Disturbing adverts

There are times I wonder what goes through the minds of company bosses when advertising agencies are putting forward proposals for new campaigns. True, there are a good deal of fabulous adverts out there, but equally some have a very worrying subtext ...

Tesco owns the biggest market share in British supermarkets and its current advert suggests that their customers might want to make a gift of their phone services to their friends and relations, even abroad. Though the tone is kept light, it suggests ambitions that remind me all too much of Mercedes advertising in the late 1930s - which implied German intentions for expansion across Europe. Just because the age of cultural imperialism may be over (well, if you disregard Dubya for a moment), it doesn't mean we should all embrace its commercial cousin.

Tonight I just saw an advert for Seat - couldn't tell you which model - for which the slogan was "man and machine as one". In it, a driver was seen to meld with his car, his hands and feet turning mechanical as they made contact with the steering wheel, gear stick and pedals. I'm not keen to relinquish control to an automatic gearbox as it is, so the idea of turning into a cold machine as soon as I sit behind the wheel doesn't exactly sit well with me.