Open Happiness

Well, we're steadily approaching the end of November, and sure enough, the run up to Christmas has officially begun. How do I know this? Those damned Coca Cola trucks have been on my television, parading down a snowswept American street where even the kid's pets are clearly on uppers, just as they have every year for as long as I can remember. It's the same advert Coke have used for at least a decade now, and why? Because they know damn well that it has become a cultural landmark on our calendar and Christmas would not be the same without it!

So has the advert changed at all in that time? Well, the answer for this year at least is yes. At the end of the advert we now see the Coca Cola logo, mounted on a white background, with a simple two word slogan:

'Open Happiness'.

Open happiness... I'm pretty sure that thus far, science and all the power of man, has been unable to capture the individual emotions of the human being, and put them in a glass bottle for human consumption. If this had been done I am pretty sure we'd all be having a serving of rich, warm love with every meal, (or hot sweaty lust, depending on whether you ultimately want children or just a few STDs). The world would be a better place and already we would have moved past the dire activity of swallowing emotions in pill form. (Incidentally I wonder what love would taste like? Mmm, buttered crumpets!)

It just seems to me such an offense to the human race to suggest that a commercial product can provide us each with an emotion we spend all our lives trying to secure. Sure, I bet you're thinking 'come on Derek, we all know that's an exaggeration', but, when you break it down to the fundamental message of the two words 'Open Happiness', that is quite simply what the language suggests.

Let's take another example, I was in London this week and on my journey down to the tube, I observed an advert for Côtes du Rhône red wine. Their slogan was simply this:

"Think red. Think Côtes du Rhône".

Folks, that's just a command.

There is no product information in there, nothing for you to reason with, no opportunity for you to think 'ooh, I certainly approve of their fermenting process'. It is a simple command - whenever you see red, think of Côtes du Rhône red wine.

Now when you take yourself out of this idea that it is simply normal to be surrounded by advertising, and look at that expression on it's own, it becomes quite a surreal thought to see this harmlessly plastered across the London Underground. How would you feel if for the duration of one of your journeys, you were accompanied by someone chanting at you "every time you see the colour blue, imagine listening to Rolf Harris' greatest hits whilst drinking a pint of bovril"? Their mental disposition aside, you would consider it an bullying instruction that invades your boundaries of private thought.

We grow up in a world full of advertising, and it is considered normality. But it has become so normal that we each can become blind to the subliminal influence of the messages on every advert. If in just one example we are being told to simply think of a product on every instance that we see a colour, how much are our thoughts being manipulated through the course of every day? Can you imagine how many commands you may have seen similar to the Côtes du Rhône slogan, and to what extent these may have affected the choices you make in buying on a daily basis? Hey, if we consider it so normal that that slogan be up there, how much more of a stretch is it to just casually feel like a nice drop of red wine whenever we see red?

It's definitely one to think about. I shall consider it further over a nice pint of bovril.