by Catriona Mills

Advertising: My Nemesis

Posted 3 January 2009 in by Catriona

I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone who has ever read this blog before that I find advertising always confusing and frequently grotesquely offensive.

But I’m seeing more and more ads at the moment, due to thoroughly enjoying watching Australia lose the cricket to South Africa: I normally mute or ignore ads where I can, but it’s never seemed worth it for a one-advertisement break between overs.

So I’ve been watching the smug prat in the Mitsubishi 4WD splattering inoffensive people going about their everyday business with water, mud, and dust, and then grinning about it.

And I’ve been watching the Johnny Walker ads, which always astonish me, because it seems as though their tagline is “It’s amazing what you’ll find yourself doing when you’re ratted.” (My favourite was the one they did a few years ago with Christopher Walken—I think it was Walken, anyway—where the subtext was, essentially, “I always need to get totally off my nut before I can bring myself to step on stage.”)

But the ones that are really driving me nuts at the moment are the Solo ads.

I know that Solo ads are dependent on a particular form of machismo: a selling position that relies on recognisable codes of homosociality and male physical strength, also seen in flavoured-milk and beer ads.

Fine: well and good. I have no problem with that, though it won’t make me buy low-fizz, lemon-flavoured soft drink.

But this new two-part one with the man making the $1000 bet with his mates? I can’t figure this one out. I simply can’t comprehend how it seems ideal to construct an ad around Andrew Symonds—who, let’s face it, is not the most advertising-friendly figure in Australian cricket at the moment—viciously body-checking a complete stranger and then smirking at him.

Add the fact that the complete stranger is cross-dressing, and you add a new, highly unpleasant subtext to the ad.

It seems to me at best thoroughly mean spirited and at worst open to accusations of something far more invidious and dangerous. It strikes me as doubly odd, since Solo ads used to be banal, rather than out-and-out awful.

Perhaps it’s the consequence of adding a cricketer to the mix? We can call it the Max Walker blood-diamond syndrome.

Share your thoughts [9]

1

Wendy wrote at Jan 3, 06:46 am

The one I really really really dislike is “Dave the cricket”
It totally annoys me every time

2

Sam wrote at Jan 3, 08:11 am

I feel that in the Solo ad Symonds acts in self defense at the man hurtling towards him as he leaves a building, and then seeing the look of embarrassment on the fallen man’s face- embarrassed presumably for running into a great Australian sportsman while crossdressing- smirks. It seemed to me to be much more light hearted, but then I don’t listen to the sound.

The ABC commentary team are a great distraction during ad breaks and are more interesting than Channel 9 I find.

3

Matthew Smith wrote at Jan 3, 09:31 am

I was watching Tin Man (the questionable two part series loosly based on The Wizard of Oz) today and there was a good line that the scarecrow (who isn’t a scarecrow at all) said to the tin man (who is called Cain and is not actually made of tin): “You know Cain, professional psychiatric therapy is only a crows call away these days. I think a man like you with your issues with masculinity and what we call the boy scout syndrome…” (he gets cut off by Cain striking him in the chest)

4

Catriona wrote at Jan 3, 09:53 am

Wendy, I secretly find Dave the Cricket rather cute, I’m ashamed to say.

Sam, I can’t see it that way. I can’t see an innocuous reading of it, at all. The body-checking is vicious—the guy looks really hurt. And the smirk is unjustifiable: if it’s self-defense, Symonds should at least give the guy a hand up.

Matt, did you record Tin Man? I missed it and, though I hear it’s quite bad, I have a deep desire to watch it anyway.

5

Wendy wrote at Jan 3, 01:34 pm

Really? Dave the cricket?
I have the same irrational dislike of him I have for Shane Warne…but there you go I guess
:)

I’m right with you on the Andrew Symonds advertising though

6

Catriona wrote at Jan 3, 09:31 pm

I don’t think your dislike for Shane Warne is irrational, though . . .

7

Matthew Smith wrote at Jan 4, 09:43 pm

Of course it is illegal for me to use a recording of a free to air broadcast for anything other than time shifting in Australia but I like to think there might be a legal way for time and relative dimensions in space shifting.

8

Malcolm J wrote at Jan 26, 03:43 am

In regards to the Andy Symonds solo drink ads that the guy in the ballet dress is the same guy that streaked at the gabba during a 1 day game last year and Simmo cleaned up with a hip & shoulder – hence why the same happens in the advert and the original reason why the streaker did what he did was that his mate bet him a $1000 – believe it or not but true

9

Catriona wrote at Jan 26, 08:11 am

Malcolm, welcome to the blog, and thank you for that information—I’m a committed cricket fan, but I’ve not been watching as regularly as I could have these past few years, and I missed the story of the streaker at the ‘Gabba.

That does put a different complexion on the ad., but I have to say I still don’t like the overall violence of the ad.

(Which has nothing, of course, to do with Andrew Symonds’s quality as an all-rounder, which is unquestionable.)

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