So from Riley Ralph, we've got, I want to hear your Google Gemini Christmas ad. That's what they've written. Like, usually people just put the film title or something. And I know Riley listens to the show occasionally, and contributes to the show.
And knows the format that I suggest you usually comes in. Yeah. So when they've written, I want to hear your Google Gemini Christmas ad. I think we're gonna take it as that.
Yes, and I think I know what it is. Is that, right, you know, AI adverts. I don't mean adverts, maybe they are. I mean adverts for AI.
Okay. They always contrive the least believable problem. Yeah. Because generative AI as a tool is a solution in one to the problem, right?
It's always people being like, Oh man, Gemini, please read my emails for me so that I don't have to have meaningful connections for the human being. Or like, hey, Google Gemini, can you remember this guy's name? Because I don't care about anyone. Like, they come up with the least...
Wait, Gemini can do that? They come up with the least believable problem. Gemini, I've just poured 400 gallons of citric acid into my, onto my TV. How can I turn it into a beautiful lapshade?
And it's just like... And Gemini can sort that for you. I can do that for you. Yeah, yeah.
That's how good Gemini is. I can do that for you. Listeners, get involved in Gemini. That's what we're trying to say.
Don't worry, don't worry Tom. I can do that for you. Let's find you a recipe for a beautiful lapshade made out of a TV with citric acid in it. Riley Ralph, you wanted to hear our Gemini Christmas, Google Christmas ad.
This is it. Don't worry Tom, I can do that for you. So David Bowery... No, it's disaffected sexy lady at the the cash at the sort of robot voice at the till.
It's a shame you don't do improv, Matt, really. That's a great suggestion for a character. Don't worry Tom. Don't worry that you've just thrown something thrown a baby out of the window.
I can do that for you. I can help you cover it up. Here's a beautiful recipe for covering up a murder. Covering up a beautiful recipe.
Yeah. Covering up a murder. But this is what I think the advert is Tom. Because we're in an ad agency, not only making an ad for Gemini, but it's also full of thunderheads.
I don't use that word lightly. Thunderheads. What's a thunderhead? A thunderhead in this context is someone who has sacrificed all of their soul creative humanity to an AI programme.
They've allowed it to, they've allowed chat GPT to write too many shopping lists for them. Now they ask it every question. They can't do anything anymore. So this ad agency that we're running is full of thunderheads.
Right. And so now we have to ask Gemini to write a Gemini advert for us. Right. And it does that.
And then because we asked it to do that, the script, we got the contrivance, the contrived problem we had. It couldn't think of anything. So it just said two ad executives need a script for a Gemini ad. Don't worry, two ad executives done the head of the ad executives.
I can do that for you. And this is our episode sponsored by Google Gemini. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't worry, two ad executives.
I'll write a script for a Gemini ad for you. And then we just film that. Yeah. Well, we don't do it.
We don't film it. We get generative AI to make it. Oh, yeah, of course. It's an animating.
They're the least consistent way possible. Why film or paint anything anymore? Why make anything anymore? Why make anything anymore when you just pop fucking stuff into a 3D printer?
That's our Google Gemini ad. There you go. Just write as a room with two people typing into Google Gemini to try and figure out how to sell Google Gemini. We love Google Gemini.
We do. We do. Don't worry, listener. This picture is over now.
All right, so from all the webs of stage, we've got a Hallmark movie, The Movie. This is an ad. It's an advert. It's an advert.
It's a concept of Hallmark movie, The Movie. Yeah. Well, this has to be Hallmark always making movies about city girl, goes out to nearby hometown village. There's a guy there.
He's a baker. He's like chopdown trees. He does something rugged. And he teaches her they don't get on at first, but then he teaches her how to appreciate Christmas.
Now, we're not pitching that. That's not a movie that we're making. No, no. We're pitching new concepts of Hallmark movie, The Movie.
So this, hear me out. You know how Coca-Cola recently did that AI advert that everyone hated it. You've never seen it. Yeah, even Coca-Cola.
Yeah. But I'm still doing it. They made a secondary social media video pretending that they hand drew it. Yes.
