The Advertising Cliche Bible

BBC writer John Camm has analysed the most common cliche’s used in advertising. Cliches include:

1. Men are obsessed with sex but will forego sex in order to watch football or drink beer.
2. Women are locked in a constant battle with their weight/body shape/hairstyle.
3. Women have jobs they never do in real life, e.g. dockworker (who looks like a model).
4. Men are inherently lazy/slobbish; women are the reverse.
5. Professional people have strangely trivial preoccupations, e.g. a female barrister who is morbidly obsessed with finding a healthy snack bar.

BBC