Advertisemania!

You may have noticed that I forgot to update twice in a row...especially after I said I wouldn't. I considered changing from doing a post every Sunday, and just whenever I feel like it, but then thought I'd just never do anything ever unless I forced myself to. So I could maybe do one post a week, but the day might change? I don't know, let me know what you think!

Last week I completely forgot, and by the time I remembered it was halfway through the week; therefore it seemed a brilliant idea to me to just wait until the next scheduled time for a blog post. What a foolproof plan! I patted myself on the back and sat down for a well deserved reward of Super Mario Galaxy 2 (incidentally, not as good as the first in my opinion, but there you are). As you may have noticed, well, it didn't work, as I forgot AGAIN. The best laid plans of mice and men and all that. Bad Toby. No cake for you. So I'm hoping that by posting today you will forgive me denizens of blogland? I have cookies?

Well, here is a blog for you anyway, I hope you enyjoy. Today children, I'm going to be talking about adverts! This blog is sponsored by the irony corporation. Har har har. Look, we all knew I was going to make that joke, so let's just be glad it's out of my system. I'm also going to be playing around with embedding videos into this blog, so this could either be wonderfully beautiful or horribly horrific, so forgive me if it's the latter!

Living as we do in the age of technology, we are constantly bombarded by adverts wherever we go. We've accepted this as a part of our lives, even if they often do annoy us a little. Well, a lot. Especially badly made adverts that quite frankly, are just upsetting to watch. Some people will tell you that adverts brainwash you, and while this theory has some interesting conotations, on the whole I'd have to disagree.

I think the human race is a lot smarter than it gives itself credit for. Granted, we do have a tendancy to be swept along by trends and what others are doing, we can't ignore the majority effect (or whatever it's called, we did it in AS Level Psychology, all I remember is there was a little kitten on the textbook cover). But still, I think people are smart enough to know when they're being advertised to; maybe it's just me being an English student, but I can definitely tell when something is trying to persuade my opinion.

Now again, some people will say this is wrong, that people should make up their own minds without adverts trying to persuade them. But then, as I said, I think people are smart enough to make their own minds up, and adverts are really just telling you what's out there. However, I will agree that sometimes there are far too many adverts, and it can all be a bit of a blur...and the main problem I have is with adverts that are dishonest; often cleverly worded so as to make the product sound good while leaving out a lot of bad features.

With adverts bombarding us left, right, sideways and upside down, and bearing the fact in mind that unfortunately there are many dishonest people out there, it can all be a bit disheartening. This is why when I see a really well-made advert it perks me up, and the eyes of little rabbits everywhere twinkle in a sickeningly cute fashion. I've picked one out for you, now let's see if the video magic works!



This is just such a nice, happy advert, don't you think? True, it doesn't tell you much, but Cadbury's are so well known it's more a case of saying "you know what we sell, we're still here, come say hi sometime". So maybe they've got more leg room to make this kind of thing, but I still think more companies could follow their example and just try and cheer the world up a bit.

And, just because I love it so much, here is another:



Again, just a nice, funny advert that let's you know what the product is, and tries to give you a good laugh while they take up thirty seconds of your life to tell you about something.

I'm on a horse.
~ Toby