On misleading advertising

Now you wouldn’t want to give anyone the impression that you are anti advertising.

Far from it, in fact. You find ads endlessly fascinating.

You take a secret delight in an industry that is blatantly all about manipulation. So much more honest than the pretence of making objective news reports.

It’s quite soothing just to be able to relax and let your brain get washed without constantly having to count how many pejorative adjectives the anchor has used about Vladimir Vladimirovitch or analysing the effect of having the Russia-based correspondent, wearily urging some sort of perspective, interviewed rather than introduced as a reporter, placing him on the same ‘this is just one side of the story’ footing as Berezovsky’s mouthpiece.

Because you are also not under any illusions about whether or not it works. The existential crisis you felt when first shopping in Russia for washing powder which was brought about by not finding any of the familiar brand names certainly would have put paid to that.

If you hadn’t, years before, found yourself in McDonald’s ordering some special new type of chicken burger after being caught at a weak moment in front of the TV on a Saturday morning with a hangover by a particularly seductive shot of sizzling meat and lettuce in a sesame seed bun, of course.

It’s such a pleasingly functional art form as well. The thing that occasionally bothers you about the more self indulgently incomprehensible items of Modern Art is that you find it difficult to work out what’s it’s for. Especially if it seems to require very little actual skill to produce.

Of course, art generally is clearly for historians. Likewise, literature. But you find it hard to decide what a historian will gather from Hirst’s cows pickled in formaldehyde or Emin’s bloody underwear other than the fact that clearly some people in the late 20th Century had too much time on their hands.

Advertising is obviously for something. Even if it is making money, this, somehow, makes it OK.

And not without its own sociological interests either.

You were quite pleased with the latest series of BT ads at first. They represent the latest attempt at one of those advertising soap operas, with a set cast of characters all singing the praises of various aspects of the product whilst unfolding some kind of storyline.

You were amused that in contrast with Nescafe’s very 80s inspired tale of two urban sophisticates flirting in their chrome laden apartments, and the 70s homely Bistro family, with its housewife mother, plump children, pine kitchen and dog, this set of skits is all about the difficulties of a man taking on a woman who has two children and an annoying ex husband. Very appropriate, you though, particularly as the man is doing a very good impression of a chap out of a Nick Hornby novel.

However, all enjoyment of this particular series has been destroyed by the latest episode, which is on distressingly heavy rotation at the moment.

It’s supposed to be telling us all about the amazing facility BT Internet services offers to back up all the data stored on your computer, and the way we hammer the message home is by having the Woman greet her Bloke all distressed one evening with the horrifying news that she has deleted an important folder on her computer. The implication is that this is the only place where the important things inside the important folder exist.

The thing is, this important folder contains all the photos of her children ‘from when they were babies’.

What sends you rocketing out of your chair screaming obscenities at the TV and totally unable to appreciate the hysterically funny little exchange that then takes place when the Bloke reassures Woman that it’s OK, they can make another one, and the Woman thinks Bloke means a baby, is that even you can see that the eldest child is into his teens.

And you may be a bit backwards when it comes to technological innovations, but you very much doubt that anybody much had a digital camera in, what, 1996, and are certain that only the nerdiest of techno nerds has transferred all their paper photos and film onto the computer and destroyed all the paper negatives since then.