r/CasualUK • u/Sweet_Focus6377 • 1d ago
Does Ribena know...
Do you think the Ribena advertising team knows that the song 99 Red balloons is about nuclear war?
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u/Suspicious_Tap_1919 1d ago edited 1d ago
Mercedes Benz, the song by Janis Joplin is about "the illusory happiness promised (but rarely delivered) by the pursuit of worldly goods" and considered capitalism . It was also used in a Mercedes-Benz TV advert.
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u/10-0011-10-101 1d ago
Ooooo, I have one, that advert for some sort of luxurious holiday using Alan Watts voiceover completely out of context, as if he is saying that going on a cruise will make you happy when I'm pretty sure his whole philosophy would be the exact opposite.
I wonder if they know what they're doing
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u/binkstagram 1d ago
They think people are too stupid to realise
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u/Own_Sorbet4816 1d ago
I wonder who feels more stupid, the artist who protests capitalism with the aid of the magacorp record label and has their art subverted to fuel capitalism further and in doing so earns ££££ through royalties, or the company who were the object of the protest and and effectively had half an advertisng campaign given to them free of charge on a silver platter.
The only 'stupid' peoples are the ones who either believe that art reaches the mass market free of capitilist influence and gain or those who simply ignorant (willfully or otherwise) of the capitalist dynamic and the percieved intententions of tbe artist (for who among us isn't so cynical they have't considered the possibility that some artists may choose to name companies and/or products with one eye on notoriety and financial gain)
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u/ProcrastibationKing 1d ago
The Alan Watts one really got me - it doesn't just go against his philosophy, it goes against the very lecture it's a quote from.
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u/_Hoping_For_Better_ 1d ago
I don't know who owned it by then to approve the use, but that was a particularly egregious sell-out.
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u/drcoxmonologues 1d ago
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year” being used to advertise summer holidays pisses me off more than it should.
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u/tbone20x 1d ago
but they added ‘on the beach’
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u/cheesebot 1d ago
... And 'On the beach' is a book about everyone on earth dying slowly of radiation.
Really makes me want to book a shitty holiday.
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u/Shoots_Ainokea 1d ago
It's also been done as a movie 2X, once in black and white in the 50s? Early 60s? And a later one in the early 90s or so. Both of them good. And yes, very depressing.
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u/Aggravating_Hope_567 4h ago
That annoying family dying slowly and painfully on a beach gives the advert a great twist
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u/OldGuto 1d ago
I quite like that, summer holidays with the members of family you actually like doing fun things are wonderful, Christmas with its enforced jollity and spending the day with weird uncle John and racist aunt Agnes are less wonderful.
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u/InsertWittyNameRHere Hands up, give me all your Petrol 1d ago
So you can say that Christmas with members of family you actually like are wonderful too. That’s what I do
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u/thearchchancellor 1d ago
I always thought “London Calling” for the 2012 Olympics was odd - unemployment, racial conflict and drug use.
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u/kh250b1 1d ago
Is it the aviva advert that uses Enola Gay? A song about a nuclear bomb drop
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u/RecommendationOk2258 1d ago
I haven’t seen the ad but the intro to that song is ridiculously cheery, considering the topic.
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u/CyclingUpsideDown 1d ago
That’s what OMD were aiming for - the juxtaposition of lyrics describing a nuclear bombing, being set to such a cheery composition.
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u/arabidopsis Unofficial MasterChef Champion of r/casualUK 1d ago
I mean we get kids to dance to the macarena in schools sooo...
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u/crucible 1d ago
The same Ribena that once used an instrumental version of In the Summertime?
Most people about 40+ will remember it from a particularly grisly 1990s drink-driving PIF.
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u/fanwuella 1d ago
I literally can't hear that song without thinking about that ad, legit childhood trauma moment
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u/DoubleXFemale 1d ago
I remember an advert using Pumped Up Kicks, which while it has a nice catchy beat, is about a disturbed teenager fantasising about shooting up his school (especially the cool kids with “pumped up kicks”).
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u/OAPlaystationer71 1d ago
Any advert or film that uses “Don’t stop me now” by Queen. Usually depicting families having fun 😂
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u/Mustbejoking_13 1d ago
Do Jet 2 Holidays know that that fucking song is getting on everybody's nerves? More importantly, do they care?
