Last night in the TV ad break we were having a discussion about how the use of hand held devices may be impacting on the effectiveness of ‘jingle’ marketing.  I don’t know about you but the first thing I do is reach for my phone to catch up with Words With Friends when the adverts come on……..a tragic but necessary distraction from the bombardment we endure in a country that does not have a household TV licencing fee.  We speculated that in the future advertising companies would have to start peddling their wares via the in-synch capabilities of the i-phone for instance: Program goes to the break, advert pops up on your phone before you even have chance to get to that killer game winning move that covers two triple word tiles and will require Google dictionary if your ‘friend’ questions your play and demands a definition.  This is not a suggestion that I want to see become a reality, because after all, do we really want the Sham Wow man in our hands…..so to speak?

His latest ‘trick’ is the Schticky.  Just when you thought he was relegated to the YouTube vault for good he assaults our eyes and ears with another ludicrous time saving device that will also deal with your shedding pussy.  Yes, that’s right, you read that correctly.  Don’t believe me? Listen for yourself it certainly grabbed my attention….

This post though has actually been triggered by an advert that made me want to weep last night.  I give you The Shark Vacuum.  I’d post a link to it but they are already getting enough advertising, and trust me, there is nothing more exciting than its name with this appliance.  All the ladies, (and it is ALWAYS ladies depicted even though Sham Wow is allegedly a fastidious cleaner…and a man, well sort of) enthused about its merits; well they would wouldn’t they, it’s an advert, that’s their job.  The lady who I laughed most at, though it was a close call with the one doing the housework in high heels and full make-up, made this astonishing declaration “I love vacuuming now”.  Nope, you don’t, no one does, NO ONE. Not before, during or after purchasing a Shark Vacuum you fool.  You’re being paid to give your customer recommendation, if you are indeed even a bona fide customer, and frankly, to make that sort of humiliating statement on TV I’d want to be paid a shit load of money. Like buckets and buckets loads, or at least enough to employ a cleaner to operate said device.

Wouldn’t you just love to see an anti-advert instead? A bloke wrestling with all those telescopic attachments, that presumably he might be unfamiliar with, though there is an extending ladder advert on the shopping channel that seems to require the same level of dexterity so you never know, man might prove to be a natural. I’m trying not to stereotype against the men folk who do the housework….they are apparently less mythical than unicorns, but picture the aforementioned mythical blokey trying to clean up after a day looking after the kids and saying to the camera “I hate cleaning and especially vacuuming, but at least it dealt with the pubic hairs on the cat and was powerful enough to frighten the kids into submission”.  Just a thought.

Many of us are living in bigger houses than our Mothers, and despite all this ‘labour saving capability’ appear to be busier cleaning them than they were.  The realisation that we’re caught between the Victorian past of the imperial ethic of servant and master, and the modern day ethic of, ‘we can do it all ourselves because we are domestic goddesses’ is not really my idea of progress.

1950 CVTC 22 Homemaking (Photo credit: wistechcolleges)

Way back in only my second blog post A Widget A Day Keeps The Doctor Away  I was already having a whinge about the housework, so you can see it’s a continuing source of discontent….maybe I really did inherit the lazy streak from Grandma Kath.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy being a homemaker or that I’m pretentious enough to say that my education and intelligence puts me above hard dirty graft and being what often feels like, just a skivvy, but in a hundred years no one will care how clean my house was …… unless I become a legendary hoarder…..and I should really be concentrating on getting more out of the life that’s in my here and now shouldn’t I?

I just wish I didn’t notice the grime so much and fret about what visitors will think of me as the main house carer, and if I could do that without the unrealistic world of advertising interrupting my down time every night that would be even better. So drop that duster ladies and sit back and enjoy this “Scam-Wow” parody because it would seem that some of the Gents out there already know how ridiculous this all is….

…..btw…anyone wondering why I’m suddenly prolifically posting?! Because I’m back to Uni for Honours year of course! I procrastinate by writing, just not necessarily what I should be writing about