Don't Blame Me, Blame Jack Black.

On Saturday I was lucky enough to see the brilliant film 'The Town'. Directed and lead by Ben Affleck, it revolves around the story of Affleck's group of professional bank robbers in the Boston neighbourhood of Charlestown, an infamous haven for this trade. This taut, multi-faceted thriller was however, had the impact of one of its most tense and engaging scenes destroyed by me, or to be more precise my phone ringing.


I rifled through my bag, mortified, for what seemed like forever. Luckily the film quickly reabsorbed us and thus was good enough not to be ruined by one spoiled scene.


However, after the film had finished, my thoughts returned to my faux pas and how usually, I am reminded by those Orange ads to not let my phone ruin the movie and swiftly silence it. I realised however that there had been one of these ads, but why didn't it prompt the usual response?

The ad in question is a kind of pseudo trailer for the upcoming version of Gulliver's Travels starring Black and quite clearly states at the end to turn off your phone as in previous Orange ads. 


However, where the previous ads with the irritating executives hellbent on ruining the scripts and ideas of a host of excited Hollywood figures were clearly distinguished from the block of trailers played either side of them, This ad was not as it starts off as a very plausible and exciting trail and fades into a comedy featuring the striking visual of a humongous Jack Black being strung up like a puppet by tiny people, which I feel somewhat distracts from the central message- there is too much noise.

This is part of a wider situation, with many brands creating adverts that prove entertaining and memorable, but fail to communicate their key information to the viewer. Brands like Cadbury's can get away with it, as due to their massive status and the fact that almost everyone is familiar with their products and distinctive purple branding, their adverts mainly serve to imaginatively re-assert their presence, not to communicate new information. However, information is the purpose of many a whacky, zany ad, a purpose which, unless the ad is handled cleverly it will almost certainly not achieve.