I’m feeling a bit adbusters.

As an unemployed person I have come to accept my place before the goggle box. I watch altogether too much television- Discovery channel and Buffy re-runs during the day and imported crime drama at night. I’ve learnt a lot of stuff. Amongst the revelations is just how idiotic so much advertising is, and what morons they think we are. To view some of the promos doing the rounds you’d think that the advertising industry doesn’t believe that anyone, ever, is persuaded by their crap. Some stuff seems designed to put you off the product it’s touting, some tells you you’re an idiot and some is just totally wrong either morally or logically.

One such advert is for the new Lexus rx300. Man puts non-descript and incredibly light box in the back of his butt ugly SUPE (Sports Utility Penis Extension) and drives it down narrow continental streets. Of course if it wasn’t at least one and a half times larger than it needs to be, the streets wouldn’t seem so narrow. Spotting a pile of gravel by the side of the road, he drives one wheel over it. We get a view of a the Sagrada Familia to establish that we’re in Barcelona (because once he gets onto the main road he could be in any godforsaken urban sprawl). The driver sees a puddle everyone else is avoiding and drives through it. Finally our man makes it home, and he parks on a stack of rocks in the garden, cue tagline- “You’ll have to remind yourself it’s a four wheel drive.”

You’ll have to remind yourself! What. The. Fuck? If you need to be updated on your cars true nature, then why did you buy it? Why purchase something that is clumsier around town, consumes more fuel and wears down a greater amount of its components than a two wheel drive? The advert has established that there’s no need for an off roader in the urbs or suburbs. In the country I could understand- dad’s Discovery got him home through snowstorms that brought the rest of the county to a standstill and the prospect of mud is never that far away.

A better strap line for the Lexus ad would be something like- “Fo’ shizzle! All dem other playas ‘as got Range Rovers. Show you put da O in OG wiv a RX. Word.”

More idiocy in advertising as and when it pisses me off.