Advertising's giving me the shits
I think I’m a relatively intelligent person. I have a few degrees; a fairly large vocabulary; enough logic to be able to figure things out fairly quickly. If I had fewer friends or less enjoyable interests I’m sure I could become interested in sudoku. I’ve read some of the classics, can play the piano, and know enough of four languages to order food, find accommodation and ask for and understand directions, so in the grand scheme of knowing stuff, useless and otherwise, I’m ok with who I am.
Needless to say, I’m not happy when I see a television commercial and simply don’t understand it.
Quite apart from the fact that advertising is based on the principle of appealing to the lowest common denominator, when I see an advertisement I don’t understand I don’t think it’s clever, it just annoys me and I refuse to buy the product on principle. Let’s face, if I can’t figure out the product key message in 30 seconds worth of vision, the chance of me negotiating the packaging is not high.
This rant comes by way of an advertisement I’ve literally just seen, for a mainstream anti-diarrhoea medication.
The ad, which I hope makes it to my Antipodean airwaves if for no other reason than to hear the collective quizzical “huh?” makes oblique an art form.
So, the vision is of a woman suffering from gastric cramping. The voice over, always a soothing and posh sounding bloke… saying that drug X can reduce the symptoms including cramping, bloating and, well, the dire need to run to the toilet frequently… the vision then cuts to a happy woman (post tablet) walking down the street with a veritable jaunty step, now removed of her socially unacceptable by-product of last night’s misadventure… who to prove her rejuvenated health, walks past a guy changing a flat tyre and pulls out of her handbag a car jack.
I kid you not.
It seems that some anti-diarrhoea medication suddenly turns you into a mechanical do-gooder. I’ll bet that’s not listed on the potential side effects on the packet.
While I’ve never really understood why using some brands of tampons makes women so happy about menstruating that they feel obliged to dance on car roofs in formal gear at midnight, why a woman who no longer has gastric cramps would think to herself before leaving the house “keys, mobile, diary, lunch, car jack…” is completely beyond me.
It may be a revoiced American ad, as the American ads for pharmaceuticals are hilarious. I guess due to legal requirements the potential side effects for every drug in the states must make it into the voice over. So, ads for antacid medication will always have the disclaimer at the end (said very very very quickly) “may cause intestinal bleeding and stomach cancer” which somehow makes your slight feeling of nausea seem ok.
And don’t even start me on the Viagra style American ads, which effectively have guys chucking their Zimmer frames out windows to use both hands to grab random female bypassers.
Needless to say, I’m not happy when I see a television commercial and simply don’t understand it.
Quite apart from the fact that advertising is based on the principle of appealing to the lowest common denominator, when I see an advertisement I don’t understand I don’t think it’s clever, it just annoys me and I refuse to buy the product on principle. Let’s face, if I can’t figure out the product key message in 30 seconds worth of vision, the chance of me negotiating the packaging is not high.
This rant comes by way of an advertisement I’ve literally just seen, for a mainstream anti-diarrhoea medication.
The ad, which I hope makes it to my Antipodean airwaves if for no other reason than to hear the collective quizzical “huh?” makes oblique an art form.
So, the vision is of a woman suffering from gastric cramping. The voice over, always a soothing and posh sounding bloke… saying that drug X can reduce the symptoms including cramping, bloating and, well, the dire need to run to the toilet frequently… the vision then cuts to a happy woman (post tablet) walking down the street with a veritable jaunty step, now removed of her socially unacceptable by-product of last night’s misadventure… who to prove her rejuvenated health, walks past a guy changing a flat tyre and pulls out of her handbag a car jack.
I kid you not.
It seems that some anti-diarrhoea medication suddenly turns you into a mechanical do-gooder. I’ll bet that’s not listed on the potential side effects on the packet.
While I’ve never really understood why using some brands of tampons makes women so happy about menstruating that they feel obliged to dance on car roofs in formal gear at midnight, why a woman who no longer has gastric cramps would think to herself before leaving the house “keys, mobile, diary, lunch, car jack…” is completely beyond me.
It may be a revoiced American ad, as the American ads for pharmaceuticals are hilarious. I guess due to legal requirements the potential side effects for every drug in the states must make it into the voice over. So, ads for antacid medication will always have the disclaimer at the end (said very very very quickly) “may cause intestinal bleeding and stomach cancer” which somehow makes your slight feeling of nausea seem ok.
And don’t even start me on the Viagra style American ads, which effectively have guys chucking their Zimmer frames out windows to use both hands to grab random female bypassers.
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