Ads make me see red

Everyone with a TV must be aware of the commercials for the red tag sale for cars of one particular motor group.

There are several of these ads, including the one where the man doesn’t have time to be home much, mixes up his wife’s name with a car’s or forgets his child’s name at baby’s first birthday party. It’s meant to be funny but doesn’t that kind of ad make you mad?

To me that red tag sale thing is like a red rag to a bull. I think it is anti-family. It conveys that work is more important, that families must just put up with work demands, whatever they are. The ads of course could be said to be chauvinist too, as in all the examples it is the fathers who don’t have the time, while in real life it is mothers and fathers who struggle to balance work and family requirements (with mothers usually carrying a far larger burden and probably deserving a red ribbon for achievement for what they do).

Advertisements are intended to sell products, not to teach or promote values. Many ads don’t seem to have any message at all, but are attractive through their technological wizardry. Some actually manage to promote positive values, like family togetherness, quite well. If we are genuinely in an era of moral regeneration, couldn’t the media help rather than hinder this campaign?

The national Social Development Family Life Directorate is strong on what is known as family preservation right now and has invited the churches to work with the government on that. I found that pretty ironic too, as if the churches haven’t been pushing the government on this all along. Maybe our definitions of family differ, but it is good that at least we are working towards family preservation. We’re all in agreement that a mother is an almost indispensable factor in family preservation. If she is not available, an alternative mother figure is needed to provide the nurturing, which essentially is mother-love.

What more positive role could advertisers play in portraying the real situations in many homes while at the same time promoting the concept of family preservation?

In most family ads there is a mother gushing over the efficiency of the latest soap powder, or furniture polish, or gracefully acknowledging compliments over her presentation of pre-packaged, heat-and-eat meals. I’m also not crazy about the fast food chain ad with the mother rattling off the list of chores she has to get through which concludes along the lines of cooking shouldn’t have to be one of them, therefore our family feasts are there for you so you can spend quality time with your kids. Well, the family feast can cost up to R100, adding to the reasons why some moms have to work in the first place.

All the shampoo ads also seem to feature unattached females. Do mothers really not have time for glamorous hair any more? Sad!

Do all these ads entice young women into marriage and motherhood?

I like the one with the dad even raiding the neighbouring homes and a shebeen for dirty plates to test out just exactly how many dishes you can wash with the recommended dose of dishwasher liquid.

Moms are soft, but surely not that soft. We’re for real, star material and even heroes at times in the battle to feed families. Think about the ads we see and hear that do have an influence on how we and our children perceive family life. Are they family-friendly? Talk about them together. Are there some red rag ones for you too?

And let’s have some of those red tags where it really matters. And red ribbons too if you think we deserve them.