[Orchids & Onions] Single dad's struggle brings message home

I am not a great fan of these invented holidays – they annoy me just as much as the “National Week of...” artificial promotions for some good cause or other... National In-Grown Toenail Week, National Day for Commemorating the Contribution of Ants to Our Glorious Republic, etc, etc. You get my drift. Still, artificial as all of it is, Mother’s Day does serve as a reminder to say “Thank you” – or to realise just what sort of daily struggle a mother goes through (mine didn’t, of course, I was a joy to all I met...)

A sweet little ad puts a slightly different, and distinctly modern, spin on the traditional view of families.

We see a youngish father, clearly desperately trying to bring up two feisty girls on his own. Is he divorced or is he a widower? We can but wonder...

But, as the ad unfolds, he understands, at long last, the struggle that his mother must have gone through to raise him.

When she struggled to juggle work and family so he could have better than she did, so he could go to the places she never could.

He remembers, too, how she would tell him “money doesn’t grow on trees” (and how many of us didn’t hear that from our parents growing up – and how many of us don’t pass that along to our spendthrift offspring?)

Then the ad comes to the commercial punch line. It is for First National Bank and it salutes the struggles parents (even two of them) endure every single day and how much energy that takes.

In return, FNB promises, have a Gold Card from us – make your life a little easier. And, by the way, you deserve it.

The ad could be cloying and sentimental – and sometimes it does stray that way – but who can deny the human emotion when the father realises life’s wheel has come full circle and that now, finally, he understands “what you meant when you said you love me”?

The bank reminds us a bit of our family duty – but at the same time reminds us that it can help us.

Capitalising on a simple human truth is the key to good advertising. So, well done, FNB. An Orchid to you.

Screengrab from the ad

It amazes me that advertisers, in this day and age of political correctness (or, should I say, sensitivity to the feelings of others) can blunder on, trampling on the feelings and dearly cherished beliefs of that part of society that would never be its customer.

Karan Beef’s latest radio ad is a glaring example of commercial crassness. In an attempt to promote their animal meat (for that is what it is), Karan takes what it thinks is a humorous swipe at vegetarians.

Thank you, it says, somewhat smugly, for you vegetarians and your beliefs. Keep on that way, because there is more delicious Karan Beef left for the rest of us. Ha ha.

The thing is, many vegetarians are much, much more than food faddists. They refuse to eat meat for strongly held moral reasons. (And, I suspect, if we were to see how Karan Beef’s massive feedlots cram in cattle and stuff them with food to make them gain weight quickly, we might consider vegetarianism’s more humane ways.)

Do I think vegetarians are odd, strange people? No. I think they are principled, disciplined people. And if you make fun of them, you demean yourself.

This is speaking as someone who eats meat and who would prefer to be a vegetarian for health reasons at least, and who acknowledges that the animal produce industry can be unspeakably cruel.

Theirs is an old saying, which I will mangle in the hope of making the point: you don’t make yourself taller by pulling yourself down.

In Karan’s case, they have a lot of pulling down to do, because vegetarians, in this case, occupy the moral high ground. If only your animals in the feedlots had the benefits of the organic Onion I am awarding you, Karan.

*Note that Bizcommunity staff and management do not necessarily share the views of its contributors - the opinions and statements expressed herein are solely those of the author.*