ORCHIDS AND ONIONS: Good match for the bank

Bank’s ad works really well and will have additional impact because of our performance against India.

How’s this for an interesting coincidence? I sat down to start writing this column just as the First Test between the Proteas and India got under way in Cape Town yesterday.

I had just been watching a cute little video of the latest ad for Standard Bank put together by TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris. It’s about youngsters who really love cricket and how they are determined to get to the top. We see them in all sorts of places – in dressing rooms, the nets, catching balls, smashing sixes out of the ground, giving comments to the press, in the team bus. All as the real Proteas do. And these kids wear the real Proteas’ kit.

Their message, though, is tough and uncompromising: We are coming for You. These are the Buds who Bloom into Proteas later in life, the ad makes it plain. And they are warning the guys who should be their heroes: You are in our sights. And your days are numbered. Tick, tock, they say repeatedly.

Hardly had I finished watching the video than I looked up at the TV. The Proteas were already three wickets down for 12 runs against an Indian side supposed to be the underdogs on a pitch where South Africa’s fast bowlers should play havoc. I did a double take for a second … was I watching SA or England? Tick, tock, Proteas.

Can these little okes do much worse than you did? The timing is fortuitous – and I am sure more than one cricket fan will have been shouting at the Standard Bank ad, calling on the kids to get out there, like now, and replace these palookas.

Whatever the reason, the ad works really well and will have additional impact because of our performance (can you honestly call it that?). So it gets an Orchid from me. May you youngsters blossom on the cricket pitch … and the sooner the better.

Sitting at home over the festive season (and how nice that was, away from the crowds) I had a lot of time to ponder the adverts. And by far the most irritating was for Appletiser. It features a nicely balanced trio of gorgeous girls, supposedly showing their wonderfully successful lives – sexy, intelligent (look I won the contract – take that boys!) and even incredibly agile, enough to skip out of the way so I don’t get my designer dress splashed by a car going through a puddle.

They all laugh their perfect laughs, showcasing their perfect teeth. And sip the power drink of note – Appletiser. Then, with coquettish flirtatiousness, one drops something on the floor for the hunky man to pick up… and everyone giggles (natch …).

Now, before I go on, let me say I like good-looking women as much as the next man. That’s why I’ve been married for 32 years. But I like intelligent women even more (again one of the reasons the woman in my life was so attractive to me… and still is).

But I have an aversion to bimbos. In my youth, I took one or two out on dates. And got a headache from trying to make conversation. Trophy babes can be very shallow. And that’s what this Appletiser ad screams: Bimbos! So it gets an Onion. Appletiser’s bubbles, clearly, put the air in airhead …