Does the entire Innocent Smoothies aesthetic strike you as deeply fucking irritating?

Arrests of British nationals in Romania on trumped up spying charges, followed by string of terrorist atrocities in cities throughout UK wd be the baller response to xenophobic propaganda imo

'Come to [name of country] - the women are really pretty and the beer is cheap!' is a standard first-wave new Europe tourism message, followed about a year later by 'come to [name of country] by all means but please stop getting drunk and harassing the women'.

otmfm

http://www.gatwickairport.com/static/images/gatwick-airport-logo.svg

THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING

We've had to 404 that request of yours.

Unfortunately we couldn't find the page you were looking for. But don't worry, we've notified Air Traffic Control and they're getting right on to it.

Why not try the site search (top right of this page), or go back to the homepage?

Google Cloud came back with "Oh noes! There is no preview available" today.

you're asking for that, keeping your files on a cloud

Gah, T-Mobile:

404 - Page Not Found
"MUNCH. BUUUURP."

Sorry about this but the page you were after
has obviously been gobbled up by our greedy Android Bot.

Off topic but I still laugh every time rte.ie's 404 page comes back accompanied by a picture of Shergar.

just got an email from our ceo outlining 600 job losses, and at the end of it all he said, referencing the company mascot, this fucking puppet thing that appears on hr, emails, let's call him "pink":

"pink's structure will remain unchanged" beside a little jpg of the puppet.

like... wtf.

Send that to Private Eye.

I'll have to do a grab of the page. But I definitely will.

They changed it before I could grab.

There's a sort of denial going on with this stuff. Ooky pook, we're just sending the A-team in to have a little look at your tumour and see if it's a grower-bigger or a stay-the-samer ...

It might be a bit of a stretch but I think whimsy is genuinely warm and comforting, or at least harmless, if it's on a birthday card you are drawing for your aunty when you are seven, or a cartoon of 'pirate paul' you draw on an envelope and leave at your workmate's desk (he is also called paul) - if it's within a close relationship with a specific person.

What they're doing is taking that warmth and applying it to things that are abstract and technical (404 messages) or transactional (business' twitter accounts and adverts). Trying to steal the warmth and silliness, clothe themselves in it, whilst simultaneously invading that whimsical, even infantile, close personal space far more efficiently than e.g. the Dolmio pasta puppet family are able to.

It's even a step on from the phenomena of Nike employing cool-hunters to go to squats in Berlin and cream off the aesthetic, or raves with corporate sponsors - appropriating people's dangerous, edgy adolescent things is a step behind appropriating people's silly, childish things

This morning, bought a bottle of this water to get some change for the bus:

http://i.imgur.com/n90pQsF.jpg

haha the most offensive part is all sneaking off to one side. I SAW YOU

xp smdh at your CEO, Garda

it obv caused a massive outcry. it's prob written for him by someone else, who is prob paid really well to do this. just defies belief.

THE TYRRELLS ALTERNATIVE FIVE-A-DAY

Steamed broccoli, herbal tea, sit-ups: nothing terribly wrong with any of those (in moderation). But there is such a thing as taking it too far, you know.

Which is why we came up with our own lifestyle guide, an alternative five-a-day. It's a simple list of things to keep your spirits up. Well, it works for us!

A portion of chips in newspaper
A swig of squash
A fairground ride on the pier
A stick of rock
A big bowl of proper English crisps

[picture of old lady holding up placard which reads as follows:]

NOTHING ARTIFICIAL
No funny stuff whatsoever.

GLUTEN FREE
Just in case you were wondering.

VEGAN FRIENDLY
Free from animals.

my local shop for unpopular/discontinued brands is selling Glacéau vitamin water for 39p a bottle at the moment. good work everyone

http://www.businessinsider.com/tesco-mobiles-twitter-account-is-genius-2013-10?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+(Business+Insider)

Tesco Mobile taking off the kid gloves.

that's kinda funny tbh

is Richard Feloni made up like the two "trolls" in this bullshit?

sarah it'd be funny if the mystery tweeters weren't mysteriously aping slogans from Tesco mobile's current ad campaign.

oh well, it sucks then

digging into those two Twitters makes me less sure they're socks, but more confused as to who gives 1 fuck what mobile phone network people use

Tesco should draft some former ilxors in as zing consultants.

