Synopsis
A dad is in the supermarket with his son, who keeps putting a large bag of sweets in the trolley. The dad keeps putting the sweets back on the shelf, causing the child to pout, complain, and eventually scream and go crazy. He runs around the store pulling food off shelves, while nearby shoppers look on with judgement and disgust. The ad ends with a close up of the exasperated and defeated father while the words ‘Use Condoms’ appear on screen beneath him.
Review
I saw this nearly a decade ago, and it still sticks with me.
I initially thought it was an advert for a brand of candy due to how the kid was behaving, or maybe a vacation company to ‘get away from it all’, so the actual punchline, while being obvious in hindsight, was so funny and effective.
What makes this funny is (to me) the notion that, yes, kids are horrendous, and using condoms will give you with much less screaming and tantrums, and far more sleeping and money. But the main reason it works is the subversion of standard birth control adverts, which are always sexy and glamorous and full of sexy glamorous people doing sexy glamorous things and being sexy and glamorous.
This however plays on the more common belief that kids can sometimes be absolute turds.
