Everyone loves meerkats – fact. They were invented in the late 1980s, especially for the documentary Meerkats United, and they’ve never looked back since.

Given the almost universal love that we have for them (assuming you’ve never smelt one or been bitten by one of course) it’s a wonder that the cynical, lead-hearted gonks responsible for most of advertising haven’t used the furry little buggers to pedal more products to us in the past.

They’ve got it bang on with this one – Aleksander, the founder of comparethemeerkat.com urges insurance bargain hunters that they’re mistakenly looking at his site and should really be pointing and clicking at comparethemarket.com.

Beautifully, comparethemeerkat.com does exist – and it’s much more fun to peruse than a load of old bollocks about excess amounts and how many crashes you’ve had in the last five years.

Wahoo! It’s Celebrity Big Brother, starting tonight!

Among the fame-hungry nobodies stars who will be behaving like right proper sods for the next fortnight or so is Latoya Jackson, who was once rumoured to actually be her brother Michael in an elaborate disguise.

We hope not – especially as she did a full-on kit-off Playboy photoshoot in the early 1990s. Too alarming to even wonder about if you ask us.

Here’s Latoya in an ad from the now-defunct Today newspaper, where she plugs excerpts from her book about life in the batshit-mad Jackson family.

Brilliantly, right at the end, she looks as though she’s about to fall over ass-backwards. It’s almost as good as the Michael-esque music that plays throughout the ad.

Good luck Latoya!

And they keep on coming…

Just been to Stockport and the clothing chain USC has signs up in the window saying that its shops have been placed into administration as of 29 December. A real shame because I loved never buying their overpriced clothing, preferring to take the item number and then order elsewhere.

Thanks to Bitterwallet reader Branny for simultaneously scouring the high street with Deathwatch-tinted glasses, and contributing to the downfall of yet another clothing retailer. The latest press reports state the chain went into administration on Monday; 300 jobs are at risk at the 15 stores being closed. The remaining 43 shops have already being sold off to USC owner and billionaire entrepreneur Sir Tom Hunter.

Clothing stores seem to be in vogue for winding up at the moment, with the collapse of Adams and Morgan in the past week. Further clothing outlets are likely to fall; plenty rely on products manufactured in the Far East where the US dollar is king, leaving UK outlets with their crumbling sterling up a certain creek without a certain paddle.

The video sums it all up. Enjoy.

This new ad for Woolworths has just appeared; apparently this is literally everything that’s left.

Memorex tapes for Christmas anyone?

Double bubble for you today. First, we’ve got Volkswagen’s new Golf ad – a Matrix-esque fight spectacle, which sees a top VW engineer fending off multiple attacks from dopplegangers of himself.

With its ace Teutonic soundtrack, the whole thing is a pulsating blend of excitement and odd Germanic precision. We love it and imagine it’s going to look a thousand times better on a cinema screen.

As the second ad proves, we never used to get this sort of thing with British Leyland did we?

Here’s another viral – don’t be scared, it’s not infectious but rather another ad-that-isn’t-really-an-ad, designed to promote a product in an unconventional way, highlighted by bozos like us who are happy to give it webspace.

This one’s an advert for an advert, starring national treasure Monkey, the cloth simian who was rescued from the ITV Digital debacle and given a new lease of life by PG Tips.

On Christmas Day, he’ll be starring in a brand new ad which apes (heh heh) that classic Morecambe & Wise kitchen-based breakfast dance routine to the sounds of ‘The Stripper.’ We’re guessing that Monkey’s erstwhile sidekick Johnny Vegas will be involved as well, and it might well be one of the highlights of Christmas telly.

In today’s viral, Monkey does his best impression of the Queen, addressing the nation, but a little too keen to get Dutch courage from the glass that’s by his side. Hopefully he’ll be on better form in eight days time. And hopefully, we’ll all still be awake by 9.05pm, when the next ad airs. Hic!

Today’s Commercial Break isn’t so much an advert but more of a video Christmas greeting. But we’re happy to feature it because (a) it’s a greeting from an ad agency, and (b) it’s cool and clever. Like us.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the sound of a massive wall of microwave ovens singing Jingle Bells to you. Much respect to the rubber-brained creative types at AKQA.

