Wednesday 28 September 2011

Advertising shmadvertising

Our trip to the cinema turned out to be very enjoyable and a great success. George sat through the whole 60-minute 'Day of the Diesels' film without shifting an inch – even when other older children were getting fidgety, with about 15-20 minutes to go, George remained mesmerised.

It was the 15 minutes before the film that he wasn't interested in and that made us a little apprehensive – advertisements and gumf and all that non-descript rubbish that precedes a movie had George fidgeting and whingeing before Thomas the Tank had even appeared.

It's advertising that makes us avoid Milkshake on Channel 5 as much as possible. We make exceptions for Thomas and Roary the Racing Car, of course, but other than that we switch back to CBeebies as quickly as possible.

It won't be long before the power of advertising eventually "brainwashes" our little fella – just as it does relentlessly to the rest of us – and I fid it a little sad that the influence advertising has is almost omnipotent, telling us what we want or need and convincing us we need things that we don't even want.

Having said that, and reiterating the fact that advertising is pretty much unavoidable, I do quite like the new Sainsbury's adverts with a lad and his dad – it's a squishy hug of an advert for all dads, especially 'stay-at-home' dads (or whatever we're meant to be called).

The Tesco ad, on the other hand, when mum phones dad to ask about the shopping and he tells her he's at the supermarket but is actually doing the shopping online because he's too lazy to get off the sofa, has one fatal flaw. When mum gets home, how is he going to explain where the shopping is?

And then there's the one for the daily moisturiser that lasts for seven days... eh? Anyway, I'm heading off at a tangent here and must curb my advertising rant.

Highly recommended is my book 'The Smallest Happy Number' – just click on the Lulu link on the right and... oh no – even I'm at it now!

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