ITV tweets 'Where tossers live' as ad execs hijack…

ITV tweets 'Where tossers live' as ad execs hijack photo op

One group of ad execs give their own take on ITV's branding — One group of ad execs give their own take on ITV’s branding. Photograph: Twitter

There is a saying in showbusiness that you should never work with children or animals.

ITV may want to expand that to include never allowing advertising executives to hijack a fun promotion at your party and then allow it to go up on Twitter.

To explain. ITV has a brand strapline used on-screen and off using the words “where” and “lives”.

Interchangeable words can then be used in the middle of the grammatical sandwich, so to speak, such as “Where drama lives”. So far so clever.

At the after party for ITV’s glitzy programming gala the broadcaster set up an area where groups of advertising types could write a word, or words, on a card, make it the meat in the slogan sandwich, and have it photographed.

The icing on the cake was the clever clogs who then made a buzz of it on social media tweeting images on @itvmedia. Cue drunken, or not even, Mad Men types getting a little bit what one Twitter observer noted as being “off brand”.

Exhibit one: “Where we destroy lives”. Oh dear, could that be perhaps a disgruntled BBC gatecrasher about to become jobless following ITV’s poaching of The Voice?

Thanks for joining us at #ITVGala, see you next time! pic.twitter.com/IOlnw1dedd
— ITV Media (@itvmedia) November 19, 2015

Exhibit two: There is a lack of elegance, and grammar, in this one - “Where tossers live(s)“ - but we get the point. The smiley face and comedy outfits means it’s all just jokes, right? If you want the home of witty banter try UKTV’s Dave perhaps.

Thanks for joining us at #ITVGala, see you next time! pic.twitter.com/zHNQhgMfcB
— ITV Media (@itvmedia) November 19, 2015

Exhibit three: Hard to know how, or why, these guys thought this one was a barrel of laughs. “Where pervert lives”. Right now ITV’s human resource department is looking for these two women to see where the specific culprit they refer to works at the company.

Thanks for joining us at #ITVGala, see you next time! pic.twitter.com/Vnr5XB8HtQ
— ITV Media (@itvmedia) November 19, 2015

Exhibit four: And last, but not least, there has to be a sex gag. And this one even works with the phrase as it is meant to. “Where horniness lives”. Me, so horny.