of cringeworthiness

Which one of these ideas had you covering your eyes in embarssment for the longest time

For me....

1. Pantsman (will nenevr be 'bettered' in my opinion)
2. OctiKleen
3. Germinator

I agree with your ranking.

Pantsman is the original and the best. It's still hard to believe that was aimed at marketing cereal

Octokleen had the most cringe-worthy advert. I'm glad I was watching on iPlayer so I had the option of pausing it every few seconds, otherwise I couldn't cope.

Germ-o-nator deserves to be on the list, but was closer to being decent humour (though still lightyears away)

I do think the advertising task is a very difficult one. I mean, to take something that's been incredibly successful - Compare the Meerkat. That campaign's gone mad, Aleksandr has "written" a book! for christ's sake. That'll've taken months of preparation and graft to precisely tone, and I still think Lord Sugar would've been likely to go "wait, what?" And with good reason. It's quite hard to predict what precisely will take off with the general public.

Even among marketing geniuses with months of planning and perfect records, it's not difficult to squeeze out a dud.

Not to absolve the candidates of any responsibility, of course. I think trying to be funny is a very dangerous place to start - although, that said, Stuart got it right. Very liable to go wrong, though. Better to go with something much safer. A Bottle of Water went down well, this year.

Pantsman was TV gold

the thing was they called it OCTI - KLEEN
it should have been OCTO - KLEEN

and yet they still won.

And what did they win.

A f***king karaoke night out.

With both Pantsman and Germinator the candidates afterwards said they'd wanted other ideas, only to be told by the production team they couldn't be used.

For what it's worth, I'd put OctiKleen as worst, for the sexism, and for making octopus costumes look sleazy.

Well, Pantsman, awful as it was, at least had some creativity to it. These two ads had hardly any. But the cheesiest and most cringeworthy out of the three ads would probably be OctiKleen. Just the sight of an attractive woman in a bad octopus suit and christopher playing the "typical husband" by sittting on his backside and winking makes me shudder big time.

or even Kleen..........or K Leen ......... without any sealife.