Oh, look, look at all our hand drawing. We're doing it. That was five fingers and two thumbs. Yeah.
All the steps to what I was doing this that they made with AI. And right. So what this is, is the making of Hallmark movies. But it's AI.
But it's an AI movie that we made about, yeah. Because Hallmark movies, arguably, like, there's so many of them and they all follow the same similar format. Yeah, yeah. That could be AI generation.
Probably art. Yeah. Just no idea. We would never know.
We would literally never know. Yeah. That's it. Yeah, pretty much it.
Yeah. That's it. We got another few. Yeah.
I'm sorry. You asked us to pitch a movie. Yeah. Not our strong suit.
No, no, we've not been doing that for years. I had to switch a bit. All right. So from Ed Crawley, we've got Durex.
Durex. Yeah. The Gundam company. Simple.
Very, very simple. It's just, it's like, it's Bethlehem. Right? Joseph and Mary are on the donkey.
Wait, wait, wait, wait. Are they stood around the manger? Jesus is crying. And then they're just sort of like, I wish God had used protection.
It's simple of a map. It's two people. Joseph and Mary are on a donkey. On the way to Nazareth.
Bethlehem. Bethlehem. How did you forget that? Well, I know where they're going to go.
I know where they end up. I didn't know where they were going. Oh. Wait.
I thought that Bethlehem was on the way to somewhere for the census. I don't know that they have to return to the place of birth or something for the census. Okay. So that's how I remember.
Bethlehem. On the way, Bethlehem. Right. And they get there, right?
Yeah. To the inn. And the innkeeper says, well, you made good time. And I'm sorry.
It's not very good. Yeah, I got plenty of rooms. And Mary, like, you know, they go to the room at the inn. Yeah.
Joseph's giving her the eye. And then she's like, she looks behind her. She's about to close the door. Yeah.
And then she just got, she winks at the camera, closes the door. That's the other. Your ex appears. Yeah.
Great other. She's not pregnant. Great other. We would stir so much fire with that.
Because it's child free. Yeah. It's child free positive. It's.
It's controversial. And it suggests that God dicks her down. Raw dogging. It suggests that the option was there.
For the youth protection. Or I've never felt, you know, like the sort of like, oh, we're going to hell. But I've never felt so close to that. Durex.
Durex. Great. That's going to be talked about for years. It'll get taken off very immediately.
How did this get past so many people? Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, the thing is Catholics aren't buying it.
Yeah. So, yeah. Not a sector we need. Yeah.
So, adverts. Yes. We should talk about adverts. Do you have any really memorable Christmas adverts?
Actually, are you a crier? You're a crier at a Christmas ad. Yeah. You're a crier.
Yeah. You ever had that experience with a crier? But it's so earnest. And it's so like, oh my God.
Like you use for the title poet to use the man. The man on the moon, John Lewis ad. Yeah. And I think I must have had an emotion of that.
It was because it's not with me. I think by the time I'd seen that ad, I'd had it explained to me. So when I saw it was like, oh, it's this advert. All right.
They're trying to get my emotions. Well, I find it quite golling. You know, I find it when there is a real, when they lean on your, like, your empathy. Yeah.
You know, oh, it's Christmas. But that kitten's outside. It really wants to come in and eat the chicken. Maybe I don't have a heart.
Like, this is the thing. Whenever I watch an advert, I always like, yeah, I always try and break it down, which like. Oh, yeah. It's on your own shit.
Yeah. I'm just sort of like, what angle are they coming out from here? And exercise your media literacy. Oh, but the adverts have been really bad recently.
Very, because I think most of them, because they're such throwaway media, which is our territory by the way. That's why we're getting in. Exactly. If it's throwaway media, I genuinely believe that I have seen probably, it's probably more, but 10 to 20 adverts in the last week that are, maybe last month, maybe last month, maybe last two months, written by AI, scripted by AI.
And performed by AI. Yeah. So I think Coca-Cola do their ads with AI. Yeah.
And then the funniest thing I saw on social media was that they did this whole AI animation, and then they made an AI create an obviously not real hand drawing. Like, here's all the work that went into our advert for their social media. Try and prove that AI. But that video was AI.
