Two things have recently struck me about adverts.
There is a very definite swing to pulling at the eco friendly heartstrings. Doe eyed children tugging at your conscience that unless you buy a certain brand of biscuits you are responsible for blighting their future.
The current one to get my goat is Persil High and Mighty, sorry small and mighty. Cute voice child insisting that if we buy their new small bottles it will mean half the amount of delivery trucks on the road. But I'm sure they wouldn't mind if their advertising was so persuasive that that their sales doubled and thus they had to go back to the full truck quota. What a cynic I am!
The second thing goes back to that old saying 'don't you know who I am?' Especially in the world of hair care, cosmetics and other creams with added proteins and guilt, they can't get better than a celebrity endorsement. The second you see photoshopped Hollywood starlet your credit card leaps out of your purse by itself. Well, if the said Hollywood starlet is so enticing why do they always have to put their name at the bottom of the screen?
As an aside I was once at a hotel reception when an F1 driver walked in and stood in silence as the receptionist looked back with that 'do I look like a mind reader?' expression. The F1 driver came out with the immortal words 'Do you know who I am?'. To which the receptionist bluntly replied 'No' before turning with a big smile to me and saying 'Ah, Miss Hobbs' (I was having my 21st out there and the receptionists were all very sweet and passing on cards that had been sent to me at the hotel).
I suppose, to quote an advert, the receptionist recognised I was worth it!
Funny you should mention this - I have spent a little time this week at work tweaking copy so it reads 'Eco-friendly, buy it or burn in hell. Hope your children forgive you', or something to that effect.
Cynicism is very rarely unjustified :-)
Posted by: china blue | 20 March 2008 at 03:00 PM