Tag: advertising

June 20th – One for the occasional series on the silliness of advertising billboards.

I find myself paying more attention to roadside ads when cycling, as they take me longer to pass than if driving and some, after a few weeks, really begin to irritate. This one is a particularly fine example of the Photoshop failure art form – this example is on the Walsall Road in Darlaston.

This is an advert for the BMW Mini Cooper. Nothing wrong with that (unless you can remember how much character the original had…) but this ad exists in several forms for different length billboards. Notice the bike in the background? In all but it’s longest format, the lamppost is slightly behind the car, and you can only see the rear of the bike, a steel 1980s racing bike. 

In common with most 80s bikes, it has a self-added prop stand, mounted off the rear wheel nut, and an aluminium circular spoke guard between the gears and wheel on the back axle.

Quite what’s passing through the wheel at ground level I have no idea.

Now look at the front wheel. It has the ghost of the propstand mount, rotated around 105 degrees. The aluminium spoke guard is on the front too. The end of the front fork is straight, with no dropout.

The forks and position of the wheel suggest the top tube (between handlebar quill and saddle) is unfeasibly huge.

The front of the bike is not real. It’s been created in photoshop, by someone unfamiliar with bikes, purely to fill space when the ad was stretched.

What a load of old tut. This has been rubbing me up the wrong way for a week now.

May 3rd – Some advertising wonk was paid to come up with this for the Halifax building society (or are they a bank these days?) – and it irritates me as these posters are all over the place – in this case on the Walsall Road in Darlaston.

Top Cat appears to be advertising mortgages. That’s right, Top Cat. That’s a cat, who lived in a dustbin and survived from the proceeds of theft and confidence trickery and really wouldn’t ever be considered for a mortgage, although he probably would be suited to a career in the City.

Although I suspect the bankers learned the coin-on-elastic trick from him…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykRZbOb1c5c

November 9th – I’ve also been passing this advert in various spots around town, and it’s bugging me a bit.

No one should have no one at any time of year, not just Christmas.

We can all do something about this here and now.

Any time is a good time to take someones hand, smile and say ‘Hello, chum.’

Do it now.

March 28th – I stopped at the lights at the Spring Cottage junction in Shelfield this morning, and noticed some poor sod dressed as an animal, dancing whilst wearing an advertising board for a local pet store.

There were more of these characters at other junctions into Walsall, and they were still there, dancing in the rain at 6:30pm when I returned. 

How I felt for them – how desperate do you have to be to do that for money? They ones on my return were soaked to the skin, advertising a pet shop that had shut for the day. 

Welcome to modern Britain. It filled me with sadness at the thought of it. I doubt I’ll shop there again.

February 21st – Running late for my connection, I piled it through the city centre in the morning, and saw two of these curious advertising trikes parked up advertising Thinktank. They look hand built, but not terribly well cared for. Primitive disc brakes on the back, and small wheels with an absurdly low gear ratio. Must make for an… interesting riding experience.

Certainly wouldn’t fancy piloting one in a crosswind.

July 27th – I see a certain pizza delivery firm is employing it’s peculiar advertising technique again – paying poor saps to stand at junctions wearing giant pizza box advertising signs. I can’t imagine anyone at all being influenced by such a ridiculous campaign, but there were quite a few of these guys in Walsall today. All it made me wonder was how desperate for a few bob must these people be to do such a job? I’m sure it doesn’t pay well and some of the abuse from passing drivers was remarkably unpleasant.