You could just fill someone to do it. It's like, how much of the production of an advert is the cost of the advert? Like, that's got to be tiny by comparison to distribution on it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
It's got to pay all the networks to distribute its advert. Just make a good advert. Yeah. Well, it's not that hard.
I think with AI, they had plenty to trade it on, because they've been doing the same advert for fucking decade. That's true. So, yeah, like that's... I say it's not annoyed me, but clearly my voice being raised at that.
Yeah, no, it doesn't mean I... That's the emotion I get. That's not territory time. Yeah.
It's not territory. AI is stealing our job. Yeah. Making throw away kind of shit media.
We've been making slop for ten years. This is the original slop. But our slop sometimes makes you go, what? AI never does that.
Oh, yeah, yeah. We're like... Well, I guess sometimes, do you remember that time when Jesus had lobster claws on those Facebook pictures? Yeah.
I mean, at that time AI never got what? But in a sort of revulsion way. And we also do revulsion, but in an endearing way. Yeah.
I think our kind of slop is like, you know when you're playing like a machine at chess and you just throw out like a random illogical move and it's like, what the fuck is happening? It takes three times to do the next move. Yes, yeah, yeah. When you notice that the machine's gone, oh shit.
Like, but also like, I'm definitely going to win this now, but also... Why? With that kind of slop. Yeah, yeah.
Like, the irrational move that sometimes is a genius play. Yes, yeah. On chess.com. The slop we're throwing against the wall.
Seeing lots of ticks. The... Yeah, like, our ads. They're not AI slop.
They're like... The human slop. They're like... They're like...
Mystery stew. You know? We've thrown in what we've got. Yeah.
Are you trying to say that this podcast has an exercise is to try and find the sort of creative soul of the human mind? I mean, all eyes, isn't it? I guess. Which is why I can't do it.
Coming from a podcast that came up with stinky retinas. Yeah, it's a good movie. Episode 17, I think. Very early.
Very early. Maybe we did, Pete. Yeah, yeah. It's really funny when...
That's quite a bit recently. I did like a few interviews about schools about podcasting. And they asked me what our favourite pitch was. They only wanted to come up with some really early episodes.
Like, once you can't really find out to Spotify anymore. Yeah. Well, it's like, you know, early on you make the more memory, the more... The more memories.
The more memories. The more everything else is like in that same venn diagram. Yeah, now it's just churn. We're getting really in depth in our process this week.
But Christmas ads. Yeah. So, Coca-Cola use AI. I think I already do as well.
I've seen like, I already... Like, if it is done by a CGI artist, great work. But there are some such elements to it. Really?
Yeah, some sort of like, if you show it to Coronod digital, they'll be like, hmm... Is this... Is this AI? And...
You know what's been bothering me recently? Yeah. And I know, I should just lap up my... My human-made slot.
Yeah. Well, I can. Yeah. Right.
But you know that Dawn French had for it. Is it Marks and Spencer? Oh! Where...
Is it a supermarket? Yeah. I think it might be Dawn for... Oh, wait, Rose, maybe.
Maybe it's Waitrose. But Dawn French. These are really posh. She's a market-sitting supermarket.
She's sat in traffic. Yeah. Right. And she sets the scene, right?
She's sat in traffic. Yeah. It's snowing. And she sets the scene.
She sings... Just one under frame. She doesn't sing that. What?
She doesn't sing those notes. You know Dawn French? Yeah, yeah. Couldn't hold a tune.
Can't I? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She sings... She sings in early lakes, she's in early lakes, she's in early lakes.
Yeah, early French and Saunders. Now get this, right? As if this is a... Dawn in hall for Christmas.
Yeah. It looks on the notes. Oh, she's just coming in, right? Listen to this again, Tom.
Yeah. Right? These aren't sounds that the human vocal chords can make. Dawn in hall for Christmas.
Wait, are they auto-tune? They've auto-tune Dawn French. In the first two seconds of this... I hate it.
When you first played it, I was like, oh, yeah, that just sounds like Dawn French. And when you play it loud, I was like, oh, I can hear the auto-tune. So the auto-tune to make her sound bad. Yeah, well, she sounds bad.
