OK, I want you all to tell me exactly why this is such an odd advert. I’ve got at least ten reasons. Come and tell me yours…
Cheers Ben. Great blog!
The man with the golden face
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The director went for an unusual tactic of, instead of hiring an actor, holding a small child at gunpoint and forcing her father to read out the lines he needed. In close ups you can see the light glinting off the gun barrel reflected in the ‘presenter’s eye.
£85 wedding rings
harem of poloshirted girls in attic
safety goggles for looking at laptop
Giant lamp
Divorced man and first lady seem to be in same house suggesting divorce was between them
‘the Refiner’ seems like a strange mythical person
The divorce guy- “…only got £80 for my wedding ring. Then they offered me £50 to appear in the advert. Fantastic…. I wish I was dead.”
All good! Hadn’t thought about the giant lamp. Good work!
Because they secured Prince William to be their spokesperson. This recession has hurt us all.
It’s the opposite of alchemy. That’s the basic problem.
Odd things:
- The premise that getting money for gold is in some way difficult
- The way the presenter strides into shot while staring into the camera
- Presenter’s hair line seems to bob up and down in a frightening manner
- “Got divorced. Didn’t know what to do with me wedding rings” Rings? What? “Got eighty-five quid” with which he bought all that old tat on the shelf behind him
I’m quite tempted to send them my gold plated hifi leads. Particularly since there won’t be any middlemen involved.
I sent in an old Spandau Ballet record and got a slap in the face the next day!
Err, err, that “gold” they keep showing. It looks like silver and pearls ! Am I missing something? Maybe it’s white gold. But surely a pile of actual gold coloured items and not silver coloured ones would have been a better idea? Oh dear.
And honestly. They are actually saying: you put your gold in an envelope and send it off to them. That’s all you need to do. I mean, who’s going to do that? Just send off their jewelery on the off chance someone might send them some money back. Oh wait a minute, it’s “fully insured”. WTF!
Just the sheer number of times he says the word “gold” until it starts to not even sound like a word any more.
My reason: somebody somewhere thought this business was a good idea.
It made that bush baby man ‘so happy’ – who are we to criticise this fine organisation?
Grizzled old prospectors will be kicking themselves.
They always make a big thing about putting cash ‘directly into your bank account’ – where’s the organisational sense in putting it indirectly into your account – it’s just making more work for everybody.
He says the phone number, but it’s not shown.
The way everyone shakes their heads when they talk. Even broken bangle girl does a little bit, though she’s trying her best not to.
it’s also odd that they say the ‘phone number, but it’s not displayed on the screen. it seems they only want you to use the website… which then begs the question “why the eye candy pretending to be telephonists?”
Are we sure there’s “no middleman” here?
I suppose it is is his wooden and scared/scary manner. And the sheer volume of times the word ‘gold’ is mentioned.
And another thing… since when did gold become a disposable item that clutters up the place? Who exactly has a problem with the amount of gold they have lying around? I mean, apart from Iraq.
What an amazing forehead. It’s like it’s been poorly computer animated. The programmers are just randomly assigning movement for the sake of it. (Reminds me of the 3D Richard Burton head from the recent live performance of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds)
Yes I love that – the premise that money for gold is really hard work!
Perfect!
Good point!
Good spot!
Nice observation. Agreed.
I know – the word ‘Middlemen’ looks so sinister. It’s a word that you never ever see written down, really. And also, it’s set against a scary green flame background…
Yes, gold, gold, gold…
Funny.
Mink has totally put his/her finger on it. I send the shout out to Mink.
Also tangentally weird is that the Onion has just done a sketch about this:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/us_to_trade_gold_reserves_for?utm_source=a-section
The fact that they feel the need to illustrate “gold” and “cash” every time.
The fact that they have chosen to illustrate “gold” with something that does not in fact appear to be gold.
The continuity between “I got four hundred and twenty four pounds.” and “I got divorced”, making it seem like they will pay you in either cash or marital breakdown.
I’m a little bit frightened of him. He has begun to haunt my dreams. I now sleep with my gold.
Ps: Does he melt the gold down with his eyes?
The presenter seems about to explode with the excitement of the whole thing, like he can’t take it any more and it’s gone from a pleasurable thing to almost a torture, like when you can’t wait another second for your presents on Christmas day and you start crying with the tension of it.
Yes he uses his terrifying eyes as ‘gold melters’…
Watching that again the only non-creepy bit is the asian gentleman who does seems genuinely surprised and delighted at his windfall.
For me it’s the way the presenter speaks and acts like the host of an evil dinner party
Class!
By the way Robert, I’ve found out who’s behind all this frantic gold buying, it’s Kanye West: http://www.kanyeuniversecity.com/blog/?em3106=235825_-1__0_~0_-1_6_2009_0_0&em3298=&em3282=&em3281=&em3161=
I know that every time I see this on TV the aspect ratio flips depending on whether the presenter or the members of the public are on screen. Not sure what they’ve done there
The way the ginger woman (0:42) thrusts herself into the shot
The way laptop woman (1:06) farts and has a cheeky sniff
The punchy slogan:
‘With Postal Gold it’s safe, it’s secure, and the items you send us are fully insured’. Actually, is that supposed to rhyme??
Also, nice for Kinder Egg man – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9UjGC9FfjI – to pop up! (1:25)
This has made my day.
the presenters blinking seems to have been scripted. they prob thought “its creepy if he doesn’t blink … put on in after he says ‘and you can do the same’ and another, very long one, when he says ‘the privacy of your own home’ … there its fine now, his eyes are as moist as bread soaked in gravy.
every time they show gold it fails to look like gold. especially in the smelting process. the ‘refiner’ needs to turn the lights on and pull his finger out.
some of the girls in the attic have headsets while some the one on the end is forced to hold a phone – how archaic! its as if they’re not recieving bags of gold a day!
you have to put your gold in a bag.
computer goggles
asian mans ears
the fact that your gold is fully insured in transit – because heaven forbid you give it away for nothing, not after you put it in a bag and everything
the divorcee’s only problem seemed to be what to do with the excess ring he was now carrying around instead of facing a death alone … with only £85 to his name
I’ve just watched it again – I now think his expression is that of a man suppressing laughter, like as soon as the cameras stopped rolling they were all “I can’t believe we’re getting away with this!”
Also – If it goes directly to the refinery with no middlemen, how can you get your gold returned if you’re not happy with your cash?
Why does it seem to be filmed in an Old Womans loft
I didn’t spot it the first time but @ 0.48 there’s a nice ‘schwing’ sound when the word CASH appears which i like. It’s a sword being unsheathed but why it coincides with ‘CASH’ is anyone’s guess. Perhaps Pink Floyd have trademarked the noise of cash registers and this is all they could get?
Also @ 0.58 ‘FREE GOLD KIT’ =
1 white envelope
1 letter
1 plastic white bag
The ‘presenter’ seemingly being Christopher Eccleston in a state of permanent sexual climax. Put that on your list.
And every time the word ‘cash’ appears on screen, it’s accompanied by the sound of a sword being unsheathed.
“100% satisfaction guaranteed or you get your gold back” once they’ve melted it, pray tell how i’m going to get my gold back? And are they going to reshape it back into its original form!?
The director went for an unusual tactic of, instead of hiring an actor, holding a small child at gunpoint and forcing her father to read out the lines he needed. In close ups you can see the light glinting off the gun barrel reflected in the 'presenter's eye.
I have a strange urge to send them my soul
I have a strange urge to send them my soul
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