Bye, Bye, Buy Buy (Baby Goodbye)

The demand for celebrities to sell their bodies for quick cash by associating themselves with huge advertising campaigns is one of the saddest and most damning indictments of our celebrity-driven capitalist culture of consumption. Perhaps most saddening because the proliferation of these types of campaigns means they're obviously working, and people are actually more likely to buy stuff they don't need with money they don't have just because they see a familiar face endorsing it. Worse still, it seems to be inconsequential who is doing it. Any talentless oik who's never done anything for the advancement of the human species, and never will, can get a well-paid gig swilling a cold drink on TV and looking happy about it, or falling onto a DFS sofa giggling with gay abandon in a way that nobody ever does in real life.

It would all be more understandable if heroic and well respected people were advertising stuff; I'd be more likely to sit up and take notice. For instance if they managed to digitally manipulate George Orwell to appear in TV adverts for foot spas, I'd think long and hard about getting one (so long as his script assured me each foot spa wasn't an instrument of government surveillance). Or if Morrissey showed up claiming that Churchill was the best option for car insurance ("and if a double decker bus/crashes into us/to claim with Churchill/is such a heavenly way to claim"), I'd be in raptures. But that's not the way it works. Instead, they just pay lots of people I, justifiably, have little or no respect for to try and sell stuff. Sharon Osbourne (estimated worth: £100m) parading up and down the aisles of ASDA and frittering away her money at Gala Bingo. Duncan Bannatyne (estimated worth: £200m) posing with a Blackberry. Footballers are often the worst culprits: Steven Gerrard (reportedly on £100,000+/wk at Liverpool) replaced Michael Owen (£100,000/wk at Newcastle, who'll pay anything to anyone) as the face and monotonous drone of Persil; Gary Lineker and his pissing crisps; and, of course, David Beckham (estimated worth: £87m) who's advertised too many products to list on these pages and whose advertising philosophy begins and ends simply with the word 'yes'. All of these people are clearly of such low fibre and self-worth that they see nothing wrong in what they're doing.

I'll agree with by far my favourite dead or alive comedian Bill Hicks on this: "by the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising - kill yourself" (this clip is required viewing). Although, when I was reading the most recent Hicks biography, Bill Hicks: Agent Of Evolution, his best friend and the book's author claimed that when Hicks was dying of cancer he said he would do an advert for Aloe Vera gel. This was because he convinced himself one of the reasons he had cancer was that he'd never exposed himself to enough sun, so started sitting outside, getting sunburnt, and then needing Aloe Vera (I wonder if she ever says hello back?). He genuinely thought the product was brilliant, and believed in it. This is an interesting new slant on advertising endorsements. If you fully believe in a product and think it advances humankind, is it OK to advertise it? The emergence of Stephen Fry's adverts for Twining's Tea must be a case of this, and I'm willing to go with it. There are a few things I'd agree to sell if I ever get offers on the back of the immense fame and notoriety I'm building through this blog. I'd certainly do adverts for Bourbon Creams, and could easily be tempted to sell wet wipes if the terms were right. I think both of those things make a positive difference to people's lives and even have a hand in progressing our evolution. Asda, Gala Bingo, Persil, Walkers Crisps et al don't, that's the difference. I rest my shaky case.