Walt Disney died on this day back in 1966 but it wasn’t until five years later in 1971 that Walt Disney World opened in Florida – here’s an ad for it from that year.

Jesus, look at it! For the first two thirds of it, it’s a living nightmare. Terrifying music screeches as massive dwarfs scamper around a confused, bewildered young girl.

Meanwhile, a cocksure Robin Hood Peter Pan taunts her from the safety of a tree branch. “Can you fly-y-y-y-y-y-y?” Horrible little bastard.

And is that Orson Welles doing the less-than-child-friendly voiceover? It’s a wonder the place lasted until 1972 if they thought that was an acceptable piece of marketing.

The heads up for the supercheap coffee machine in today’s Deals Of The Day got me thinking about the caffeine-filled miracle drink even more than usual (which is a lot.)

So I tried to track down the greatest ever coffee ad. A kitsch Mellow Birds effort from the early 1980s? Fraid not. The ‘will they won’t they have it off’ debacle of a saga that put me off Nescafe Gold Blend for years? Nope.

It has to be this, a Twin Peaks spin-off, made for Japan, starring Kyle McLachlan as Agent Cooper and even directed by the mighty David Lynch himself. A blatant sell-out but top-notch genius nonetheless - even if the picture quality is a little wonky.

Yesterday, we shamefacedly brought you the worst viral ad ever. Today, to try and help take the nasty taste away, we’re bringing you the best. Well, according to the experts at Campaign magazine anyway.

In it, Pot Noodle take the Guinness ‘Tipping Point’ ad and relocate it to a South London housing estate with devastating consequences. Fag packets, mobile phones, fridges, chairs and tyres topple and tumble their way around – and extra points for use of the word “feckin’” right at the end.

Bitterwallet’s favourite is still Diesel’s SFW XXX viral, but then that’s because we’re a mucky bunch of pups, innit?

The cool-but-responsible dudes at Drinkaware have a festive message for us. They want us to enjoy the Yuletide season, sure, but without overindulging in a drinkular fashion. So how have they chosen to spread the good word? By making the worst viral ad in the history of everything ever on the internet.

It’s below this bit that you’re reading now, it’s five minutes long, and it horribly apes the character of Mark from Peep Show, even down to his speech patterns. It isn’t funny, it’s barely informative, and it took us three goes and a pint of Drambuie before we could sit through the whole thing.

If you get further than three minutes into it and don’t start dreaming about a stiff drink, you’re either a Quaker, a Drinkaware employee or someone we wouldn’t want to be anywhere near at our Christmas party. Which you’re all invited to. Except for… ah, you know who you are.

Men! Put some Denim aftershave on your Christmas list. Splash it on and within moments the women will be trying to get in your shirt, their bright red fingernails like angry, erotic, red-headed snakes… or something.

When they’re not attacking your chestular hairs, they’re seductively blowing up balloons and bursting them in your face. What can it all mean? What will it all lead to?

Two point four kids and a second-hand Citroen Xsara Picasso that smells of cola and sick if our experiences are anything to go by…

Pity Boy George. All he wanted to do was chain a male escort to a wall but he forgot to get permission first and now it looks like he’ll going to jail.

Worse still, he no longer looks anything like his feminine 1983 incarnation, as seen in this MTV ad. If he did, the inmates would be fighting over him to be their special ‘wife’ during his upcoming porridge-stirring spell.

In fact, that ad now seems to have acted as some kind of curse. Consider the facts;

BOY GEORGE – Heading for jail.
BILLY IDOL – Almost died in a motorcycle crash.
DAVID BOWIE – Someone threw a lollipop in his eye.
CYNDI LAUPER – Worked so hard on the soundtrack to The Goonies that she ended up in hospital.

This new ad for Nike’s Mercurial Vapor Rosa football boot tickles us and alarms us in equal measures.

On one hand, it’s superb because it stars the French player Franck Ribery, who is very, very, VERY good indeed. Secondly, it’s a remake of the intro to The Pink Panther Show, the cartoon that illuminated many an early Saturday evening during our childhoods. This is also very, very, VERY good indeed.

Sadly, the boot it’s plugging is pink. A pink football boot. What the hell is that about?

Bugger off Nike.