Advertising Hype

 

My first realization that what was promised in advertising wasn't always right. I was eight.  Ovaltine ads were on Saturday morning cartoons. The drink looked wonderful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOoF1fOQME4. Even if I wasn't a baseball fan, I was impressed with the famous player's advice and talk of vitamins.

I hated milk but was forced to drink three glasses a day. Thank goodness my mother let me flavor it with BOSCO. Even with the chocolate added, it was still milk.

My eight-year-old brain thought maybe Ovaltine would make the milk better. I begged my mother to buy it citing the health benefits. I don't remember how many shopping trips it took to convince her.

The next morning, I spooned the Ovaltine into my milk and took a big swallow.

YUCK!

I don't know what I expected. There are very few foods I don't like such as pickled beets and a certain red cabbage I was served in Damascus. Another is malted anything and Ovaltine was certainly malted flavor. They never said that in the advert.

Bless my mother. She didn't make me use it all. I don't know what happened to it.

Over the years I watched toy adverts which claimed they were fun, fun, fun. They weren't

As an adult the amount of adverts on television seem to have increased in number to where the programming offers a break from the advert.

Since it is approaching Christmas we getting the very strange perfume ads such as the one by Vanessa Paradis as a bird in the cage. I can't remember which perfume showed what looked like an airplane raping a woman at a swimming pool. If an advert seems weird, I usually watch and discover, I'm right -- it's for perfume.

I can't figure out how some ad execs' mind works. I've noticed on many expensive brand watch adverts, the faces of the wearer looks either angry or unhappy. I guess after spending all that money, the watch didn't change their life like they thought it would. Maybe that would be a truer ad.

Of course some adverts are clever and fun. However, the products they promote don't often live up to expectations.

 I love watching the Mercat adverts although I never remember the product. 

And over the years there have been some great lines such as:

• Marshmallow meatballs
• Where's the beef
• It's not nice to fool Mother Nature

When I first moved to France, I was amazed at the almost nudity in adverts, although it seems to have diminished a bit.

I find myself watching less TV and going to advert-free Netflix. Or even better, pick up a book and avoid the whole hype.