So, when a series of spots are created by creatives, for creatives, to generate interest in entering a creative awards show, you can't help but have high hopes ... Only, in the case of the ongoing 'Make Some Noise' campaign for the Hong Kong 4As Kamfan Awards, those hopes are dashed cruelly to the ground. We're all for scatalogical humour, but only when it's funny.
With 'Plane', 'Toilet' and 'Good' (the latter two succinctly subtitled 'O Shit'), the creative geniuses at the HK4As have achieved the seemingly impossible: to be cliched, tedious and offensive - all at the same time.
'Plane' shows a group of generic Middle Eastern terrorists, complete with towels on their heads, spouting gibberish before firing aimlessly at an airplane passing overhead. 'Toilet' has an executive rushing into a toilet cubicle and sitting down to, umm, relieve himself, unaware that a "nobody" is already sitting there ("no one notices a nobody" is the tagline). Finally, 'Good', perhaps the choicest of the lot, has an elderly man being presented with an empty plate. He runs his finger along its surface and then rubs his teeth, which turn brown (this is where the 'O Shit' subtitle must come in). He murmurs "good" and the group of men watching echo him, nodding enthusiastically. The tagline on this one is "They said it was good, you said it was good. But was it?"
Perhaps the team which came up with the spots should have asked themselves the same question. Especially if you consider the Chinese slang for masturbating is 'shooting airplanes'.
But Diary, in the spirit of welcoming all opinion, would like to hear from anyone not remotely involved with the creation of these spots who genuinely feels they are brilliant. Please. We really want to believe again.