A few of years ago, there was a mild kerfuffle about adverts for Yorkie chocolate. The chocolate wrappers bore the legend ‘It’s not for girls’ in big, bold letters. This, and remarks such as ‘do not feed the birds’ and ‘not for handbags’ – had raised the ire of the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality for Men and Women.

The equality tsars declared that the adverts were offensive and discriminatory. The Malta Nestlé office was informed and the adverts duly pulled.

I remember thinking how typical it is of the Maltese to sweat the small stuff, and take offence when none is intended. After all, there was no way the campaign was meant to bar women from eating the chocolate advertised.

It was merely a tongue-in-cheek attempt at attracting attention – and an effective one at that. It was reported that in Malta at least, women ‘rebelled’ and bought the chocolate.

Since the Yorkie episode, we haven’t had particularly offensive adverts. True, there was the G-string clad bottom advertising beer and the bare-bottomed lingerie models on the back of buses, but they hardly raised an eyebrow.

Nudity has become rather run-of-the-mill; it’s not going to shock many people these days. In fact, it has become progressively harder to make an impact in today’s saturated market.

How do you make a product or a service stand out when it’s competing with a thousand others for a prospective consumer’s attention? How do you create a buzz around your wares?

You can take the old adage that ‘sex sells’ as a starting point. But since practically everyone else in the business has adopted that approach, that is not going to have much effect either.

So it would be at this point that ad men resort to shock tactics such as gross artwork or distasteful ad campaigns. The underlying reason behind this approach is that ‘any publicity is good publicity’, and that even negative connotations will raise the recognition factor of the product on offer.

The upshot of this is that we get ads that are really quite crass, replete with lazy innuendo using the terminology of schoolboys.

There’s a particular ad campaign going on at the moment which relies heavily on what could at best pass for laddish humour, but which is distasteful on a number of levels. That’s the one which includes a big billboard of a cheeky blonde girl suggestively licking a lollipop.

The accompanying tagline states: “Women are suckers for Love! It’s a given that most women are suckers for love, so get your woman that perfect gift this Christmas and she will love you more and more! At least during the Christmas period.”

It’s not so much the ‘wink, wink, nudge, nudge’ tone of the ad which is so irritating. You’d have to be particularly obtuse not to notice the sexual innuendo being made (Licking a lollipop. Suckers. Geddit?).

What is rather more objectionable is the implied message that buying a gift from this outlet will secure the affections of a woman, albeit temporarily. There’s the reduction of the giving of gifts to a transaction involving the exchange of favours. Very crudely put, give Object X to Woman A and she will lick your lollipop.

I wonder why people would go to the trouble of actually buying a gift when they could simply hand over some euros and get their lollipops licked. Because shorn of the spirit of selflessness and wanting to make the recipient of a gift happy, gift-giving is simply an exercise in bartering.

And when it’s viewed in these terms, then it’s a lot less hassle to hand over a cheque than to try and find a suitably pleasing gift. In which case, the adverts for products are superfluous, as cash will do just as well. Incidentally, the ad campaign in question is an equal opportunities offender.

There’s another ad blaring: “Men are easy”, and enjoining women to get men that perfect gift for Christmas “and he will make life so much easier and pleasurable for you”.

Again, there’s the asinine sexual innuendo and an exclusively materialistic and acquisitive take on the gift-giving experience. I can’t decide which is the most pathetic.

• If there was one gift that I enjoyed receiving (and giving in turn), it was Strada Stretta by George Cini. I was bowled over by the book, which is a lively compendium of photographs and interviews with the personalities who lived and worked in the street.

It’s a fascinating account of the years in which sailors thronged the narrow street, frequenting exotically named bars like The Egyptian Queen and Dirty Dick’s and where bar girls could earn a fortune in a night by making commission on drinks sold.

The author should be commended for compiling an oral history of this street.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt