An English take on a Bosnian advertising campaign

More on the current billboard advertising campaigns in and around Tuzla. The ones that I am most bemused by is a large picture of a beautiful girl, glamorously dressed and fully made up, seated next to a loo roll holder with an expression of rapture. The tag line on the poster is "Let it Happen" (in English so there is no way that I have misunderstood it) and the advert is for something called Happening. For quite a long time I thought this was an unusual advert for laxatives. Bosnians are not frightened of advertising this type of thing, current condom adverts are "for women for whom 3 times is not enough" (!?). Turns out it is in fact an advertising campaign for a very fashionable women's boutique clothing range. Ah. Not quite the same thing at all.

This is not the first time that I have got the adverts spectacularly wrong. A whole bunch of pictures of pastel pink and purple butterflies entitled My Style, I attributed to a campaign for sanitary towels. No, it was in fact for cigarettes. I wasn't the only one who got this wrong, D also attributed it to some sort of feminine hygiene product and some American friends thought it was for a product which would have to be bought from a chemist.

Slightly worryingly I am now wondering what this says about our underlying psyche - whilst the Bosnians are thinking glamorous clothes and cigarettes, the Brits are a bit more obsessed with laxatives and sanitary products. Probably not too far from the truth.