Advertise on an angol
Advertising is a wonderful thing—how else would I have known I needed so much magnesium. Poland is a little shy about advertising—there are at least three buildings in Warsaw that don't have football-pitch sized posters on them. I'm sure most people, like me, would prefer to look at a seven-metre-high photograph of a can of antiperspirant than the building underneath. When has an office block ever simultaneously deodorised and moisturised your armpits?
Polish television is also a marvellous source of comforting adverts, though they are constantly interrupted by episodes of CSI Miami. I've learned a lot from watching Polish television ads. For example, I've learned that Halle Berry, Claudia Schiffer and Kylie Minogue all speak Polish, albeit with voices that are suspiciously different from the ones they use to speak English. Ads are also a superb source of useful vocabulary for the student of Polish. I had no idea meat sauce in a packet could be considered a "tajna broń" and the phrase "Co mówi twarz rano?" is very useful for starting conversations with strangers in the Post Office queue.
I wish I could live in television advert land. All crises are solved within thirty seconds, usually thanks to the application of one form of yogurt or another, and aches and pains are usefully highlighted with glowing fire or lightning. How cool would it be if your head actually glowed red when you had a headache. It would certainly make your doctor’s job easier: “Sit down Mr Stokes, I see you have a throbbing red blob in the small of you back. Have you noticed any lighting at all? In television advert land all women are beautiful and wise and stand in sunlit doorways watching children play. All men are clumsy oafs who are just about capable of preparing a meal in a plastic bag as long as they are helped by small girls. That’s the kind of world I could feel comfortable in.
Polish Web sites are lavishly provided with advertising. I especially like the ones that chase your eyes down the page on news sites to prevent you reading anything that might upset you. Those and the ones that leap out of the corner when you accidentally touch them with your cursor and start blaring shampoo jingles at you. Shocks like this have been proven to enhance cardiac health. Even during those rare times when I’m not looking at a computer screen the vital flow of advertising is maintained via SMS. My mobile telephone company loves me so much that it sends me at least five texts every day telling me how I can save money by spending money. This is not a strategy I would ever have thought of on my own. If I wasn’t so busy deleting texts, I might even do something about it.
There are a few golden advertising opportunities that have so far been missed. Banknotes for example. This is such an obvious place to advertise I'm amazed nobody has thought of it. Take a stówka out of your wallet and get an eyeful of a special offer for frankfurters in a tin. It's money that suggests how you should spend it. I also advocate advertising on the inside of clothing. Every morning when I pull my tee-shirt over my head I'm out of sight of advertising for at least half a second—sometime much longer if I'm hung over. Why not put illuminated advertising right there on the inside of my shirt? It's genius ideas like these that make me wonder how it's possible I'm not already a multimillionaire.
Human skin is another woefully underused source of advertising space. If I see a dude with the name of a supermarket tattooed on his forehead I'll be thinking it must be one hell of a place to shop. When I launch my brand of ready-salted water—the finest rock salt lovingly dissolved in spring water by old ladies with head scarves to enhance your potato-boiling experience—I’ll be advertising it on my own face. Until then, my visage is available to rent at reasonable rates.
Jamie Stokes