourself for another volley of abuse from another fat bitch behind a bar.
January 19, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Nick – Are you serious as cancer about that?
January 19, 2009 at 2:40 pm
You might also like to try out The Bull & Dog. That’s where I first had my nose broken. Golden memories …
January 19, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Is cancer serious?
Doctor?
January 19, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I am visiting some friends who are archaeologists there. I don’t know what they are looking for when they dig, nor shall I ask in case the answer is disturbing.
They live on Nag’s Head Passage or summat.
January 19, 2009 at 2:44 pm
The wine bar is no more SH. It briefly became known as the Time bar, but has since closed. The fat bitch behind the former moved away to shout at people in Scotchland.
The Waggon is on it’s last legs too, with about 1 punter a day. Strictly speaking it is my local, but I find it a bit full on in there as they have a karaoke every weekend evening, even if there’s nobody there. The DJ just sings to himself.
IT’S THAT GOOD HERE!
January 19, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Nag’s Head Passage? That’s where local drunk Des light-heartedly sexually assaulted my ex-girlfriend.
If they’re archaeologists, they may well be digging in the grounds of the mighty Sleaford Castle. Who needs the showy extremes of a Warwick, a Lincoln or a Durham castle when you have this …?
January 19, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Clarry, why do you not escape from this place?
January 19, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Nags Head Passage, eh? Rammed with memories, that little stone corridor. Home of Des the Drunk (RIP) and also a prime spot for waiting around for High School Girls to finish their day. Also, at night, acted as a direct route from Woolworths to Londis – one of the town’s few offies to serve young children.
January 19, 2009 at 2:47 pm
In that case Roszs you shall be probably be drinking in the Nag’s Head, which backs onto Nag’s head passage. DEFINITELY do not go down said passage on your own at night.
Archaeologists huh? I did that for a bit, I preserve the bits they dig up.
January 19, 2009 at 2:48 pm
The wine bar’s gone? Ah well. I never drank in there as it was where the chumps who did as they were told at school drank. I much preferred the Nag’s.
I see Sleaford cinema’s boarded up. For shame that they turned it into a club, the bastards.
January 19, 2009 at 2:49 pm
I dunt want to go no more.
January 19, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Becoz I live here – and it’s not that bad really.
Plus it’s dead cheap to live here and it’s not far to go to Notts or Lincoln for a change of scene.
January 19, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Clarry, maybe you know my friend then. She is called Vicky.
*imagines there are about 4 people in Sleaford, so all bound to know each other*
January 19, 2009 at 2:51 pm
DOWNT BE SCARRED ROZSZ ITS OWKAY RELLY.
January 19, 2009 at 2:52 pm
“Plus it’s dead cheap to live here and it’s not far to go to Notts or Lincoln for a change of scene.”
A SHITTY change of scene. I lived in Lincoln for years, and hated it even more than Sleaford. The only thing I liked about Lincoln was its eclectic collection of nutcases.
Oh, and its cathedral, obviously.
January 19, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I generally drank at home, or in Boston.
Sleaford cinema – I first met you there Nappers, during a screening of the He Man movie. I was there with my brother who liked He Man. You were there on your own and you leaned forward to mock the BMX Bandits trailer.
You were clearly lonely.
January 19, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Vicky who?
January 19, 2009 at 2:54 pm
You won’t know her, she’s moved to Sleaford well after your time. I used to live with her in Bradders.
January 19, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Hmm, might have to be more specific.
I don’t preserve the things your *actual* friends dig up, just artefacts and antiquities in general. I are a conservator.
January 19, 2009 at 2:56 pm
You have emphasised the word actual, as if to imply I have other friends who are imaginary.
*narrows eyes*
How did you know?
January 19, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Just a hunch…
*joking*
Got to go now. Laterz.
January 19, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I always preferred going to the cinema on my own, as it ‘appens. I’m antisocial when it comes to entertainment. The whole multiplayer online game community thing pisses me off, for instance.
And anyway, nobody would go to that He-Man film with me because I was a horrible child who even my friends found hard to like.
January 19, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Bye bye Clarry, enjoy your conservatoring.
January 19, 2009 at 3:10 pm
XBox live looks like the biggest rip off in this ginormous galaxy.
January 19, 2009 at 3:11 pm
I used to live with a conservator. Her boss was a pain in the arse. One time she rang up to see if my ex was there, I told her she wasn’t, and the next thing I knew I was up on scaffolding in a building in London painting terracotta reliefs. Weird.
January 19, 2009 at 3:12 pm
I don’t see the point. I had a trial membership to the whistles ‘n’ bells version of XBox Live, played one mutliplayer race of GTA IV, and swore I’d never do it again. Bloody rubbish.
January 19, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Napoleon: It’s almost like you don’t like getting random racial swearwords shouted at you by American teenagers. What else is there to do in the evening?
January 19, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Is “cuntish” a word?
January 22, 2009 at 9:30 pm
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