Annoying Ad

As always, I have been reading other people's blogs and spending far too little in my own. With work also taking a life of its own and dominiting most of my time in the office (how dare it!), even though I have lots to think about, I have little time and energy to put pen to paper or finger to keyboard.

However, I thought I would talk about something that has been bothering me for a long time - an advert in Australia.

It's done so badly that I don't even know the name of the product or brand but I can recall every single nuance of the ad. It is, of course, the pad ad.

It starts off with a thin blonde woman and a man lounging on a bed. He is dressed and ready to go, she is still in her bra and knickers. She spends one scene desperately trying to pull on a pair of black jeans that are obviously a few sizes too small. Then, after this, she struggles into a jumper that again is too small for her. He makes a gesture to indicate exasperation and falls back onto the bed whilst she goes into the bathroom.

We are then treated to her high screeching voice:

"Hey Niiiiick! Can you get me a pad?"

Nick gets up, trots over to the chest of drawers and takes two out. Being a man he is, of course, completely unsure of which one she is referring to. He moves to the bathroom and says:

"Which one?"

She then immediately points to the left one:

"These. You see how they're shaped to fit. You wouldn't want me to be uncomfortable would you?"

With that, she retreats into the bathroom and he looks confused and perhaps a little astonished by the turn of events.

Now, I have no idea what the name of the product or brand is so technically the advert fails. I really don't care because I am too bothered by the ad to notice product-placing (and probably hindered because I am not a target market as I'm male).

Nick and the woman are obviously seeing each other because he knows where her pads are. But this is not the sort of thing you tell to just anyone, so obviously they are living together. But not seriously or long enough to know what pad she uses. The other point is that she meets him at the bathroom door, blocking his entrance. Co-habiting but not long or serious enough to let him just walk in.

And there's the confusion over why she has 2 sets of pads in her drawer, one of which she doesn't use because its not comfortable. Would you keep something like that?

I'm even more confused as to why she just didn't pick up the pad on the way to the bathroom which is right next to the chest of drawers - except of course its a way for the ad to demonstrate how stupid men are (I will be posting about this later, never fear).

My big gripe is that not only after this do I have no clue as to the name of the product or even the brand, no one else I've spoken to does either. And yet everyone in West Australia knows about this ad and everyone is equally and clearly stupified about it.