Back to Ad Agonies

The more I see ads the more I wonder at how much the world has changed. All the certitudes of my long gone youth have vanished into mist and the brave new world simply seems too brave and too new for me to recognize.

Just imagine the scientific advances in talcum powders. Once all that they could do was spread a fragrance that turned heads towards to smugly smiling user. The latest advances now enhance character. I mean it infuses the heroine with the determination to drag the reluctant hero along in eloping with her. I am sure that those people are working on the next enhancement that will ensure that the user has the courage to face up to the parents and marry with their knowledge if not their consent. Truly, Science is a wonderful thing.

I can imagine consuming a chocolate which will make you look as though you fell face down into muck after you do so. A chocolate that, if you take your attention off it for a few minutes, would make it look as though you scrabbled around elbow deep in slush to come up triumphantly with a chocolate wrapper. I can even imagine such a chocolate finding a market despite all this. But, never in all my dreams, had I ever conceived of the possibility that someone would believe that such a chocolate would find a market precisely because it does all this. And, apparently, it does find enthusiastic buyers! Ah! Me! Where is the nearest cemetery? I am too old to live!

The ad that really tested me, however, was a recent dish-wash liquid ad. There is this lady doctor coming home and her husband bids her Happy Anniversary with a sumptuous spread cooked by him. There you have this doubly miraculous man – he not only remembers anniversaries but also wants to make his wife happy by cooking a feast – and what does the wife say? Shed tears of joy and murmur sweet nothings? Reality Check: “Now my kitchen is bound to be a disaster area”!

Next – surprise, surprise – the husband has even cleaned up the kitchen (Note to married men: Kill this man where you find him! He has no right to set the bar so high!). At least now a happy wife? One overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness of her husband? Reality Check 2: “What? With an ordinary dish-wash liquid, my dear expert? That leaves a lot of germs – etc. etc.” Quite the sort of health lecture the husband was thirsty to hear in appreciation of his efforts to make her happy on their wedding anniversary.

What I will never understand – and will be glad to have clarified – is how this expert wife had that ‘ordinary dish-wash liquid’ in her house in the first place? Or do we believe that the husband went out on purpose to get that liquid avoiding the proper liquid that the expert wife had so thoughtfully provided near the sink?

I always knew I was shy a few marbles upstairs. After this I feel that I do not even have two to rub together!

Disclaimer: Any perceived gender stereotyping is all to the credit of the ad, please! After all, when the woman says ‘My Kitchen will now be a disaster area’ and all, the natural presumption is that the kitchen duties in that household have normally been the responsibility of the lady – and I make no value judgments about that!

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