Firestone ad

The new Firestones TV campaign in which random people spontaneously start humming, strumming, whistling or singing the well-known jingle is ridiculous. The ads are so bad that the first time I saw them I couldn't suppress a bemused giggle, but since then my attitude toward them has moved through one of irritation to down-right embarrassment. I'm guessing that the idea behind getting ‘ordinary' South Africans to associate themselves with the brand is to make Firestones appear the people's choice, but the irrelevant situations in which they do so is too serious to be stylised and too contrived to be taken literally, leaving the viewer (or me, anyway) feeling awkward.

I'd be interested to hear if I'm the only one who finds the thought of wandering through a caravan park and finding a family belting out an ad jingle a little odd.

Am I looking too deeply, or not deeply enough?