ambassadors, you are really spoiling us

Here's the leading contender for advertising campaign of the year. Heat Holders. A brand of thermal socks. It has it all.

The campaign features Z-list 'ambassadors'. One is a retired professional skier who, according to his Wikipedia entry, "is most proud of... his 12th place in the infamous Hahnenkamm Race in Kitzbuhel, Austria." The second is an obscure TV weather presenter, who, we learn from her personal website, is "known for her trademark TV 'bye bye' sign off". This means, presumably, that she gained some degree of fame for ending her weather reports by saying 'bye bye'. This is, admittedly, a neat gimmick - bidding the viewers farewell with the words 'bye bye'. Bet you wish you'd thought of that.

Perhaps the most prominent of the Heat Holders Ambassadors is Craig Phillips, the 'TV DIY celebrity'. Readers may be forgiven for only dimly remembering Craig's emergence into the public consciousness. It was way back in 2001 when he was crowned as the first-ever UK Big Brother winner - back when the programme was a fairly interesting novelty rather than a dismal parade of preening bullies and dull-witted narcissists.

The campaign also features a pretty low-end digital presence. Right now, just 135 people love the socks enough to follow the brand on Twitter. Still, why would you follow socks on Twitter? What news could the socks possibly have? Have a look and you'll see that the answer is 'not much'. 

On Facebook, meanwhile, just 146 people are 'friends' of Heat Holders. Making friends with socks? Odd.

The brand's website is a treasure trove of bad writing. Consider the opening line of the 'Our Story' page. "Sock wearers from all walks of life have given a warm welcome to Heat Holders, The Ultimate Thermal Sock." A strange sentence given that almost everyone is a sock wearer. Granted, anyone might dispense with socks in sandal weather. Even then, though, as any fule kno, natives of this island have been known not to do so. Sock wearers from all walks of life? You might as well say food eaters from all walks of life when advertising a range of yoghurts, breakfast cereals or frozen ready meals. Or light needers when advertising light bulbs. Or washers when promoting a brand of soap. Washers from all walks of life have welcomed... 

Then we have the pages and pages of customer testimonials. There's some great stuff here, from unlikely-sounding situations ("I dropped several hints to my girlfriend about some of the Heat Holders Socks to be added to my Christmas list, but never received any on the day.") to lamentable apostrophe misuse ("can be worn on any occasion without the usual thermal clothing stigma's").

There are also examples of punters flagging up the shortcomings of the product. Mrs. J. Bradshaw (an equine dentist) tells us that the socks are "a little bulky for under riding boots". Mark Parry (a mountain rescue team member), meanwhile, informs us that "in wellies and walking boots they are the best, but in 4-season boots they may have been too good" as he found his feet "would get too hot". Perhaps it's commendable that the Heat Holders crew see fit to warn prospective customers of the limitations of the socks. But it's a long way from advertising orthodoxy.

(Brand) ambassadors, with this wealth of risible writing and lo-fi social media stuff, you are spoiling those of us who enjoy bad advertising and clunky marketing.