Great Moments in Television Advertising (Part 3)

Two under-rated advertisements that are remembered by absolutely nobody but have been stuck in my head for the last five years week. I am aware that this is terrifically random and rubbish, but if I don’t get them out of my head now I’ll end up screaming it from a tenth floor window as I fire at a schoolbus passing below.

a) The Lincraft ad where they sung “It’s a beautiful Lincraft sale!” to the tune of “It’s A Beautiful Life” by Ace of Base. I have no idea what the next line was, or indeed if there even was one, but it was an advertising triumph nonetheless. In an attempt to end up in their “what’s wrong with you?” Hall of Fame I emailed them to ask what the second line was. As yet there has been no response, presumably because they’re trawling their archives for the ad in question. If they send me a copy of it I’m going to lose the plot and put it in the same folder as the video of Beautiful Life as performed on Pop Up Video. The Pop Ups on that video include “Belching can bring about a reflux of stomach contents”, “the band formed in Sweden in 1990 - they got equipment from a government grant” and “The flu virus travels in airborne droplets of respiratory fluids”. Best show ever. Best ad ever. Perhaps the best habidashery and home furnishings ever - I’ve never been there so I wouldn’t know. But you can be sure that if I ever need fabrics or crafts that they will be the first people I go to. Fuck Spotlight - what have they ever done?

b) One for Epson printers from the early 90’s where some soft-rock types belted out “EPSON COLOR MAGIC!” to the tune of Queen’s “It’s A Kind of Magic”. A brief search of the internet for that phrase comes up with just one hit, which would seem to indicate that it wasn’t an outrageous success of a campaign. At least the ponytailed executives responsible can take heart in that I’ve never been able to hear that Queen song, or see the video, since without thinking of the advert line instead of the main chorus. Even as a child that advertisement said to me was that anybody can be an advertising exec as long as they can find a song chorus with the same amount of syllables as the product they’re trying to flog, and the advertising budget to licence it.

So, yeah… Random advertisements are burnt deep into my brain. Is this nutbag territory? That would be distressing.