h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's been found that the amount of protein (or something) in formula milk can lead to childhood obesity. So babies are better off breast-fed as much as possible, anyway.

Right !

Simu-post... but as it happens you're both right

*bump*

Re 1961... most adult males would like to be as well

Theres a car advert on telly at the moment (I think for Renault) where 1 guy is being shown around a car showroom and the salesman is unable to actually describe any of the fairly simple features (thats not the stupid bit but its damn annoying). Its an English advert with English actors.

Shame every car they get into in the showroom is a left hand drive.
Steering wheels go on the RIGHT in this country ad men.

Idiots.

So an industry that is practically going through its death throes at the moment is supposed to spend extra money on an identical ad, just to put steering wheels on the other side, despite the fact that the car is identical in every other respect?

Riiiight.

No. Its supposed to hire people sensible enough to know which country they are advertising in and know the correct internal configuration for cars for that country. Its simple product research.

Its not effing rocket science.

Ad agencies get paid silly money to make adverts, your telling me they couldn't spend 3 minutes on the internet to find out where a car steering wheel is located in their target country then hire the correct car for their advert?

Its just bloody lazy!

I guess that in emergency they could even just perform a vertical flip of the picture, and hope there is nothing written anywhere

or even a horizontal flip

Most car ads are sweeping shots around scenic surroundings, in which case, selective use of registration plates - M, I, V, X, etc means it can be shown in most countries. If they took the time to carefully use speech then flipping the image, as has been mentioned here alreasy, does away with the need to reshoot the ad. Though this just leads to sloppy research.

Most languages look different to each other when spoken, no matter how well dubbed for accent.

I *was* joking - but that does lead onto one of my all time hates - dubbed adverts. I *really* hate those!!

Sorry Moonhogg. I agree about dubbed ads, most of them seem to be for certain shouted-about cleaning products.

If Oasis is for people who don't like water why does it comprise of more than 50% water?

The trouble with flipping ads is that suddenly nearly everyone is left-handed and the shirts button on the wrong side...

There was that "scandal" quite recently with McDonald's - they were advertising that in Switzerland, they used 100% Swiss beef for their burgers. Trouble was, the cow on the photo had an ear tag with an AT on it... They simply recycled an Austrian ad and forgot that little detail!

(Oh, and having read a tiny bit of the backlog...)

Re: number of ingredients

I recently found a product that made me laugh out loud in the supermarket (can't quite remember what it was...)

It listed E300, Vitamin C, and ascorbic acid (as a preservative) separately, and also contained lemon juice!

Am I the only one watching the Ka ad who thinks that what the little boy is holding looks suspiciously like a dildo?

I haven't seen that advert but I feel it has been tainted before I've even seen it.