Monday, January 16, 2006

My 20% is better than your 20%

I'm simply being naughty here. So I apologise in advance for what is
perhaps more than an eyebrow twitch at what's possibly still a BTN
(better than nothing), though it still most certainly also struggles
to satisfy my cost:benefit measure.

On TV currently is one of several high-budget commercials which, if I
recall correctly, or indeed much of anything, involves something
about doing 20% of something. Basically I think it's a don't waste
stuff message, involving switching off lights. So far, so ok, why
not? Well, apart from where the production and media funds could have
gone to better effect.

However, in one thing struck me as an example of what seems to be
'pet projectism', whereby one branch of 'this is what we are saying
you should do without much in the way of new ideas how to,
suggestions on paying for it or incentives to do so' takes it upon
themselves to prioritise the right thing as they see it.

I just wonder why the main protagonists of this ad, gambolling about
in what seemed like a leafy inner London suburb, needed a dirty great
big black 4x4 SUV to go about their planet-saving affairs picking up
loft insulation. It's more switch of a light; fly to Verbier for the
weekend. And no, it didn't look like the Lexus hybrid. I can see how
a Prius may have been thought too obvious, but it just seemed like an
odd message as part of the mix.

From print column commentary to broadcast commercial executions, I
can't help but feel a slight disconnect between what the media
luvvies of Notting Hill think can and should be done, and the reality
of the lives of the majority of those who need to share in the waste
reduction process.

Unless... it was deliberate. Wooo. Subtle.

No comments: