Skip to main content

Ads That I Like: #59


You may well be familiar with the maxim “sex sells”. It is a feature of advertising as old as the craft itself, I would suspect. Indeed, I have featured a number of vintage advertisements on this here very blog over the past six months. You might remember Lolita on the comfy bed; or, Girl next door likes to suck on the most disguising things (and enjoys it!). Who could forget Hot babe in bikini lounges on the beach slowly cooking, but becoming ever more beautiful; a clean home = frisky husband; or (a favourite of my Church of Latter Day Saints-splinter group friends) he has a nice tie and a couple of girls on the go. Of course, there is the good old “treat her mean and keep her keen” approach; the brusqueness of a beautiful, proud Soviet cock standing to attention; and the sexy through the ages “hot babes with even hotter lawnmowers”.

So, despite this technique being as common as the little minx that can be found in the first link, it still jars me ever so slightly to see it applied to joining the armed forces. We’re talking about life of death here, preparing to face death on a daily basis for the protection of your country, it seems to me that a bunch of fellows drawn in for the sexual allure of the uniform might not be the sort of unit best prepared to defend the country.

Today’s ad features the Submarine service. Without doubt, this branch has been amongst the most dangerous (if not the most dangerous) branch of any of the armed forces. For US forces alone during the Second World War, you’re looking at the highest percentage causality rate of any branch of the service, at almost 23%! The nature of submarine warfare itself meant that the attrition rates were high, and that danger was always at hand.

Perhaps that explains the ad. Perhaps fellows belonging to the Submarine Service really did have a greater success rate on the pull than their counterparts in (for example), the Catering or Marines Corps.

So it should be clear that we are talking a real matter of life versus death here. That being the case, I think that they really should have just cut to the chase, thrown the coy subtlety out of the window and included the (edited out) second line:
“... and I volunteered to put it in my mouth!”






Ahem. Too crude? I can only apologise. I am at work, don’t want to be, and am tired and awfully cranky to boot. Please forgive me.
Labels:

Comments

Isadora said…
The idea is to keep people from thinking by the image that steers the mind elsewhere. Always did work when it comes to men :)
8 September 2008 at 14:03
Kris McCracken said…
I think that you are correct. Men are suckers for a bit of attention!
9 September 2008 at 09:37
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...
5 comments
Read more

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...
38 comments
Read more

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.
36 comments
Read more