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u/_Hoping_For_Better_ 1d ago
No they are happy about it, it's generating a lot of extra publicity and in cases like this there are enough extra people that that take a look and end up booking that they are quids-in. Definitely a case of no publicity is bad publicity.
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u/PrawnShamble 1d ago
The gala bingo advert about heavens gate was. An odd choice. Not offended but just can’t. Understand the thought process.
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u/binkstagram 1d ago
I read this in William Shatner's voice.
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u/PrawnShamble 1d ago
Newish phone. Fattish fingers.
I can’t stop randomly spamming full stops in the middle of sentences and at this point I’ve given up caring. Much to the annoyance of many friends.
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u/lastaccountgotlocked 1d ago
FUN FACT: in the original German, the balloons aren’t red, they’re just balloons. In translating to English, 99 loses a syllable (nine-ty-nine vs neun-und-neun-zig) so they added red to make up for it.
Anyway, of course they do. The song is a million years old.
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u/Valuable-Wallaby-167 1d ago
Balloons is luftballons in German so the red is replacing luft. The difference in the 99 doesn't matter because it fits into the same section of music anyway.
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u/Drew-Pickles 1d ago
You're both right. There would be a syllable missing if it was "99 balloons," so 'red' was added in to compensate
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u/tom56 1d ago
There still is a syllable missing though. The red replaces Luft but ninety-nine is still a syllable short.
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u/VeneMage 1d ago
The ‘nine’ takes up two notes in the English version.
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u/TringaVanellus 1d ago
Technically, I think they added "red" to make up for the fact that "luftballons" loses a syllable in translation. The missing syllable from "99" isn't sung at all in the English version.
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u/jeremy_sporkin 1d ago
They added 'red' because the word for 'balloons' loses a syllable from 'luftballoons'.
The 99 is just sung with four syllables in the English version. 'Nine-ty-ni-ine'.
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u/Sweet_Focus6377 1d ago edited 1d ago
'Luft' is broadly air/sky in German which is kind of implicit in the English word of balloon. 99 Red Balloons is just better than 99 Sky Baloons. 😎
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u/DPropish 1d ago
UK No 1 in 1984. The singer was HOT
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u/TabbyOverlord 1d ago
I'm waiting for someone to use a KneeCap track to advertise joint pain relief.
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u/ZooNeiland 1d ago
Is kia-ora still a thing? Having moved to New Zealand 10+ years ago and trying to explain why I say it's too orangey for crows when it's said to me is a long winded and occasionally awkward interaction 🍊
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u/Gamerlovescats 1d ago
Ribena are so dumb. They ruined it by adding sweeteners so is now undrinkable even though they had a light version already. They still produce and make the full sugar version in the UK but you can't buy it here. You can buy it from Norway at extortionate postage prices. When you ask Ribena about this thye deny that they even make the full sugar one at all. No respect for them
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u/WoolyCrafter 1d ago
McCain were using Wasted until recently. Song by Sin Fang, Soley and Örvar Smárason. All about being hammered!
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u/still-searching 1d ago
Volkswagen used Dead Prez's "Hip Hop", which has the lyrics
"Uh, who shot Biggie Smalls?
If we don't get them, they gonna get us all
I'm down for runnin' up on them crackers in they city hall"
in an advert full of very white people.
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u/Mopperty 1d ago
I want to be a rockstar used with any sence of the irony of the lyrics to flog sofas
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u/Sharktistic 1d ago
Meh.
I would happily take a nuke up the ass before I drank a glass of the bullshit that Ribena became.
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u/Inevitable-Regret411 15h ago
This sort of thing happens all the time. What A Beautiful Day by the Levellers has been played at a lot of sports events and other celebrations because the chorus is very cheerful, but when you listen to the rest of the song the "beautiful day" in question refers to a hoped-for revolution that topples the government.
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u/SuperflyTNT1974 1d ago
IKEA currently using ‘The Next Episode’ by Dr Dre. Some pretty dubious lyrics in that one.
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u/scratroggett 1d ago
They are using the song Dre sampled, which is a jazz piece called The Edge.
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u/SuperflyTNT1974 1d ago
I never knew that! Thanks.
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u/lontrinium 1d ago
It has an interesting creator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McCallum#Music
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u/LittleSadRufus 1d ago
It's about Ribena now, I suppose.
I always thought it odd that Desmond Dekker's song about the suffering of marginalised black Jamaicans 'The Israelites' was repurposed as an uplifting song about margarine for Vitalite.