I'm pretty sure they draw the tune to her. And here's the thing with auto-tune versus vocal tuning. Yeah. Is if you do vocal tuning, you're sort of like...
...draw that line up to the nearest notes or the note that you want, right? That's vocal tuning. Auto-tune, if you don't know what you're doing, right? Auto-tune ends up kind of like...
Pulls the voice to the nearest notes. The nearest notes. Leaning like... So a little bit.
Yeah. But that even that better. But like... That's been like, that's dragging it up to a...
It's really tight. Really like one note, like they haven't made it waver in her lap. Destroys the quality of her voice. So that's why it feels like it's all compressed and strange.
But also, those aren't the right notes. So, well, this is the thing. I reckon she sung it properly. And then they've gone, actually, we need to tone her down a bit.
We need to make her sound like the every person who's singing it. And then she goes and does an MNS ad. Yeah. No, Tom.
Every person never goes there. That's why they're doing it. That's why they're reaching out. So that's Piffney Alfred recently.
That's... Oh, we're getting old. That's the MNS. That's because it's at the...
That's hurt me the most so far. What Christmas ad are they the most? I've not seen many Christmas ads this year. I'm in the unfortunate.
And everyone... Everyone listening at home is saying, why are you singing at first? You freak. Why are you watching television that has adverts on it?
You freak of nature. Tore the media you want to watch. Put adblock everywhere. You're right.
And they aren't right. But here's the thing. I just want to watch Fringe, man. And it's on ITVX.
It's Fringe. I just want to watch Fringe. Isn't it on Amazon? Amazon's got ads now.
That's the fucking problem. I tried to watch the Mighty Nine. The Critical Role animation is very good, by the way. It's got fucking ad breaks.
We got about ripped out of the world of Exandria. And then into Bet365. I was watching Neon Demon the other day. I don't know why.
I was just like, I'm not seeing that film for ages. Still pretty good. Not going to lie. But...
Why would you lie about that? I don't know. I'm just... Why did you do that?
I was like, well, I've been pretty good. Midway's through. Pretty dramatic moment. But I'm just fucking concerned.
They've got our money. They may as well get advertising money as well. I mean, you can pay more. Or you can just stop using their service and simply turn it into one.
It's a good thing. It's a good thing. It'll be getting to the point where, yeah, Paris is going to shoot up again. And here, listener, is your watershed.
Because when Tom learns how to torrent, you know something's wrong. When I've done the research. With the TV and the screen. Yeah, I've never once been bothered.
When a good man loses his temper. The devil. The devil. The devil.
Shivers. There'll be a film about me. It'll be like, joker. Instead of killing people, I'll just be torrenting.
Films. They're going to start calling you Jack Torrance. Jack Torrance. And that's the guy from shining.
Yeah. Oh. All work and no play make Tom Torrance things. Christmas ads.
We're doing this thing. We actually enjoy talking about ads, but we just keep on going on the time. So, yeah, do you have any memorable ones from the past? Obviously the Coco one.
Pretty iconic. It's changed over the years quite a lot, right? Yeah, I think well, the voice had like the sort of. Oh, he's coming to the camera.
Yeah, sort of Santa kind of looking guy driving the truck. Yes. Which growing up and sort of seeing America change. It's not as warm as it once was.
I mean, is that America changing or is that your perception of it? I think some things come to meet in the middle. Yeah. You know, in that diagram, something's just smashed together.
I remember you're a big fan of Vietnam. The war. You were a big fan of Vietnam. Yeah.
I was a big fan of Vietnam. Yeah, yeah. And the Reagan era. Oh, yes.
I loved that. And then you particularly enjoyed the Bush Blair friendship. I did. Special relationship.
Special relationship. And so you've always been a big fan of all of America's policies and culture. Huge. Huge fan.
But now it's bad. This is all a joke, but don't go back and listen to past episodes. I'd say. I don't know if you've ever said so.
I think that was a good idea. Clearly, it should be looking harder for those weapons of mass destruction. I don't think you said that. Yeah.
Maybe I should start because that's the way the world's going. I want to record. We need that Lockheed mine money. Yeah.
