miss cayce

Radio ga ga

I heard a radio ad today that made me smile. Usually, radio ads irritate me as heck because well, they're really bad. There's the one about road-rage: the father speaks to his son about the harsh realities of prison life. Thought-provoking in theory but the actor(?) for the ad had no real emotion at all. The words were heartfelt but the execution was so embarrassing. Ditto for similar past ads where "Billy has been washing his hands for hours.. blah blah.. because there is blood on them" (Billy did a bad thing: he was a drunk driver who got into an accident and killed his friend – Bad Billy!). I don't really have a problem with the script, although it could border on really corny, but the actors are JUST.SO.BAD. I can't empathize with them; instead I laugh at them.

One of my "favourites" include this annoying little girl who's nagging her father because he cuts into lines in the supermarket, etc.. The build-up of the ad is when she whines, "DADDDDDDDD... why are you cutting this guy off?" And then there's screech of brakes, and a loud BANG.

I think the point of the ad was for people to reflect more about their impatience on the roads but all I could think was, "Good, that would shut the brat up".

Hee.

There's one I truly abhor and I always change stations whenever it comes on. I don't know what it's for but it's so obnoxious: this young teenage girl with a near-perfect Valley Girl accent (???) prattles on about her problem and she's answered by this older woman with a near-perfect British accent (???). The former makes me want to tear my hair out. It's so annoying and unnecessary. What ordinary Malaysian teenager speaks like that? Well, maybe in KL perhaps but then again, it's a crass, materialistic, soulless cesspool floating within a landmass we call Malaysia. Don't get me wrong - I love KL: it's great for shopping but it's sooo crazy and three days in KL is my limit.

Anyhooo.. the radio ad today that made me smile was for the Rima youth center in (err) KL. No silly drama script, just frank talking. Their angle was, "don't spend your RM10 on pirated DVDs (or RM12 for DVD9), spend it on these kids". I thought it was great. It was perfect; it was two-fold - it talked about the needs of these underprivileged kids, and DVD piracy at the same time. Towards the end of the ad, there was a plea to help make sure that these kids don’t end up as pirated DVD peddlers. Two social issues into one ad - brilliant!

I've heard similar ads in Canada/the States about not spending your money on say, a Starbucks latte, but instead give it to charity. If they had done the exact same thing here, it would have only made sense to less than half of Malaysia's population (and yet probably 99.99% of KL's population). But thankfully, they didn't (I'm guessing it's not the same ad agency who had the brilliant idea of having a Valley Girl!). Instead, they brought up a true Malaysian past-time: buying pirated DVDs/VCDs.

So there you go, instead of buying a pirated DVD/VCD/CD this weekend, donate the money to charity instead.

End of public announcement.

posted by Cayce @ 9:23 PM