KEY POINTS:
There are many, many things in this confusing world that I don't really quite get. Why there are always way more toothbrushes in our bathroom than people who live in our house, for example. But among the most confusing things, for me, in this baffling world are television commercials.
I just don't think I'm all that good at reading television commercials. And I am most definitely sure that the message I take from some TV commercials is not the one the advertisers were looking to send.
Like the safe-driving ad where the little girl and her parents are in the car and they're all playing I Spy. Then her father, who is driving, falls asleep and, we are led to presume, tragedy ensues. I have learnt from this ad of the soporific dangers of playing I Spy.
This game, I take it from this commercial, can lull a driver into a potentially lethal slumber while trying to figure out what it is that "starts with T".
As a result of this ad my children are now banned from playing I Spy in the car. Another ad that has me in a state of confusion is the one where the crusty old farmer is driving his flash new red ute or pick-up or whatever you want to call it, round the farm. There is a thump, so he stops and finds this comatose bull lying on the ground. The farmer makes some offhand comment about how maybe he should have bought a blue vehicle, thus laying the fault at the hooves of the bull for being stupid enough to charge into a red motor vehicle.
What if the bull was just happily standing there, eyeing up some cows in the next paddock when this Swanndri-clad geriatric boy-racer drove into him?
Or, if we accept that a bull might be stupid enough to charge at a moving vehicle, perhaps it was trying to make a point about the farmer's carbon footprint? And what does it say about what a girly bull the bull was that it couldn't even leave a dent in the car?
Now, I'm pretty sure "none of the above" is what the advertisers wanted me to think after seeing that ad. They're advertisers, promoting a product they want me to rush out and buy. I understand that. I have no problem with being a good consumer, as my credit card provider can testify.
No, I think the problem is definitely me. I am clearly not in synch with the minds of the advertising community. Whether this is a bad thing or a good thing is also unclear. Like the series of ads for the poultry-based fast-food chain where tiny people pop up and sing about the virtues of said poultry-based fast-food chain.
All I can think when I see those freaky ads is, "well, now I know what one of the secret herbs is".
Actually, come to think of it, I find all ads involving really tiny people interacting with normal-sized humans to be freaky. Unless I'm reading it wrong and the tiny people are actually real-sized people and the ad is aimed at the hitherto unknown (and therefore untapped) giant-sized people market.
This, I simply find disturbing. But not as disturbing as the ad where the burglar steals the TV and CD collection belonging to a woman who is asleep in her bed. Then he decides to kidnap her and he folds her up and puts her in his phone.
Now that is both freaky and disturbing - like an episode of Doctor Who. But the ad currently on TV that I simply do not get is the one for the dishwasher where the woman plummets off her deck while trying to get her hat out of the tree.
This commercial confounds me on so many levels. Couldn't she just get a stick or, if you want to continue with an appliance theme, the vacuum-cleaner pipe so she could reach out and get the hat without having to endanger her life by climbing onto the balustrade? Why would you deliberately place yourself in such danger just to retrieve a hat?
Couldn't she get a ladder and climb safely up? Or, if she didn't have a ladder, couldn't she borrow one from a friend? Or doesn't she have any friends? Is that why the hat is so important to her - because her life is so devoid of friendship that the hat is a comfort to her in her loneliness?
All I can say about this ad is that when the woman finally gets around to unloading the dishwasher - months later, after getting out of the spinal unit - the dishes better be bloody well sparkling, otherwise this would just be adding insult, literally, to injury.
But all this might just be me over-reading things. As usual.
