Truth in Advertising

As I read through Shop 4 Kids, and look at the ads (the ones I can discern from the rest of the magazine, that is), I am struck by something.

The kids are clean.  Way too clean.  

Take this ad for example:

Cute kid, Levi clothes, nice picture.  Right?  But do you see that pot plant in the background?  And the boy is wearing a white shirt.  Dirt, white shirt, kid....  Why is he still so pristine?

For comparison's sake, I took my son outside.   The elements are there - kid in foreground, nice clothes on (not a Levi shirt but a handknitted cardigan.  I don't get to have control over what he wears for ever, so while I do there will be handknits!), pot in background.

Two seconds later:

Making sure the other hand gets coated:

What I didn't get pictures of is 2 seconds after that, which involved the eating of the dirt, and the later discovery that somehow he had got dirt inside in his clothes, under his top and into his nappy.

And it's not just the dirt.  Here's an adorable little girl holding a gingerbread man.  Not eating it, not sucking it, not smeared with icing and covered with gingerbread crumbs.

Here's Toby after being put in the vicinity of food.

(Yes, those are black beans on the table.)

Finally, there's an ad for a new line of children's clothing by Fiona Scanlan of Scanlan and Theodore, Big by Fiona.  The ad is focused on the bright colours, so there's an easel, a painted backdrop and a kid holding a paintbrush:

:

You'll note the lack of paint on the clothes or the children.  In fact, you'll note the lack of paint on the paintbrush.  Probably a good idea.  

He even had paint behind his ears.

As I type this though, it occurs to me that maybe the problem isn't unnaturally clean kids in the advertising - maybe my child is just a grot.  Given that I've had to get up while writing this to haul Toby out of the garden beds (twice), the potting bench (once) and the weber ash tray (once), and he managed to uproot a dill plant when I wasn't looking, I think perhaps I'm onto something.

Weird Ad Wednesday...

...because alliteration is my friend.

With niche magazines comes niche advertising.  Most of the ads in Classic Tractor are normal enough.  A little tractor orientated, but that's hardly surprising.  I now know where to go for my topper and slurry pump gearboxes, my tractor paint, my luxury tractor suspension seats and my tractor dismantling.  Most of the ads are pretty straight forward - they display the product, and they tell you where to get it.

One ad though went the extra mile.  The message itself is clear - use only Massey Ferguson genuine parts in your Massey Ferguson genuine tractor, or you'll void your new tractor warranty - uh, maybe the last bit only applies to cars.  But you get the idea.  How though, to get this message to stand out?  How to attract the attention of the weary farmer, in from a long day tractoring his (or her) fields?  Well, kids are always cute.  Everyone loves kids.  And go-carts. And sombreros!  Who doesn't love a sombrero?  When could the combination of a kid, a go-cart and a sombrero ever be wrong?

When the kid doesn't know the difference between a sombrero and a wheel, that's when.

Maybe I'm being too harsh.   Maybe this is one of those pinewood derby type things, where the kid is meant to do the work but really his parents have done it all for him.  Maybe the pointing and tongue out combination is really saying "Hey, Dad - that's not a wheel.  Dad?  Dad?  Stop breathing in the tractor paint, Dad...".   Yeah, I think Dad needs to spend less time out in the field and more time on basic object recognition skills.

This ad also makes me want to see the sequel.  I mean, we're told that he'll regret it - but where's the proof?  I want the  shots of the go-cart hurtling down a hill on three wheels, the multi-coloured sombrero drifting down in the breeze after it.  I want commitment to my weird ads, gosh darn it!