The wastes of January – when our coffers are empty and our trouser cuffs are soggy – is traditionally when advertisers like to torment us with images of well-adjusted people enjoying sunny holidays.
It’s a rough old business, but at least we know the hallmarks – copyright-free pan-pipe music, Rob Brydon larking about self-consciously on a boat, parents looking far too happy to be trapped at 40,000 feet with their offspring – and can time our trips to the kettle accordingly.
The new Thomsons ad, then, is something of a curveball. It starts with a tinkly orchestral score John Lewis would be proud of. A little girl tiptoes through a beach scene frozen in time – waves paused mid-curl, volleyball players hanging in the air – to a pool, where her father is waiting. As she leaps towards him, she too is caught in the tableau. “That moment when time stands still,” comes the voiceover, as the music swells. “And you wish you never had to grow up.”
Well, thanks a lot advertising. Now we’re halfway to the kettle with lumps in our throats, nostalgic for our own childhood holidays: rain-soaked caravans, stand-up rows about Scrabble and all.