Also, yeah. When people start kicking down doors and be like, I've got loads of recordings of me saying America's great. Quite an ironic bit of recording now. So, yeah.
You're right. You're like, it's at some point, Coca-Cola was just an existent, like it was a fun thing. It was an existent, like it was a feature in our lives. Yeah.
The days are coming. There it is. It's all is coming. We inextricably associate Coca-Cola with Santa Claus.
Yeah. I mean, that's why Santa Claus is red, right? It was red and white. Yeah.
Well, it was like Santa Claus before Coca-Cola was great. Yeah. Like Coke changed the color of Santa for everyone. And, you know, very effectively, you know, that's where it, like, a bunch of our culture and such it is.
So, you can call like the Western monoculture culture at all. Oh, yeah. Slop. You could call it slop if you wanted to.
Yeah. That kind of consumerist slurry that we've all engorged ourselves on. Yeah. But like, it was comfortable.
And then, and now, especially over the last few years, not a few years, over the last couple of decades, of like, story after story of Coke doing modern slavery and just slow destruction of their brand. What was it? John Oliver bit where he was like, there's a section on Coke Wikipedia page that's titled Venezuelan death gangs. And so it's like, that was a joke.
Except it wasn't. It's real. That's real. That's happening.
Yeah. But the, like, so the scares are falling away from the eyes a little bit on that. Yeah. It's become old and jaded.
Perhaps. Yeah. But like, do you think, do they deck? Do you cope deck?
The halls. The halls. Do they deck the halls? Do they deck the halls?
Do they deck the halls? Do they deck the trucks in bars of Christmas? Christmas. Like, for real.
Yeah. I don't think they're doing it. I think if they're using AI to advertise. They can't be bothered to address the truck anymore.
I think that the trucks we saw. Yeah. Definitely carried Coca-Cola. But I don't think they're the ones doing the long halls.
No. They're the ones that are showing up for press stuff. Yes. I cannot imagine anything more depressing than a child being like, oh, it's the Coke truck.
I'll run out to see who's in it. And it's just like Venezuelan death gangs. Hey kid. Yeah.
Santa's ill. He's sick. He's sick. He's, I don't know.
He drank too much sherry last night. I'm covering for him. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. But John Lewis, I think, probably have the sort of market that I think they started the big push on like Christmas ads. It's a tear you up. Yes.
Yeah. Like mini films. They make you go, oh, yes. This is John Lewis.
Yeah. They make you feel good will to all men. Yes. You know, they just they they just twist your heartstrings to the point where you go, oh, I think it's Christmas.
It's so wonderful. They're like John Lewis. The suing to be said about John Lewis ads being just mini films that don't really advertise anything they do. No, it's just there they are.
It's just like, oh yeah, John Lewis exists. That's where a lot of adverts fall down, I think. I, I, there's loads of Christmas with Iceland adverts, right? And it's like, look, here's a chick, here's a turkey you could buy from it.
It's a little frozen. Here's some little sausage rolls you could get for the snack. Now, now here is a video of grandad. He's getting old and he, he's gonna cry yet.
Like that's the kind of adverts. So he comes after the, he comes after the sort of selling of like what we're doing. Oh, but grandad's getting involved. Like it's, I don't know why grandad's getting involved.
But yeah, John Lewis, like again, quite a few companies are doing this now where it's just mini films based around Christmas, based around giving the concept of like togetherness and stuff like that. And there's a line in, I think it's like the first episode of Mad Men, which is when the, when they almost failed to get the cigarette contract they go in for the whole episode. And then as the guys are leaving the boardroom, the guys go, all right, well, six different companies making the same fucking thing and we can't seem to get him out off the ground. And then Don Draper being the genius that he is goes, all right, six different companies selling the exact same product.
We can do anything we want. And it's like this sort of light bulb moment of like, oh yeah, no, and I think that's what John Lewis, like step outside of the paradigm, right? Yeah, you just got to make it memorable. And people will be like, oh, that's the John Lewis ad.
John Lewis exists. Yeah. I'm like, and they do Christmas things. I might go to John Lewis this year.
