The Hard Sell CILIT BANG WITH BARRY SCOTT

When I first heard the words ‘Hi I’m Barry Scott’ being blasted out of the TV speakers I nearly collapsed with laughter. I couldn’t believe a company could honestly expect people to buy a product with an advert that annoying. But as I started seeing him dip the same dirty penny into the same tank of liquid, over and over again it started to become tiresome. The ad starts off with those iconic words being shouted by one Barry Scott. He’s here to tell us about new Cilit Bang. He then continues to shout different things that it can apparently do. We see an anonymous hand wiping up the sort of stuff that no one would ever allow in their house. And I find it utterly ridiculous that they think this will convince people to buy their product. It is just very hard to believe that first of all those messes were as hard to clean as they would have you believe. Secondly that if they were that hard, that it is actually Cilit Bang doing the cleaning. Then, unfortunately not for the last time, the hand returns. But this time what are they cleaning is a dirty old penny. Supposedly this shows how it goes to work on the toughest dirt around. But just because it can clean a penny doesn’t mean it can clean tough grease. I mean what? Do they think people are worried about how dirty they’re penny’s are?

In one of the new ads we are told that ‘A million women are at it’ Now I could rant on for hours on this line. It’s wrong on so many levels. First of all; well there's the obvious thing you could take from that, added with the use of the word BANG and you have something with two very different meanings. But the thing about it I hate the most is the fact that a million women are at it. Barry Scott is telling women how to clean and assuming that it’s only the women who clean and so only they are using Cilit Bang. Coupled with the terrible acting from the supposed people who have tried and loved it, it doesn’t paint a very convincing picture. But neither of those things are the worst things that advert does. If you are unfortunate enough to have to sit through this then take a look at the lower part of the screen as he says “A million women are at it”. It says “Based on a survey of 10,000 households”. A million women in 10,000 households?!? I told you these ads were getting stupider.. In similar ads they have recruited more failed actresses who apparently only remember the ad from having ‘that penny thing’. This just gets worse and worse as they honestly expect me to believe people remembered the ads from the penny thing rather than the constant shouting or the terrible acting from previous ads.

In comparison to other ads, Cilit Bang has achieved the aims of most ads. To make people remember the product but the problem is people are remembering it for the wrong reason. The ads are enough to make you want to pull your hair out and when the ad is over I’m so relieved that even the idea of Eastenders doesn’t seem so bad. I have to say though I sometimes feel like smashing his face in, quite ironic I suppose “BANG and his fake smile is gone.”