U all may have noticed the theme tune to old children's program 'Rainbow' used recently on Tesco TV adverts

who gives a fuck about this

― blueski, Friday, July 18, 2008 9:18 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the dawn of 'snarkvertising'. looking forward to that.

'adverti-zing'

you've made your best joke

the future looks bleak

fuck a "Happy Egg Company" and their simpering advertising voice-over

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/why-tesco-mobiles-hilarious-twitter-feed-actually-no-joke-153496

I'm sorry to keep going on about this, but I find it kind of fascinating, to be honest. Do 'real people' actually like this sort of stuff, or just people who work in social media? That Adweek article is written in the same kind of wacky/chummy style as all of these brand twitter accounts ('we were able to meet the brainiacs' etc), but over 11,000 retweets indicates the appeal must go further, I suppose? And apparently Tesco being amusingly downmarket is a 'thing' amongst young people? (like school kids taking the piss out of their classmates for wearing own brand sports wear rather than Nike or whatever?)

Surely it's only a matter of time before a brand twitter account accidentally goes too far in zinging another twitter user and causes massive offence?

over 11,000 retweets indicates the appeal must go further, I suppose

people buy this sort of service

"The #nojoke campaign was launched to change perceptions about Tesco Mobile—to show the British public that there's really nothing funny about Tesco Mobile. By creating content that's authentic to the brand and consumer, we're creating a story people want to engage with. That's true brand advocacy."

content that's authentic to the brand and consumer in this case more or less = being a cunt to them. At least the guy understands his client!

http://www.youtube.com/user/innocentdrinksltd

vimeo newsletter:

"Dear insatiable souls,

We think things should always be better. Each day we contend with societal conventions, family obligations, and other assorted whatnot that try to limit what we can accomplish here at the Rainbow Factory, but we’re constantly working and thinking and prancing (we’re unicorns, remember?) together to improve every little ounce of Vimeo.

That was a warm and fuzzy pair of blanket statements. Now let’s get into the cold, hard, specific, life-altering improvements: "

i stopped reading there, was something about more storage.

Oh god.

I feel really dirty. Have just coded a placeholder for when an external data provider's feed is unavailable on one of workplace's websites with a big "Ooops!" message (as per the design requirements, I hasten to add).

so you should

https://ssl.sk-static.com/errors/503.gif

^^^ LAME.

http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/nwitimes.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/d/2f/d2f0e617-60c2-5355-9cd0-ce0841acbc59/5165cd3722476.preview-620.jpg

I don't get the knitting hats for bottles of fruit juice thing.

is one supposed to reuse the knitted hats for each successive bottle or do you toss the hat when you finish the bottle?

https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1472989_10153540860410287_682910837_n.jpg

not sure if Phones 4U tweeting a photo of Neil Hamburger in the course of brand-building social media inanity is an attempt to get him to hurl abuse at them or just a coincidence. on balance I imagine the latter

Big ole dang ole news from Bandcamp

Greetings discozhivago!

We know it's been a while since we rapped at ya, but Bandcamp's inexorable march towards music industry panacea continues! To wit:

(...and then some stuff about an Android app and a music feed etc...)

Bandcamp, you were doing so well!

https://abs.twimg.com/errors/robot.png

"Yippee! We have a brand new sparkly website!"

STFU Maplin, you used to be so much better when you actually sold stuff I wanted to buy. Instead of now, where you're trying to be an Argos for electronics. Except there already is an Argos for electronics. It's called Argos. Pricks.

Also WTH is my order? First it was in stock, then out of stock, then back in stock, then you sent me a credit note (or at least it looks like a credit not because there is no explanation as to what it's for other than it's the same amount as the item), then you send me an e-mail saying the item's been dispatched, but today the order history of your BS fisher Price optimised-for-people-with-tablets website says that the item is out of stock again. I mean, is it actually like Hi-De-Hi down in your offices?