Friday, February 25, 2011

The Hard Sell: Yell

'We meet him skulking round various secondhand record shops searching for a copy of Pulse And Thunder'

The parable of JR Hartley is a famous one. An old man, who once wrote a book, finds it again thanks to the Yellow Pages. It's a warming tale, now updated for the modern age in this campaign for Yell. Yell is what Yellow Pages once was, except instead of a book it's an app. And instead of JR Hartley, there's Day V Lately, a man of about 40 who was once an obscure trance producer but has left those giddy days long behind and now has the appearance of a man who's been living in the roots of a tree for a month. We meet him skulking round various secondhand record shops (they still exist, apparently) searching for a copy of Pulse And Thunder. It's a "trance mix" but no one seems to have heard of it, not even the shop assistant with a bright orange haircut in the style of an Austrian's birthday cake. Depressed, Day V returns home ? he has one ? and dumps his manky parka on the floor in a flounce.

The situation seems bleak but, in an unlikely twist, it turns out Day V has been able to procreate and his young hippy daughter is on hand to offer help. She gives her father her smartphone (how does Day V pay the bills? Not with his trance mixes, that's for sure) and the power of the app is unleashed. Soon, with a little knowing chuckle, Day V is dictating his name to a stranger and a copy of Pulse And Thunder is on its way. The final shot is of Lately's face breaking into a smile of bemused satisfaction, like his life might not be as washed-up as he thought it was. And here's the rub: JR Hartley endured his existential crisis in his dotage, Lately is having his on the cusp of middle age. Yell, this ad might be saying, is still relevant today; but what about the rest of us?

See the ad here


guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/feb/19/the-hard-sell-yell

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