American TV Ads are a hoot.

 Seeing the occasional TV program here on sabbatical brought back a flood of memories from when I lived here before about something rather particular to American TV  - the advertising. So firstly the biggest advertisers are the drug companies.  It begs the question about the cost of drugs as their promotional budget makes their R&D costs look like small change.  Typically at primetime you will see an ad that will go something like this. 

“Susanib – a new treatment for (insert favourite disease).  Significantly better than Curealot and all other previous treatments, blah, blah..”.  So this part of the ad is like the bad angel sitting on your shoulder saying “you should definitely be taking this stuff man, its great.  All my friends take it etc”.  The second half of these ads are like the good angel appearing on your other shoulder and gives you the low down on the bad stuff.  ”Susanimb will kill you if you take it with drugs like Fakeaway or Dubiotensin. Tell you doctor if you are on Hypochondriacosin etc etc”. 

Imagine if all ads were forced to tell you about the bad stuff too.

Happy Meals for the kids – if you eat this a lot it will cause weight gain, diabetes, pimples, and heart attacks. Each burger removes 3 days from your life expectancy.

The Ford (any model) – if you combine this with being male, under 25 and alcohol you will vastly increase you chances of dying in a horrible crash.  It will not make you attractive to the opposite sex.

XXXX beer – will impair your ability to make rational decisions, ugly people will appear better looking, and you may think you can drive a car really well, but you cant. If taken in combination with lying on a road you will die. 

Come up with your own truth in ads if you want.   Of course with drugs this just means folks go and nag their doctor about giving them this new drug.  Thank goodness we don’t drug advertising in Australia and even better we have the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.  New drugs only get listed after justifying a true medical benefit via clinical trials and, more importantly, an economic case.  That is, for the price and expect benefit to patients (less days in hospital, no surgery, less doctors visits etc ) it makes sense to add it. 

Now, the other type of ads. These are …well…. personal.  “Sometimes I don’t feel quite…fresh” says the young lady.  Or “This itchiness is making me uncomfortable” says the old bloke squirming on his chair.  Or  “Are you regular?”  Why Americans have a much higher rate of yeast infections, haemorrhoids or constipation is a mystery.  I suspect they don’t but we can always blame fast food. Never fear for there are lots of products that will solve these embarrassing and unsightly issues.  For a country that is aghast at showing a pair of breasts or backside its no problem telling you that that arse you aren’t allowed to see has haemorrhoids.

Now I have to go and develop a product to treat my discomfort at watching these ads.  I shall call it “Commercialoff” – it wipes out memories of products you don’t want to remember and will be a huge success.  And I will advertise it widely with really annoying ads and if you don’t like it, just take “Commercialoff”.  See I cant fail!