House Hippos

Every once in awhile I contemplate the realism of house hippos.

I know I shouldn't. I remember watching the commercial thinking it couldn't be true. But I was still contemplating "could it be true?" during the middle of the commercial. I know the commercial blatantly told me by the end that house hippos were not real. But I still thought about it a lot.

It was the first time I can remember being duped by TV. Well I should say knowingly duped. Watching the house hippo commercial was the first time that the idea that a commercial that seemed like a documentary could be lying to me.

So why was I duped? I'm putting it down to the fact that the commercial was set up like a documentary. It had the sappy music. I calm yet boring announcer. There was use of real animal footage. The big reason I didn't catch on was the fact that i was the demographic they were trying to protect. I was a little kid. I had no reason to question what i was seeing. I had no idea you could cut and replace pictures in videos with computers.

Concerned Children's Advertisers did a fantastic job getting peoples attention with that ad. I think many people still remember it. Parents took more care to explain what non truths were displayed on TV and children took more care to question it, It is important to remind people that what they see is not always true. Its also important to show them that deceit comes in different forms.

If the house hippo commercial hadn't been so successful many people like myself might not have had the wake up call that TV is not an accredited source. It told people to think about  and talk about what they are watching.

For those who would like to see the video you can find it here on youtube. 
  
Concerned Children's Advertisers

To be wanted, but not WANTED

To start with, I live in a TV free world. I don't listen to radio much. I almost never find time for the newspaper past the comics and the word search (which I will fight to the death for). I don't read magazines. I also have trained myself to ignore all pop-ups and side ads that may appear on my computer screen. In general this type of media reduced lifestyle works for me. It does not work well for me when I asked to write about marketing. My lower levels of media make it harder for me to comment on media. So I am scrapping from the bottom of the media barrel today......political election signs.

Most elections signs are pretty standard. They have the colour of the party with white lettering on a long rectangular sign. The candidates name is prominently displayed generally in the lower right area of the sign. A picture is also commonly added to the top left hand corner. We all recognize the signs and get the general gist of what they mean each election season weather we pay attention or not. The signs all have a similar layout so that when a person spots it they now instinctively what it is.

One councillor candidate in Wellington County he chose to mix things up a bit. Rather than having the standard layout and colouring he chose to stand out. At first sight his sign looks like an old WANTED sign. His campaign sign is vertical, yellow, with a black and white image in the center. The sign also has writing above and below the image. I have no idea what the mans name is, what ward he belongs too or what party. All I know is hes running for something and he has a beard and a shifty look in his eye. I commend this random politician for his attempt to draw attention to himself but I can't say his attempt was successful.