7 Reasons

Tag: Advert

  • Russian Roulette Sunday : Advertising

    Russian Roulette Sunday : Advertising

    Hi, Marc here.  Happy Sunday.  At 7 Reasons we’re very serious about bringing a new audience to our website and we work very hard to spread the word about it.  We don’t have much of an advertising budget though – which is why we’re always delighted when people retweet our work and use the Share buttons – but we thought that, as we’ve already got our own money invested in 7 Reasons, we really should splash out a bit on advertising.  Now we couldn’t afford much but we reasoned (that’s our speciality) that with the global economic downturn, and Jon’s contacts in the advertising business, we should be able to find someone that could professionally put together an advert to suit our budget.  The guys that made it haven’t worked for a while, so they were delighted to help.  Here’s what they came up with.

    7 Reasons Pearl & Dean Advert

    So, to summarise, please keep retweeting and using the Share buttons. Thanks.

  • 7 Reasons Australians Shouldn’t Make Television

    7 Reasons Australians Shouldn’t Make Television

    7 Reasons sofa with Australian Television and flag

     

    1.  The Weather. It must be quite easy to present the weather in Australia, it’s always “nice” there, so you probably don’t have to be too bright to do it.  That would explain this weatherman being outwitted by a pelican then.

    2.  Wipeout Australia. In Britain, we have Total Wipeout, a programme in which pudgy, potato-faced middle-managers from Droitwich lumber around a ridiculous assault course.  Wipeout Australia uses the same course, except everything is harder and the machines go at about five times the speed.  The people they send around don’t seem any leaner or sportier though, that wouldn’t be any fun.

    3.  Skippy. In Britain in the ’60s, men whistled at attractive young women in mini-skirts.  In Australia in the ’60s, they whistled at kangaroos.  Still, they seem quite happy.

    4.  Advert. Halfway through, so it’s time for a break.  Would you like one of these?  It’s undetectable, you know.

    5.  Soaps.  The bush, mushrooms, a mysterious pig, a flaming hand – it has to be a soap opera.  Obvious, really.

    6.  Marriage.  This sort of thing never happened on Richard and Judy.

    7.  The dream.  Okay, you knew it had to turn up somewhere didn’t you?  That classic Neighbours dream sequence which came out of left-field and astonished the audience.  No, not that one, this one.  The accents are spot on, by the way.

    Okay, it’s time for an admission.  I was wrong.  All of this stuff is awful, yet somehow brilliant.  I’ve had so much fun putting this post together that I’ve become convinced that Australians should make more television – perhaps even all of it.  As long as I don’t have to watch Paul Hogan again I’d be quite happy.    I might even buy a hairpiece.

  • 7 Reasons That We Should Run Manchester City

    7 Reasons That We Should Run Manchester City

    We, the 7 Reasons team, have decided that we should branch out a bit and take on a new challenge.  We have no allegiances with Manchester City, but we have some great ideas on how we could improve the running of the club.  Here are 7 Reasons that we should run Manchester City.

    1.  Wisdom.  It is oft said that two heads are better than one.  There are two of us, and we have one head each.  That’s two heads.  Roberto Mancini only has one head.  Okay, so his is full of football knowledge and experience while our heads are full of words and Jennifer Aniston, but the two heads will make us a better manager than Mancini, conventional wisdom says so.  It is also said that many hands make light work.  We have twice as many of those as Mancini, so we should be able to make a substantial saving on the electricity bill too.

    2.  Bellamy.  Craig Bellamy is a brilliant footballer and is in the form of his life at the moment.  We’re only too aware, however, that he has, in the past, been an unsettling influence in many of the dressing-rooms that he has been in.  We want Craig Bellamy in our team, but we don’t necessarily want him in our squad.  We will construct a separate dressing-room for Craig Bellamy and hold solo training sessions for him.  This way he can continue to play for us on the pitch, but won’t disrupt our squad.  We did love it when he was annoying Alan Shearer at Newcastle though.  Annoying Alan Shearer should be a sport in its own right.

    3.  Bell End.  No, not Craig Bellamy again.  Colin Bell.  When the City of Manchester stadium was taken over by Manchester City, their supporters voted overwhelmingly to name an end of the stadium after their hero Colin Bell.  The club, after much procrastination, overruled this decision and eventually named the West Stand after him instead.  We would reverse their decision and name the North Stand after him, thus creating the Colin Bell End.  The West Stand would become The Hat Stand, The East Stand would become The Last Stand and the South Stand would become The South End, as it’s where Manchester United supporters live.  We would also reconstruct the car park, with a new lower level parking bay spanned by The Wayne Bridge, which will be vastly expensive and a bit wobbly.

