I’m not a fan of telly ads most of the time, an aversion I probably share with most of you out there. And after working nights for all those years, I got into the habit of recording the programmes I wanted to watch and viewing them at my leisure (and with the ads scudding past on my screen via the wonderful fast-forward button on my remote control).
I’ve been working days for three and a bit years now and still try to avoid the ads: most of the time I record programmes even when I’m at home so I can fast forward those offensive ads. Thanks MySky (now we just have to do something about the small problem of the decoder freezing, crashing and generally pissing me off, but that’s another whinge story).
Anyway, I do see the occasional ad, and sometimes those ads are for supermarkets. I’m no fan of the forced cheerfulness of the New World ads (what are those people on? Happy pills?) and can do without Richard Till yelling at me in the Countdown ads (although, I did enjoy his last book).
Definition
Vegetarian: Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can’t hunt or fish.
Without doubt, the winner when it comes to supermarkets it’s the wee Paul Ego-voiced stickman cracking puns in the Pak N Save ads that do it for me. And now that the ads have managed to upset a whole section of society, I like them even more.
Granted, it’s quite a small section, very much a minority. But a section nonetheless: the vegetarians. It seems the carrot-munchers aren’t happy about the sausage trick employed in a recent ad.
It went like this: it was meat week at our friendly yellow supermarket and all manner of meat was on special. According to Stuff:
It began with a warning to vegetarians to look away while they showed meat on a conveyor belt, which was “okay”, she said.
“Then the punch line of the ad says, ‘Alright vegetarians, you can look back now. It’s a carrot. Just kidding, it’s a sausage’.
Pak n’ Save has pulled the ad because several people had a moan on Facebook, saying it was offensive.
What about the several thousand of us who weren’t offended by the ad? I’d also take a punt and say there are probably several thousand of us who are offended by the fact that we appear to have become a nation of whiny little biarches who can’t take a joke.
I don’t eat fish because I’m allergic to some, despise the taste and smell of most of it but no one’s going to stop advertising fish on the telly for fear of offending me. Or broad beans … what about broad beans? There are few things as offensive as those nasty little things.
Whoop-de-do, some people choose not to eat meat. That doesn’t mean their choices and lifestyles are any better than mine.
Update: I see the ad’s back with a slight change. Vegetarian sausage indeed …