AdLand Suit is Dan Shute, a Board Account Director at Delaney Lund Knox Warren, a top ten London Advertising Agency. This is where I write about the life of a Suit - which can include pretty much anything. Delaney's didn't know I was doing this, but they do now. They still don't agree with everything I say though. They'd also probably rather I swore less.

Saturday 10 October 2009

Bastards Of Advertising - Richmond Sausages



This is a television ad for Richmond sausages. Our hero is, for want of a better word, a Bastard. One of those Bastards that want to build luxury flats on hills - you know the sort. Bastards. He's having a spot of lunch with his slightly more portly Bastard friend, who probably drowns kittens and reads the Daily Express in his spare time. We shouldn't feel too bad though, because they're eating in a restaurant so ball-achingly bad that the chef proudly announces that he uses Richmond sausages. Sausages that are, food fact fans, 51% pork. Or, to put it another way, sausages that are only slightly more than half meat. This is food for Bastards, by Bastards, with Bastards. These aren't sausages, they are near-sausages. Almost-sausages. Slightly-sausagey-bags-of-gristle-and-shite.

This culinary chaos is dwarfed, though, by the dramatic scenes outside the prandial shit-fest. As the food is served, a gang of quite literally five or six protesters are shouting and waving 'No Luxury Flats Here' placards at a nice man on a shiny digger who's really just trying to do his job. The tension is palpable. Fortunately, one mouthful of almost-sausage triggers a Proustian deluge of memories of days when it was quite literally 'all fields round here'. Inspired, the former Bastard jumps to his feet and starts waving ineffectually at the window, a gesture dwarfed in its futility only by Richmond asking us to believe that their products are actually sausages.

So, there you have it. Richmond make almost-sausages for Bastards that used not to be Bastards and would like to be ineffectual Not-Bastards again.

And so it is with great pleasure that I invite everybody involved in making both this ad and Richmond kinda-sausages is to be the inaugural members of my Bastards Of Advertising Hall Of Bastardry. You are all Bastards.

8 comments:

Mike said...

I can't figure out if that's deliberately cheesy or just plain terrible.... probably terrible.

And why is everyone jumping around at the end?

AdLand Suit said...

They're jumping at the end because they're bastards, Mike. Obviously.

I would welcome, incidentally, further nominations for the Bastards of Advertising Hall of Bastardry. I'd like to make it a bit like Neil P's 'Post Of The Month', only with less insightful strategy chat, and more use of the word 'Bastard' - every month, we induct a new Bastard, that kind of thing.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I await your spleen...

Working Man #2 said...

Er... Oh Yes! "Inglourious Ba..."

No!!
What the hell was I thinking?

Sorry... I'll stop now.

WhoisKaden said...

The implausible bit is that the Bastard turns his back on Bastardry.

I like the Bastard. He’s unapologetic, he’s inexplicably eating in a crap restaurant that serves sausages you wouldn’t wish on your dog, but hell, he doesn’t care. He’s probably eating there precisely to wind up the locals, for whom this is the pinnacle of fine dining, to leer at the owner’s young daughter and to show the locals just what a Bastard he is when he doesn’t so much as leave a tip. He’s going to build his flats and so what if some peasant or other’s view is slightly tainted. The taste of a 28 day-aged Chateaubriand washed down with a 1984 Lafite Rothschild isn’t going to make him change his mind, so why would some poorly made, poorly packaged and, clearly, poorly marketed sausages?

golublog said...

Once upon a time all bastards were nice little boys.

AdLand Suit said...

Or, golublog, to put it another, less generous way - Richmond Almost-Sausages turn nice boys into Bastards. Mothers, you have been warned.

criticpapa said...

Your post was quite good than other blogger, so simple yet imformational.

anyway I'm william
mind if I put a link back to you?


(clickable) ------> Suit

stephs said...

Whoa.. impressive post! keep it up, you will be soon get famous about this.

i am a freelance writer..
see my works here ------> Red Sports Coat