Sunday Worst?

I can't decide which of two ads in yesterday's Observer magazine depresses/enrages me more.

The first shows a shiny black car, with a headline that reads:

"attract plenty of interest (without paying any)"

Can the agency really not have seen that play on the two senses of "interest" in a car ad several thousand times before? No, they must have done; in which case, did they think, "Sod it, it's good enough for another crappy finance ad. And the kind of punter who spends 18 grand on a car isn't going to notice if we flog them a retread."

And here's exhibit 2. A gormless and unshaven bloke, helpfully identified by a caption as Joe Cole, holds a camera. A handwritten headline reads:

"My world is all about great shots"

Would it, theoretically, be possible to deliberately create a worse celebrity testimonial ad than this? I really don't think so. What credibility does Joe Cole have in the world of digital photography? Why, conceivably, might anyone other than a rabid Chelsea fan be impressed by the fact that he apparently endorses this particular camera?

And just how astoundingly limp is the attempt at a verbal link between endorser and product? I'm not a huge football enthusiast, but even I know that Joe Cole is a midfielder who only very occasionally shoots at goal, and mostly attempts to create scoring opportunities for his strikers. So, no, his world isn't all about great shots - and even if it was, that would still be an utterly useless and unengaging line.

So which is my Sunday Worst? I think the sheer can't-be-arsed laziness of the first just shades it over the dinosaur-dumb stupidity of the second. But only by the length of Joe Cole's perfectly art directed stubble.