Copenhagen part 3: Advertising

I have watched way too much TV the last few days. The literal pain in my neck has done anything else absolutely unbearable. This means I have found myself mindlessly watching more than a few ads.

Before I left Norway, my husband noted that the trend was towards stupid men. Here, the trend is towards unreasonable, idiotic, furiously raging women. There's particularly this one television channel that annoys me at the moment, YouSee. What happens is: He, friendly, relaxed and reasonable, comes into the room, and she goes into attack mode immediately. She tells him her favourite sex in the city episode is on, and no way is she missing that rerun just so he can watch the match he has been waiting for all year. He just smiles, nods and grabs his computer. She keeps yelling, angry and obviously after a fight, but he just smiles and agrees and goes into the next room, turning on the computer. Of course, he has broadband from YouSee, and so he can get to watch all the matches he wants, without having to fight with her over it.

There are more of these, such as an ad for beer, where the women go crazy over a lovely walk-in closet in the new home of the hostess, pointing out details such as shoe-racks and large mirrors. This is all done in slightly hysterical, whiny squeals of delight. Then we hear a deep, full roar of happiness, and we see where the men have ended up in their tour of the house. They have found the important closet: the walk-in cooler for beer, where they express their delight in a manly manner, the anti-thesis to the materialistic exstacy of the squealing women.

And another: he has installed video on demand, so when she shows up with large bags full of delicacies, ready to settle down for a romantic night with dinner, a movie and some nice wine, he hasn't rented the movie he should. Instead he keeps telling her "video on demand", while she goes crazy and yells at him and walks out without him getting more than a constant repetition of those words in. He shrugs, and settles to watch the movie. Now, I am not sure who is more stupid here, he COULD have said: I have the movie, darling, I just have to put in the right codes on the TV, and we'll have a lovely evening. Instead he stands there repeating three words which obviously means nothing to her. But that's because he's so clever and "in" on what goes on, and she's a technological moron.

Somehow, I don't feel like buying YouSee, beer, or video on demand after watching those ads. I just watch the Danish Radio Culture channel (DR-K) instead. They have some extremely interesting programs on art, and artist portraits. And, most important, no ads.

Just what I wanted right now...

At facebook we get those automatically generated ads, in your own language and adjusted to your ip address. Those ads are however not always all that clever. This is today's least lucky combination.

First: Borrow 250 000 Norwegian kroner with no security. Brilliant idea, get a huge loan at much larger interest than normal, now when interests are going up all over, living gets more expensive, job security is dropping, unemployment is rising rapidly and the oil fund is drying up as the shares it has been invested in are losing their value.

Next: Get 4% off on fuel. Now, this is useful, as fuel prices are dropping internationally due to much less consumption. If we don't keep up the use of carbon-based fuels, we'll never get the artics up to a livable temperature year round. North sea oil gets cheaper, but oddly, gas is no cheaper to the Norwegian consumer. Perhaps I should try to get 4% off, so I can contribute a little more to the global warming.

Third is the really brilliant one: Win a vacation to Thailand. That is: If the plane can land there, and the airport isn't blocked by demonstrations, the threat of a military coup abates and the president decides to give over the pwoer so the country can have a new, peaceful and democratic election.

Get ready for the end!

Today's lecture was on semiotics, with Roland Barthes' rhetoric of the image as the main topic. So of course I needed some examples for analysis. I haven't been watching advertising and working with that for several years, but I think I probably should. There is so much going on out there on the web, all in the name of consumption.


Diesel's summer campaign is cleverly taking advantage of the whole global warming issue. With a name as heavily loaded with negative connotations in these fossile fuel crisis, they had to spin it in a daring direction - something diesel has never been afraid to do.

This year the slogan is "Global Warming Ready", and that they are!