One hell of an annoying advert!

Is it just me or this new Argos Christmas 2011 advert is well annoying. What a waste of money.

The story line behind this starts with a busy shopping mall, and cuts to the family of aliens looking wide eyed out of the lift. The brother alien says, “This human idea of Christmas shopping, does my head in”, to which the father adds, “It all feels a bit alien (notice the pun) running around panicked.” While queueing to sit on Santa’s lap, the daughter alien says, “this is all a big conundrum, it’s up there with Justin Bieber and Egg Nog.” Ultimately, the conversation draws on to the brands proposition, “They should just reserve their presents online with Argos.” This message was clear.

Argo’s brand proposition would be to showcase that they believe there is a better way to shop online. For a start, the aliens are a typical family, you have a mother, a father an older brother and a younger sister. This would appear to be, so the audience can relate to the family and even see a bit of themselves in the roles that these aliens possess. However, in my opinion, I don’t think the use of aliens was necessary. Everyone knows that Christmas shopping is a major hassle, so why does Argos have to show this through aliens. Did Argos think, ‘how can we show an outsider on how hectic Christmas shopping on the high street is, and get customers to consider shopping online.’ They took the term ‘outsider’ literally and went with the notion of aliens. Why?

May I also add, how creepy and unnecessary the scene is, where the daughter alien says, “this is all a big conundrum, it’s up there with Justin Bieber and Egg Nog.” Why does the mother alien have to moan “Mmmm Bieber”? Just sounds creepy. High pitched voice and off key singing at the end is not something adults look forward to. Did they think it was cute?

Agency: CHI & Partners



If you're still interested to find out more, below is the making of.



I can't believe how Argos wasted all these monies just to produce this advert. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the CGI but the story line is hideous. They mentioned filming the shopping mall scene in Prague. Why Prague? Can’t they do it locally? There are hundreds of shopping malls in the UK if I’m not mistaken.