God bless the BBC. No, not because of its internet activities, or its tendency to give me cash for the odd radio appearance: because it’s ad-free, it’s currently the only UK broadcaster that isn’t bombarding everyone with Crazy Fucking Frog all the time (although that may change: if the Crazy Frog single charts, which it no doubt will, then they’ll play it on their music shows).
Seriously, this is getting silly: Jamster’s buying up ad time at an incredible rate, with the result that the ad’s on twice in the same commercial break. Channel-hopping on satellite is already pretty much impossible – in one channel hop the other night I had to skip the ad eleven times – and now the bloody thing’s on terrestrial channels too. Once the single comes out (Monday?) then you can add radio, shops and idiots’ cars to the mix.
Naturally there’s a huge online petition about it already, and while many of the posts are taking the mick – one person talks about ripping out their own pancreas and stuffing their ears with it – there’s genuine anger there too. All joking aside, how long before the first cases of “frog rage” pop up in the press?
Comments
0 responses to “Frog rage”
I was thinking about this yesterday as the ad came on for the millionth time. Can there be anyone left who wants the ringtone but hasn’t bought it yet? A primetime ad must cost a stack of cash, and to keep running them I assume they must be making a return on their ad spend.
I think you’ll find that Jamster aren’t just trying to sell the ringtone. They’re one of these shady mobs that get you to subscribe and then charge you a substantial quantity of cash to send you text ‘updates’. I know one person who claims never to have signed up with them, but who actually changed their phone number because they couldn’t work out how to stop the texts adn they were costing a bomb.
That said, she is a bit of an eejit.
Yeah, it’s all about the service rather than the specific ringtone. And they’re quite clever with it – if you look at the ads, when they do the sales pitch at the end the phone shows a different character – eg sweety, or the dragon, or whatever.
They’re utterly evil, of course, but they’re very good at being evil.
I’m not sure they’re selling ringtones at all — I think the ads are actually a vehicle for subliminal messsages telling us all to work harder and spend more money. :)
Please make it be soon that Frog Rage hits the headlines. Coz then the Nanny State might actually do something worthwhile and ban it for the good of the nation!
Argh, it’s on wired.com as well now. Complete with audio. :(
Well, wired was the first site to introduce banner ads, so they’ve been evil for a while :-)
Frog Rage? Ooh, I dunno. Napoleonic Wars? Hundred Years War? 1066? The last piece about Chirac in the Mail?
Tim, I feel guilty for laughing at that.