Sunday 6 October 2013

Irresponsible Advertising - pandering to nudge nudge attitudes.




I am getting very weary of complaining about advertisements on TV.  There are some ads that I really like, such as 'You can call me Brian...' on  Confused.com: endearing,  likeable and I hope they bring out a little model!

The most recent Marmite ad is really quite pernicious; it mimics a child abuse raid and the accusation is cruelty to a jar of Marmite, as it is taken into care.  As a great life-long lover of Marmite, it leaves me with a dilemma.  This advertisement trivialises the actual circumstance surrounding child abuse, and the opening shots can be mistaken as an actual Social Services intervention.  At the very least it is in extremely bad taste, at worst it is playing into the fantasies of paedophiles .  

The other ad which is really dangerous, is for one of the toilet cleaners - a man calls with a hard hat and overalls to fix something; the woman lets him in the house without asking for his ID.  He fixes whatever it is and then asks to use her loo; thought bubble comes out of her head of whether it is clean enough.  He uses loo and leaves with big seductive smiles all round.

This is just a mirror of how con-men really work!  Turn up in overalls or uniform, get access to your house, use the 'facilities', either rob straight away or make a plan to come back later!

It is very irresponsible advertising and I wonder who is really monitoring these ads and what tests they have to pass?