patronising digital advert

[Bill Wright]

I've just seen an advert on BBC-1 for the government's digital switchover help scheme. This is intended to help those over 75 make the switch from analogue to digital TV. The advert showed a garulous old fool who seemed to lack social awareness and common sense. The young relative and the young engineer exchanged meaningful glances, as if to say, "She can't help being daft; she's old." How incredibly patronising and insulting this is to the very people they claim to be helping. It seems that in modern Britain, whilst racism is almost a capital offence, ageism is officially condoned.

Incidentally, anyone with elderly friends or relatives who don't use the net but might benefit from sensible non-patronising advice about analogue switch-off should help them access the information on

Bill

[tony sayer]

In article , Bill Wright scribeth thus

Totally agree!. Don't they -ever- think that one day they'll be old to?..

Indeed:))..

[Mark Carver]

You don't when you're in your twenties, and that's the root problem.

[Cash]

And *WHAT* were your thoughts on 'oldies' when you were in your teens, twenties, thirties - and possibly forties when you were showing them how to use that new fangled invention called the video recorder - or even early mobile phones? ;-)

Cash

[Peter Duncanson]

How ********************************** stupid of the BBC.

The advert should be made in such a way as to appeal to the over 75s. It should be addressed to them.

I haven't seen the ad but if it is as bad as you suggest it is likely to scare off over 75s. It will hint to them that those who are sent to help them will treat them like idiots.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Oh, and I wouldn't rely on young relatives to be any more clued up than the elderly.

[Ivan]

I wouldn't mind betting that there are plenty of people in their sixties' nudging seventies contributing to this newsgroup who wouldn't mind a pound for every technical problem they've sorted out for people less than half their age ;-)

[Andy Champ]

One of two roots. The other is - why are people that age in charge of the ad. campaign anyway?

Andy

[J G Miller]

In fact a lot of elderly parents got a Freeview digital converter box a long time before their younger relatives.

And any comments on that FOX commercial for the digital transition featuring an old lady?

Frame from video only, since video is currently not available due to copyright claim --

[Peter Duncanson]

I saw it before it was pulled. It is both humorous and informative. The humour outweighs any hint of patronisation.

[Derek Geldard]

Not exactly the same topic but why do females allow themselves to be presented as totally air-headed or vacuous on TV adverts.

SWMBO was watching "true movies" this afternoon the film had been edited into 7-8 minute segments between which were replayed exactly the same sequence of adverts one of which showed a woman with a scabby kid about six years old who had stained his T-shirt with pizza topping. As if by magic another female dressed in a pink jump suit appears from nowhere with an "intelligent" washing powder and saves the day - mugs of instant coffee all round leaving the woman appearing a poor 3rd in the intelligence stakes behind the scabby 6 year old kid and the washing powder.

Last advert in the sequence was a woman who burst into song because she could play Lotto / HTML one arm bandit games on the internet for

20p a go.

What an empty meaningless life they must lead.

Derek

[Alan White]

...or even over seventy. Yes, please!

[Java Jive]

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[Ivan]

He he, University challenge was a treat this evening, a team of lovely young women whipping the asses off the boys, final score 260 to 120..

[Steve Terry]

Gov ministers love giving contracts to quangos run or chaired by their friends / relatives / children.

Every party since the war has claimed it will reduce quangos when they get into office, then when they do they realise it's an easy and legal way to funnel large quantities of taxpayers money to friends and relatives.

As we don't have any anti-racketeering laws in the UK, our contractual law is a farce and would be illegal in more civilised countries

Nepotism you know it makes sense.

Steve Terry

[geoff]

In message , Bill Wright writes

As patronising as the item on Country tracks on Sunday, where they interviewed "The worlds biggest liar" who spilled a yarn about how Sellafield (or somewhere) wasn't powered by nuclear energy, but by ducks (or something)

Why they felt a need to run a text across the picture explaining that this wasn't true really made me wonder ...

[geoff]

In message , Cash

[charles]

my favourite letter was in the Sunday Excess many years ago which said of course we should drive on the right side of the road since it would mean that the driver got out at the pavement side which would be so much safer ...

[Steve Terry]

Not if you are driving a LHD car

So to keep it simple, for safety the driver should drive on whichever side of the road he's nearest to the pavement

Which Romanian Truck drivers seem to do anyway

Steve Terry

[Richard W. Jones]

I don't really see what the problem is with this advert, though I'm in my mid-30s. There's another advert, which I'm surprised nobody on here has picked up on, and features the double gold-winning Paralympian Ellie Simmonds. The ad begins with her talking to some man about her achievements, and it's then revealed that he's installing a Freeview box for her. One of her lines then is "Oh I don't know, I couldn't do what you're doing". I think we try to over-analyse these things, and look for offence where it probably doesn't exist ("if you're not prepared to be offended by this, I order you to be, or I'll be offended for you"). My opinion of these ads is that they're deliberately light-hearted in order to make the discussion of the tech (the DSO) a little less frightening.

[Owain]

What do you expect from people who grew up with Barbie dolls instead of train sets as children.

Owain