Have you ever seen such a tired looking advertisement?
I took a photo of the advertisement hoarding above on the way to London last Sunday. The train was slow to leave the station and I had the chance to read the ad for Carr’s. I had to read it twice to make sure I had read it correctly the first time. Then I read it again to check to see if I was missing irony or some coded message of deliberate self-knowing nonsense. Then I took the photo.
Here’s the copy for the ad, in case you’re reading this on something too small on which to make out the text.
Headline: Decadence you can down in one.
Body copy: Life is too short for mediocre. Don’t know about you, but we like our nibbles top notch. Whether it’s sensational smoked salmon or a champion cheese, only delicious toppings paired with the finest cracker will do.
Strap: How very Carr’s
Not only does that seem to be some of the worst advertising copy to grace a hoarding but I wondered at the idea behind the campaign. As you will see from the photo, this dreadful assault on the language is coupled with an image of crackers and toppings that seems to be from some sushi-hater’s nightmare. There is something distinctly wrong with the shape of the toppings, too. Why are they sticking up? Surely, toppings on crackers make more sense lying down, if only because it makes them easier to eat. The way these are offered means you’ll be stretching your jaw just to get this little dollop of decadence into your mouth. Or you’ll knock the lump of fish off with your teeth and grab for it with your hands before it hits the floor and knock someone’s drink over and the neighbour’s carpet will be ruined and they’ve just bought it when they moved in and this is the house-warming party and they thought they would be stylish and have these special crackers with bits of upright fish to show they were a class above.
And why are some of the crackers naked? Even those with toppings look unappetising and dry. The whole image makes you want to grab a bottle of water — or something stronger if that’s your thing.
So even before we get to the copy, we’ve been distracted by the invasion of the dry unappetising biscuits as they sweep up from the lower left of the hoarding. We seek solace and explanation from the copy. Unfortunately, no comfort will you find there.
What does it mean to down decadence? I’ve just been looking at dry biscuits with rather mean portions of upright raw fish placed on every second biscuit. If that’s decadence, I’ve been aiming too high all my life.
Then I’m told that life is too short for mediocre. No argument there. But that’s such a dangerous statement to make, especially in the context. It’s lie saying, don’t read on; save yourself the time. It gets no better. Look at the picture again and be on your way, glad you spared yourself the rest of the paragraph on this advertisement.
I didn’t take the warning and read on. The reference to top notch nibbles implies a sort of jokey aside about upper middle class dos with trays of canapés and sumptuous high teas of cake dishes and doilies. That ties in, perhaps, with the strap — How Very Carr’s. It could be they’re going for a Downton Abbey vibe.
So maybe the ad is a joke. But it never quite hits the right key. We have the chatty — and I’m not sure grammatically correct — “Don’t know about you”, which implies that we may like our own nibbles decidedly less than top notch. We may be the sort of people who simply make do. The sort of people who pair any old cracker with cheese — and not always champion cheese — for instance. Thank god the guys from Carr’s are here to set us straight.
And they do. Apparently, Carr’s is the perfect companion for champion cheeses and sensational smoked salmon. This is declared in another sentence that barely makes sense. Not only do they fall back on the tired tool of alliteration, but the second clause of their sentence really has no right being connected to the first. As it stands now, the sentence means something like, “I want some good cheese, so I will pair a delicious topping with a cracker”. That makes no sense. What they were trying to say was, “When I want a delicious topping like a champion cheese, only the finest cracker does it justice”, which is altogether another sentiment.
It’s also noticeable that the crackers pictured have no cheese on them, champion or otherwise. There may be salmon but I don’t think it’s smoked.
I bet, too, they tried to find a few more alliterative goodies they could add to crackers. Gorgeous gherkins; perfect pâté; coquettish cucumber. Perhaps even a fucking fromage frais.
No doubt the ad was reviewed by a lot of people and a lot of people saw the words and the picture and felt they went well together and that the whole thing conveyed the message that Carr’s crackers were top notch.
I think they were wrong. This is not an ad that will be appearing in any future incarnation of Ogilvy On Advertising.
Disclaimer: I have no connection to any manufacturer of crackers, water biscuits, or any accompaniment to alliterative foodstuffs.
