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Not adding up
03/08/2007 10:14 - (SA)
Colleen Figg
There's always a lot being said about adverts. I have said a goodly number of things about them in my time as well. When the advertising apocalypse starts, I'll be in the front row, watching the hellish flames consume all ad-execs and their brainstorming "creatives". Others in for a licking will be the people hiring them, briefing them, giving them the very ideas that we are forced to endure.
I'll give you a few examples; I'm sure you'll be able to add many more.
The jewellery people with massive billboards up on the way to the airport in Jo'burg; they had an advert not so long ago that included suggestive "noises", like a woman moaning on the point of orgasm, presumably at the site of a massive rock purchased by some man eager to get into her pants.
What? That's what the payoff line said. Man buys stone, woman takes off clothes and both are enormously satisfied. What a simple world we live in.
Then we have those pink people hurling sauces - which seem to me to be in their various forms metaphors for blood - over women's clothes. The women stand in horrified shock but the next thing you know the clothes are thrown into a hideously shaded machine and come out not only stain-free but glowing.
Personally I would worry about radioactivity, because surely that's the only thing that could cause that other-worldly glow, but these women have devoted their lives to the problem of stain removal and they smile in beatific wonder and gratitude at the fact that the stain is gone.
On their mental mind-maps, the atomic question, or even what to do about global warming pale into insignificance, if they ever made an appearance at all.
Simplicity
As I said, we live in a simple world.
Men have their role, women theirs and children's entire futures are considered by car designers and manufacturers when making the blueprint for the family Car of the Year. These cars are so awesomely intelligent, nurturing and child-friendly that in the near future we can expect to dispense with nannies, au pairs or nursery schools.
The kids can paint in these cars, they can ferry goldfish around, they can sleep in utter comfort and safety on long journeys and no one needs to worry about drafts as the aircon systems are sensitive enough to pick up on anyone's needs, front or back.
It's all simple. One day we won't even have to venture out to the maternity wards to have our children delivered. The cars will do it.
My colleague Roleen told me about the ad featuring this amazingly clever photocopying machine, which removes itself from one office and makes its painstaking way across the road to another, because the paper there is of a much better quality. The machine knows what's good for it, and one day salespeople will be done away with and the machines will choose locale and paper.
Again, elegance in simplicity, people!
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