MFI

I’m a bit nonplussed by the current MFI advertising campaign.

Not that I particularly care about MFI or their marketing ethos, you understand. I mean, it’s not like I’ve ever shopped at one of their stores or even driven within a 5 mile range of one. I’ve lost count of the number of Boxing Day half price MFI sales that I’ve deliberately avoided over the years. When I’m freshly gutted up on hot turkey the last thing I want to do is shuffle around a mouldy warehouse in Erdington looking at a vast panorama of corner sofa suites and pre-built Devonshire pewter knob handle shelving units.

I mean, come on. I’ve got some taste.

Their new television adverts, however, are impinging on my psyche with some degree of success. Though not in the manner that their marketing experts had hoped for...

The catch line is that an MFI showroom is so expertly put together it’s just like being in your own home. Cue various family groups – all from the scummy end of town – having blazing rows and white trash spats against a backdrop of hastily constructed MFI furniture. The camera then pulls out as Wayne and Waynetta continue their Jerry Springer style dispute to reveal that lo! The couple aren’t in their own home at all but are in fact in an MFI warehouse looking at the wonderful array of suites and design ideas that the store has to offer. Gosh.

So much like home is MFI that the couple have plainly forgotten where they are and are carrying on like they’re in their own kitchen!

Oh ho ho. Chortle chortle.

Unfortunately the advert stops before they start hacking at each other with Stanley knives and then running upstairs to their MFI Kingsize Divan bed to start shagging each other witless like a couple of bit-part actors from Shameless.

Cos that apparently is what the average MFI customer is like.

Hmm.

That’s not exactly selling the store to me.

So it looks like I’ll be spending Boxing Day at home once again this year too.

Half A Sixpence. Mary Poppins. James Bond. It’ll be dire telly but better that than spending the entire afternoon watching Tracey and Kevin gouging out each other’s Marlborough scabbed eyes at MFI...