Monday, November 10, 2008

Iron-Free Shirts Insult our Intelligence

by The Imaginary Reviewer from the Imaginary Review

My most hated TV commercial goes as follows: A man emerges from what looks like a steamy hotel bathroom wearing a dressing gown. He sees smoke, and runs towards an ironing board in the hotel room. He picks up the steam iron, which has been left sitting on his shirt which, in true slapstick style, now has a big wedge-shaped hole in it from where the iron has burned through. As the foolish man looks despondently at his favourite shirt, the voiceover implores you to buy new Crapola* Brand Wrinkle-Free No-Iron shirts.

Usually by this point I am throwing the nearest potted plant at the television, such is my hatred of this advert.

My problem with this commercial stems from the fact that the agency seems to be implying that no-iron shirts are a good idea because ironing is such a mentally taxing activity. It’s not that ironing is one of the most boring, tedious, shittiest menial tasks there is, no: men need wrinkle-free shirts because they can’t be trusted with a spoon, let alone a steam iron.

“Hey men,” the ad’s makers seem to be saying, “look how difficult it is to iron a shirt! Look how stupid you are! You can’t even iron a shirt properly! You twat! You UTTER TWAT! You probably lack the basic attention span required to follow the complicated storyline of this ad! Why, I bet you stopped watching this ad after several seconds because you were distracted by the sound of an airplane in the sky outside your windows! You’re probably poking yourself in the eye with a pencil right now! Dur dur dur! Look at the stupid man!"

"Oh, and please, buy our shirts.”

Let me say this now: I have never stopped in the middle of ironing an item of clothing to do anything more time-consuming than scratch my balls. And even when I do, I remove the steam iron from the garment in question so as not to end up with a cotton/polyester fireball. Nobody, not even the most ignorant shit-for-brains mouth-breather, stops ironing mid-shirt in order to have a shower. This ad isn’t just unlikely, it’s insulting.

And so, I won’t be buying that particular brand of Wrinkle-Free Shirts for Brainless Room-Temperature-IQ Morons. But I will make a suggestion for their next commercial.

Everyone hates ironing because it’s crap, not because it’s hard. Men hate it because we’re lazy; women hate it because it gets in the way of complaining about how lazy men are. So the ads should reflect this. I say, begin the commercial with a normal, average bloke getting out of bed. He starts getting dressed, but pauses as a gorgeous Victoria’s Secret-style model sits up in the bed, and says seductively, “Frank? Do you have to go so soon?”

The man looks at the camera, smiles and shrugs, while the voice over says: “New Crapola* Brand Wrinkle-free Shirts. They save you ten minutes every morning. How you spend that ten minutes….is up to you”. Fade out to sounds of frantic groaning and frenzied bed-squeaking.

Seriously, the world lost a great advertising executive when I decided to take up reviewing things that don’t exist.

*This is possibly a gap in my memory.

8 comments:

Red said...

Wow. This is hilarious. Who knew you were so good at reviewing real things, too?

ÄsK AliCë said...

I would love it if they had that sex ad. Perfect!

BeckEye said...

I'm horrible at ironing, and I don't even have balls to distract me. I would actually love some iron-free shirts.

paperback reader said...

I'm not so much terrible at ironing as I am too poor to afford an iron and ironing board; too lazy to ever iron anything; too shabby to own anything worth ironing; and to ghetto to ever be en route to a place where others will be wearing ironed things.

Really, one of the main reasons I live with women sometimes is that I can whine and complain when I do need something ironed and then it magically appears, ironed!

But even I wouldn't think that a shower plus thing that can cause fires when left unattended is a good idea. I would, however, think your ad is a good idea.

Anonymous said...

I have a wardrobe FULL of clothing with iron wedge shapes burned into them. I just can't seem to handle that hot iron. So these shirts are paramount for me. THANK YOU!

Or I could be lying.

I actually sort of miss UK advertising because at least the occasional interesting one slips through.

The Imaginary Reviewer said...

I'll be honest, I very rarely iron my shirts. I'd rather look like a complete scruffbag than waste ten minutes on that shitty job. I work in an office building of engineers: the fact that I actually come to work in clothes with buttons makes me a figure of god-like majesty.

SouthernBelle said...

hahaha, I love your ad idea. you should pitch it to an ad agency, seriously!

My no-iron solution is to buy only tight clothes - they stretch out to smooth & relatively unwrinkled when worn. Yay for being a girl!

Unknown said...

Oo, that IS a good commerical! (Yours, I mean, not the original. Although, I did once burn myself with an iron, and I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent person, so maybe ironing's not so easy after all.)