A migrant’s guide to Britain…via the advertising
Forget the citizenship test, migrants should watch our Christmas TV ads to get to grips with the British psyche, writes Dominic Mills.
The Syrian migrant families who arrived earlier this month in the Isle of Bute, aka the ‘Madeira of Scotland’, will no doubt be experiencing extreme culture shock.
That will pass – eventually – and over time, as they adapt to life in Britain, they will start preparing for the British citizenship test. Judging by some of the sample questions – how long did the Hundred Years War with France last (answer: 116 years) – this is more of a general knowledge (some of it obscure) test than it is a help in understanding British culture.
An alternative would be to buy a box set of Little Britain, where voiceover king Tom Baker opens each episode with a recitation of British achievements – Ribena for all, shoelaces of different lengths, reinvention of the cat, tunnel to Peru and so on.
But better still, sit them down in front of the TV and ask them to watch the Christmas ads. This would be a far better way to get to grips with the British psyche.
So what would they make of some of the current crop? Let’s go through them in random order.
1. They could do worse than start with the Robert Dyas Christmas ad, in which customers and staff proclaim both their sexual tendency (“Hi, I’m Marcus and I’m gay”) and the suitability of the stock for either gays or straights (“this drill would work a treat in a gay person’s home…or a straight one”).
[advert position=”left”]
Hmm, barking mad or what? Most certainly, and that’s one thing they’ll learn quickly – that we are an eccentric nation.
But the key message for a migrant (apart from the fact that Britons buy gifts in an ironmonger’s – pretty strange in itself) is tolerance and self-esteem. The stars of the ad are both open about their sexuality, proud of it, and proud to work in an ironmonger. None of these are likely to be the case in Syria, and reports from Germany suggest they are discombobulated by the sight of German gays kissing in public.
2. Next up, John Lewis and the Man in the Moon. I imagine the most likely reaction is one of bemusement. What is it saying? And what am I supposed to do as a result? Because, for an ad, it’s not immediately clear. But over time, they’ll get used to that in Britain. We shun the explicit (even, or especially in ads) in favour of the soft sell (well, mostly).
But for me, there’s a more darker lesson in the ad, and one that they’ll find hard to understand. It’s that, as a country, we don’t treat old people well. Even at a time of family and celebration, old people are shunned or pushed to the margins. As a society, and it seems to be an Anglo-Saxon trait, we do not venerate the older generations. Other societies, certainly those in the Middle East and Asia, value their elderly.
3. The Asda Christmas jumpers ad. This is a take on an old idea – boy dog meets girl dog, and male owner meets lady owner – except that they’re all wearing Christmas jumpers. It makes me smile.
Lesson #1 from this ad is we’re soft for pets, and they are a key part of any selling proposition. Whenever possible, ads feature some kind of furry animal.
Lesson #2 is that we’re mad for Christmas jumpers (not me – wouldn’t be seen dead in one. Bah humbug). They usually only get one wearing (lesson #3 – we’re a wasteful society), but if migrants want to assimilate fast and easy, they should pop down to Asda for a Santa sweater.
Lesson #4 is that British supermarkets sell anything and everything, even Christmas pullies.
4. Still, with the furry animals, here’s Vodafone getting in on the act with Terry the Turkey. What a turkey has to do with a mobile phone operator will bamboozle our migrants (me too), or indeed why anyone might buy a Vodafone product or service as a gift (just look at newspapers to see hard-sell mobile phone Christmas ads) is beyond me.
I think what Vodafone is selling here is family and togetherness (i.e. ring your loved ones this Christmas) but two lessons migrants should get from this ad (and most of the others too) are: #1, that the ‘ideal’ and ‘typical’ British family is white and middle-class; and #2, if they’re expecting to see diversity replicated on their telly, they’re better off watching EastEnders than the ads.
I wrote last year about the way Christmas ads misrepresented the ethnic make-up of the British population, and despite various AA and IPA initiatives – and a general sense in the advertising industry that it is letting itself and the country down in its attitude to diversity – nothing much has changed. Perhaps next year…
5. Shopping and secularism. Migrants keen on rapid assimilation better get used to the fact that, despite all the pretence and window-dressing, Britain is neither a Christian nor a religious country.
Indeed, it worships at the twin altars of secularism and shopping. At no time is this more obvious than Christmas – and our new arrivals in Bute better prepare themselves for the onslaught on Christmas night of Boxing Day sale ads. Even if there are not many places to shop in Bute on Boxing Day.
6. As a country we may take shopping (and football) seriously, but that’s about it. In fact, we love nothing more than to send ourselves up – as beautifully done by this ‘Nothing’ KitKat Christmas ad. It offers us a blank screen as relief from, it says, “watching pretend families gathering around the table…re-recorded sentimental songs’.
The lesson from this: there’s a deep streak of irreverence (not to mention anti-authoritarianism) in the British psyche.
7. Last up, and most gloriously, we have the Warburton’s/Muppets Christmas spectacular. It’s a little odd in the sense that it’s a massive amount of money to advertise what, for Warburton’s, must be a B-list product – the crumpet – but of course, it’s about much more than that.
Lesson #1 is that we love wordplay, the conceit here being Muppet/crumpet rhyme, but this ad really sums up many other Britishisms: sheer silliness (in a good way), the humanisation of furry animals, and good old song-n’-dance.
If you’ve got to sell it, sing it.