H&M: Harpies and murderers
There are some extremes of advertising that no agency should ever breach. Ads so intrusive yet unrewarding that they do nothing except steal precious moments from your life ... minutes that you'll never, ever get back. Ads that take without giving, and do it in the most painful way possible.
And that appalling short film for a clothing chain is the worst of them.
Yes, before I pay for any film in future, I'm going to ask if that utterly abominable 10-minute 'Romeo & Juliet' ad for H&M is showing. And if the answer's Yes - I'm walking out. If I do this enough times, the cinema manager will get the message. That ad's gotta go.
It's not merely a bad ad: it's a hideous, utterly predictable but badly-paced short film of some kids and a gun while some generic 'diva' explores her vocal range, randomly caterwauling up and down the scales just because she can. During the ad's creation, the agency would've used words like 'crossing racial boundaries', 'ethnic identity', 'empathy with urban life' and the like. On the screen, it's a piece of trash so bad, I actually buried my face in my hands while it was on.
I mean, could it actually be deliberate? It's hard to make something that bad without REALLY TRYING. They've taken every camera angle and cinematic technique that looked fresh when first used (10 years ago) and tried to recreate them using retarded chimpanzees as the production team. If you think I'm joking - think again. It really is that bad.
OK, so I'm not exactly H&M's target customer. I was in Ralph Lauren's Bond St cave today; was I mentally tossing a coin between a preppy £65 Oxford shirt and a £5 top for pregnant council estate teenagers from Oxford Circus? No. But that's missing the point: even to teens, this ad isn't interesting, because it doesn't convey the genre it's trying to imitate. There are things you like, things you don't like, and things that are just plain bad.
What the FUCK were they thinking?
Some day I might have a daughter, but I swear I will never, ever, buy her anything whatsoever from H&M.
And that appalling short film for a clothing chain is the worst of them.
Yes, before I pay for any film in future, I'm going to ask if that utterly abominable 10-minute 'Romeo & Juliet' ad for H&M is showing. And if the answer's Yes - I'm walking out. If I do this enough times, the cinema manager will get the message. That ad's gotta go.
It's not merely a bad ad: it's a hideous, utterly predictable but badly-paced short film of some kids and a gun while some generic 'diva' explores her vocal range, randomly caterwauling up and down the scales just because she can. During the ad's creation, the agency would've used words like 'crossing racial boundaries', 'ethnic identity', 'empathy with urban life' and the like. On the screen, it's a piece of trash so bad, I actually buried my face in my hands while it was on.
I mean, could it actually be deliberate? It's hard to make something that bad without REALLY TRYING. They've taken every camera angle and cinematic technique that looked fresh when first used (10 years ago) and tried to recreate them using retarded chimpanzees as the production team. If you think I'm joking - think again. It really is that bad.
OK, so I'm not exactly H&M's target customer. I was in Ralph Lauren's Bond St cave today; was I mentally tossing a coin between a preppy £65 Oxford shirt and a £5 top for pregnant council estate teenagers from Oxford Circus? No. But that's missing the point: even to teens, this ad isn't interesting, because it doesn't convey the genre it's trying to imitate. There are things you like, things you don't like, and things that are just plain bad.
What the FUCK were they thinking?
Some day I might have a daughter, but I swear I will never, ever, buy her anything whatsoever from H&M.
posted by chrisworth at 7:25 PM
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