Many people enjoy TV ads. Let’s face it, the per-minute production budget of a TV ad is probably about 8 times larger than that of a locally produced TV show so no wonder they’re better quality than the actual shows.

Why is it that, if we love our ads so much that they still have water-cooler syndrome value, we seem to not take notice of what they’re actually saying?

Wake up people! Well, either wake up or go to bed!

I’m going to vent about ads here on occasion. Because as much as they can be brilliant, there are those that really should be shown for what they are. (Feel free to let me know if I miss any.)

There are those that write copy in such a way that the idiot audiences think ‘oh, that sounds good’ but if they actually listened they’d realise it just doesn’t make sense. The ‘One for the price of two’ type thing. The others are those that just plain copy their ideas from other ads, music videos or jokes from 1990 hoping the target market doesn’t remember or wasn’t born yet.

The first attack goes to ‘Head and Shoulders’ for their ‘…removes up to 100% flakes’. Now, firstly that’s just downright bad grammar but let’s not even open that can. Do I need to point it out?
…removes…
…up to…
…100%…
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The second issue is more in the form of a question because I feel I’m too ignorant to understand the situation. SAB is running a TV ad where people are pulling ropes so hard that they’re shifting the tectonic plates enough to bring the whole world together…lovely; nicely shot; beautiful scenes. Heineken, which as far as I know are not SAB’s friends, has a TV ad where hundreds of people are pushing against things so hard that the tectonic plates shift bringing the whole world together. They’re so similar that people who enjoy both ads don’t realise that they’re not the same ad until I point it out and ask how it happened.

Please, if anyone knows:
which one was first?
why do they both keep flighting?
how do they not sue for copyright infringement?
even if SAB made Heineken, they wouldn’t make two ads that similar would they?
I’m sticking my neck out here, I’m bracing myself form some really obvious explanation but so far noone I’ve spoken to can give me any explanation.

I don’t watch a lot of rugby, in fact I hardly watch any sport. And I’m only patriotic for the fun of it. I love South Africa and I regard it as my home but I don’t think I’m patriotic by nature. If for example I was born in, say, Hungary, I don’t think I’d feel I had to stay there my whole life because I was born there. I live in SA because I think (for now) that it’s a great place to live. If, or when, it becomes less pleasant (or less sensible) to live here, I’ll probably bugger off. I digress.

Back to my point. I was watching the world cup final and I was really wanting South Africa to win! And I could hardly breathe throughout the game because it wasn’t convincing until pretty close to the end that we would win, was it?

Then we won!

At least I thought ‘we’ did. Then in my jubilation (I also won R110 for guessing the closest score), I noticed that whenever they showed our country’s ‘emblem’, it didn’t say ‘South Africa’, the way the English emblem said ‘England’. And as far as I could remember all of the other teams had things like ‘France’, ‘Australia’ and ‘New Zealand’. Some fell out early and I couldn’t remember too far back. After a very civilised celebration of Tattinger and Ferrera Roche chocolate balls I went to join my brother at the Jolly in Parkhurst. It was mayhem. People in the Jolly, over the road, in the road and a constant parade of traffic with people and flags hanging out of windows. Again, the thing I noticed was that half of these flags said ‘Rugby SA’, not ‘South Africa’ or ‘Springboks’.

I’ve reached my point; and this might be something so obvious to ardent rugby fans; I felt that our team was no longer South Africa or the Boks. Even though we all shouted ‘go boks’ it seems like the naming rights have been bought and the country’s lost the right to put up our name! What’s next? What will we be called in 2011? Xerox SA? Nashua SA?

Anyway, It’s lekker that we won. And not just because of the 110 bucks.

At about 1AM i heard this strange sound outside, something between a tinkle and a crackle, so i looked out…and saw snow! not that it isn’t cold enough. For those who don’t know, it hasn’t snowed in Johannesburg since 1981 and before that was in the sixties but, given that 1) i washed my car today and 2) the painters are meant to start painting at 8 tomorrow morning, i shouldn’t be surprised.

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I’ve been on a drive to learn as much as possible about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and the balance between Web Standards Conformity and design freedom. The conscious, delicate balance between getting people to your site but impressing them once they’re there.

The use of Macromedia (Adobe) Flash is becoming more and more of a challenge to defend. I know, clients should be more informed up front of the pros and cons but part of the problem is other companies offering SEO exaggerating the negative aspects ignorantly. The interesting fact pointed out by Google themselves is that they know that valid sites for search results may well be badly built or not the best CSS or BUILT IN FLASH.

Of course I’m not suggesting that its of no consequence, that we should just ignore the ‘problem’. But something I am sure of is that a little Google Adwords budget goes a long way!

I’ll be back to add to this but please go ahead and add your thoughts…thanks