Yeah, I don't need to know what my savings are on, on, on a bag of carrots. Yeah. I don't need to. You might need to.
Yeah. But let's all go down to the food bank. Get some savings. We're just down today.
I know. It's the moment we have a lifting for. We'll get back down and go to. But yeah, like it is clever being like, hey, this Christmas, this one's on us.
Normally, normally we'd be trying to slang year all manner of... I think John Lewis advertised at the other point in the year. No, it's Christmas. Like the John Lewis Christmas ad.
Yeah. And I think a few companies have been trying to do that, but they've always done it. They've always pushed the sales aspect of it. Yeah, there was always a product that you feel that used.
Yes. I remember there was one, one for Sainsbury's that was like basically like a Dickensian Christmas. And it was like Sainsbury's was established in 18, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was about Sainsbury, the man Sainsbury giving away gifts and stuff.
And he's like, look at this, how good this man was. He's still alive in a frozen, in a frozen nightmare. But let's not talk about, let's talk about Christmas. You can have that one for free Sainsbury's.
Yeah, you should zoom in on the face of... It's Cryo Sainsbury. Cryo Sainsbury. He invented Cryo Sleep.
Yeah. Back in the day. It was just a really intense winter and they never thought him out. I think I'm looking at a few of these, so I've asked for products as well as like brands.
The name of brands, the name of campaigns. Yes, like basically just gone to Alice, just like anything, basically. Just give us anything and we'll try and pitch Christmas out for it. How have they done?
They've done really well. This year. This year. Very well.
Shall we just read out a few and we'll see. To warm us up, warm us up in the deleted scenes. Let's do quick fires. Yes, you may have, if a long time list has may realize that we record the deleted scenes, just as a warm up before an episode.
So yeah, with this time, you're just getting more bang for your butt with a deleted scene. So from Phil Walters, just give us burgers. 3 exclamation marks. Exclamation marks, exclamation marks.
Yeah, yeah. Just the concept of burgers. Concept of burgers. I would, I think I'd go with this sort of...
I don't know why, but I'm really feeling like you have the fourth. King in an activity scene. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's just gold.
Frank and Tensor Mur. And he's like, Angel Gabriel's like, these are good enough for the King of Kings. And then a guy in a sort of, an Aussie hat with cocks dangling from his like, all right, Kings, I've got this one. All right, Gabriel?
No. It's a metal set. But metal set. All right, Gabriel.
Not means I'm going to go on out here. Yeah, I've got these, I've got something that a little target's going to love. And he's, he wheels in a barbecue. And it's an activity scene.
But the manger has been replaced with the mangers off in the corner somewhere. Everyone's having a barbie. Yeah. They, they surfed Jesus out of the manger.
I'm foggled in it. Girls just want to have fun, start playing. Of course, because it's Australian. They have to be like middle of summer.
So surfboards in the background. That is. All right, so from Hay Matt on Patreon, we've got Captain Dingell's old fashioned Navy beans. Captain Dingell's old fashioned Navy beans.
I wrote this down because I immediately thought of Willem de Faux from the fucking lighthouse. Yeah. Just, I want an ad for some beans that they've addressed for Christmas, but with the same intensity of Willem de Faux in that movie. I, I like that.
I also like the idea that the Navy beans, they're a, Captain Dingell has been, it's not, this is not a new brand. No. This has been around since like the day. 200 years old.
Yeah, it's 200 year old brands. Like Samuel Adams. And they haven't changed the recipe once. And so these Navy beans, they taste fucking gross.
These beans, they come from the ground. It's kind of like, do you know like Fisherman's friend? Yes. You know, or Kendall Mint Cakes, that sort of thing.
Yeah. Where like, they've not changed the brand, they've not changed the look of the tin. The way they've done it, anything. Yeah.
And it really shows because like, and they're getting wrong. I know I live in Sheffield, there's no way I can, I can say that I don't like, I don't like Kendall Mint Cakes. I think the stuff's gorgeous. Yeah.
But. Yeah, I've got some in the cupboard actually. But it does put you in mind of rationing in the second world war in the list. It's just, it's just calories.