I will admit to being rather fascinated by the creative processes behind advertising, and television advertising in particular. Every time I watch an ad, I find my mind wandering off to the thinking processes behind it; the fact that a group of marketing people, plus people from the company itself, all clad in designer skirts and suits, have sat around a big boardroom table in silence, coffee mugs and untouched bowls of Fox's Glacier Fruits in front of them (why is there ALWAYS an untouched bowl of Fox's Glacier Fruits on every high-level boardroom table I've ever seen?) watching the thing, and then at some point they've all evidently decided that THIS IS IT - this is the ad that's going to speak to everybody and drive all sales upwards! Well done everyone...we're onto a winner here!
One of the reasons for my fascination lies behind the fact that I always think it must take gargantuan levels of confidence - levels I can only dream of possessing - to suggest an idea for an ad. Because if you think about it, most of them are utterly crazy. Take wonga.com for instance. "Hey! I know how we can get people to take us seriously and take out loans with us...we'll get a big fat man to shout "Wonga!" at them through the screen; that'll reel them in, then we'll have him fighting himself in a cartoon duel" You can just imagine the silence round the meeting table. Except there probably wasn't any, because that was the idea they went with. I can't begin to imagine the ones they rejected.
I couldn't work in advertising, because I'm too pedantic and I'd ruin everyone's fun. "Errr...you want to advertise a tomato pasta sauce by having puppets eat it? That isn't very practical is it...puppets eating real food? Do you not think that might be a bit...well, creepy?!" Or "Hmmm...you want to advertise yogurt by having a cow run along a beach like Bo Derek in 10, pretending to be a horse? I'm not sure that'll work, to be honest. Cows don't tend to have equine aspirations on the whole, or at least none that can be proven...and anyway, do you REALLY think people want to be reminded where their dairy produce comes from? It's like, why do chicken ads always feature cartoon chickens - or even real ones for that matter - who look utterly delighted that they're about to be eaten? No - don't call security. I'll leave by myself..."
No - I suspect that if I was in charge of advertising anything, the result would be pretty similar to that God-awful Asda ad that's on at the moment, featuring the world's most uninspiring and monotone man in a stripy jumper, standing in a kitchen and holding a plate of quiche. "Some quiches are like flat omelettes..." he tells us dully, before showing us a close-up of the quiche on his plate. "You can see all the ingredients in this one" he says, slightly more excited now "...you've got your eggs and your bacon" as though anyone considering shopping at Asda would not previously have known this sort of in-depth information. He finishes with a spluttering "...if a pizza and a pie had a child, it'd be a quiche". I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a funny comment or a genuine observation on his part. It's shoe-horned in right at the end of the ad, so it's possible he just thought it up himself and considered it to be advertising gold. And for me, it is.
The thing about all those ads I've mentioned is that I've mentioned them in the first place, which must mean they're effective, right? Well...sort of, maybe, but as fascinated as I've been with the ads I must confess that I've never taken out a loan from wonga.com, bought a Muller yogurt or made a special effort to shop at Asda. I'm left considering an entry from Adrian Mole's diary where he states: "Query. Is television advertising actually effective?"
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