This Week August 22, 1990. Page M9 HUMOR ‘If pigs had wings, advertisers would Hoate out a way to sell them flight insurance’ Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the & human intelligence long enough to get money from tt. Stephen Leacock at a curious beast is this thing called ad- vertising. It is, by and large, a phenomenon of our times. Nineteenth century Canadians didn’t have — or need — full page magazine ads or 30-second TV spots to tell them They Deserved A Break Today ®or when it was Time For A Blue. We are not so for- tunate. There’s probably @ not a Canadian alive who can remember a time when he or she was not being exhorted to buy a carton of this or a six-pack of that. We are the Con- sumer Society, born to shop ‘til we drop and buy til we die. It’s pervasive and, like the hole in the ozone, it seems to get big- ger every year. I don’t know about you, but I hardly watch any TV these days. Not since the advertising breaks got to be longer than the program seg- ments. Other media aren’t much bet- ter — for instance, the Jbronio Daily Star. It’s Canada’s largest paper, and if you ever run up against a Saturday edition you'll have no trouble believing it. It looks like a copy of this paper following an overdose of steroids. You practically need a wheelbarrow to get the monster from the newsstand to your easy chair. But the thing is — it’s mostly advertising! Take out the Basie-Blaelc By ARTHUR BLACK flyers, the circulars, the full page spreads for appliances and su- permarket specials, the real es- tate section the classified section, the travel bumf and the used car listings — and you won't have enough editorial con- tent to fill the belly button of a cub reporter. Qh well, asmy uncle(He's with the prestigious law firm, Sue, PERCENT FINANCING* PLUS 000 CASH BACK! HURRY - ONLY 5 DAYS LEFT *on selected models maximum 48 month term O.A.C. Grabbit and Runne) says: “Don’t knock it sonny — advertising makes the world go round.” I suppose he's right. Ijust wish advertisers were a little classier about it. Have you heard, for instance, about the latest frontier to be cracked by advertisers? It's grooming products. For children. Seriously. Hair shampoo, con- ditioners, sunblock, moisturiz- ing lotions, liquid soaps, after-bath powders — that sort of thing — aimed strictly at ups- cale infants and trendy toddlers. Right now; the advertisers are . engaging in a little pre-emptive psychological warfare, softening up the resistance they expect to get when they start targeting a consumer group that hasn't even hit puberty yet. The ad boys are calling their pre-pubes- cent product line “developmen- tally appropriate”. They’re insisting that vanity products will “instill a sense of personal pride in children.” Goodies such as Wild Grape Body Shampoo Gel will, they say, make kids feel special and enhance their self- esteem. Sure. And if pigs had wings, advertisers would figure out a way to sell them flight in- surance. Well, after all, this is the | in- dustry that gave us vaginal deodorant and basketball shoes that pump themselves up. Like most voracious parasites, adver- tising constantly needs new hosts to feed off. Kiddy exploita- tion is just a natural progres- sion, I guess. Butit bums me out. And the next time I enter a department store Fl be hum- ming a paraphrase of that old John Donne line: “Ask not for whom the cash register tolls, it tolls for thee. And the kids” IN COLWOOD_ “1836 ISLAND HIGHWAY ‘Af4-1144 Dealer Code: 7442A ... DOUGLAS & MARKET 2829 DOUGLAS STREET — 384-1144 Be Dealer Code: 7Aa2 pe OPEN 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. MONDAY TO THURSDAY : FRIDAY & SATURDAY. 8:30 to 6 p.m. SUNDAY: 1iam.to4 a m. _ .. VICTORIA AND VANCOUVER ISLAND'S” oe LEADING FORD DEALERSHIP!