    4.  Cars.  We don’t know why Stephen Ireland does this to cars, but enough is enough.  We’re banning him from the car park.  If it were within our power to ban him from the road as well, then we would.  He will be fined a week’s wages if any Manchester City fan ever sees one of his cars anywhere, and we’ll donate that money to the Royal National Institute for the Blind, who can use it to help car-lovers that have poked their own eyes out after witnessing his automotive abominations.

    5.  Human Cloning.  Carlos Tevez is brilliant.  He’s clearly one of the best players on the planet.  It’s not so much his skill that makes him amazing to watch, it’s his desire, his energy and his propensity for turning up in every area of the pitch.  We will put in place a human cloning programme to clone Tevez.  The technology’s almost there already so it won’t be too many years before we’re able to field a whole team of Carlos Tevez, from 1-11.  Not only will they be able to outrun and outplay the opposition, they’ll also scare them silly.  What’s more, our Tevez Cloning Facility will be based in England, which will ensure that the national team will be successful for years to come too.  In order to guard all of the silverware that we’re going to win, we’ll manufacture Tevez security guards – possibly with wings and/or hooves – to guard the trophy room.  We will rule the football world and, eventually, we may use an army of them to take over the actual world.  Try not to concern yourself about that though.

    6.  Scarves.  At least 50% of the 7 Reasons team already own a sky blue scarf, so there’ll be no need for all of the supporters to go out and buy yet another new scarf in imitation of us.  We will also implement a new rule that nobody may knot their scarf in the same way as the person seated next to them.  That will introduce variety into the stands, because frankly, we were a little freaked out when we watched them play last Tuesday.

    7.  Advertisments.  We can’t top the “Welcome To Manchester” advert.  But we will keep it, and put more of them up, everywhere.  You won’t be able to walk down the street in Manchester without seeing loads of them.  We will also put them up in Manchester, New Hampshire and Manchester, Ohio.  The locals won’t have a clue what they’re about, but we don’t care.  We just want to use Carlos to frighten them a bit.  That’ll teach them to buy our chocolate factories.

  • 7 Reasons TV Adverts Annoy Us

    7 Reasons TV Adverts Annoy Us

    1.  Interruptions.  Let’s start with the obvious. Ads interrupt programmes. And just when you are getting into them as well. Now you have to wait five minutes to see if the bloke is dead or not. Then you find out he isn’t and curse the show for being unrealistic. He shot him in the head for goodness sake.

    2. Voiceovers. That famous bloke is doing the voiceover for a financial advert. You just can’t place the voice. You spend the whole evening trying to work out who it is. You can’t sleep. You are tired the next day. The presentation goes badly. You get fired.

    3.  False Advertising. Some of the claims that adverts make are quite frankly bollocks. Take Gaviscon for example. ‘Oh no! I have heartburn. I won’t be able to save the stranded hiker using my rescue helicopter. I know! I’ll have some Gaviscon. That’s much better. Now I can save lives.’

    4.  Michael Winner. If Michael Winner is not annoying enough, it’s his bloody stupid catchphrase, “Don’t worry dear, it’s a commercial”. Twat.

    5.  Dubbing. It’s an advert for some sort of grooming product. Probably a razor. Or Just For Men. The gaudy font clearly shows it’s an American advert, so why have they employed some Brits to dub over the top? And why does it never sync properly? It’s just very, very poor workmanship.

    6.  They’re loud. Because everyone knows we go to the kitchen during the break, the ads are 50db louder than the show you are watching. Naturally, you turn the volume down as the adverts start. When you get back in the room you forget to turn it up again though. As a result you miss the really important conversation that explains how Inspector Frost knew the murderer was the one with the wooden leg and the false eye lashes.

    7.  They can’t keep it real. Not all adverts are bad. The spectacularNicole and Papa ads for Renault Clio had the British public on tenterhooks. I don’t know how many Renault Clio’s were actually sold, but that is hardly the point. Nicole was fit. As this – one of the first ads in the series – proves.

    As the series went on we fell in love. With Nicole, Papa and the Clios. So much so that 23 million of us tuned in for this – the final outing. But, of course, the advertising agency just had to ruin it for us didn’t they?

    Reeves and Mortimer? What the hell were they thinking? A nation mourned and Nicole ended up working for Rover. She was made redundant in 2004 and now sells ice-cream from the back of a burger van.*

    *This is not true.

    I feel much better now. Amazing to think I used to be in advertising really