Most people have daydreamed about what they would do if they won the lottery.  Give up work.  Buy a yacht.  Go on a world cruise.  For some people, they would buy a nice house.  And, no doubt, that is the thinking behind Camelot’s latest ‘Amazing Starts Here’ advertising campaign.

The advert features a fisherman and his wife.  It is a tough life.  The fisherman’s work is hard and gruelling and involves long weeks spent at sea, away from home.  The fisherman’s wife’s life is no less hard, left at home, trying to bring up a family and run a household.  In fact, it is so hard that it appears that she is planning to leave her husband.  While he toils on the ocean waves, the fisherman’s wife is seen in soul-searching conversations with her bestie:

“I think it’s the right decision.”
“Are you sure”
“Yes, I think I am.”

She is then spotted entering a solicitor’s office.  Is it divorce she has in mind?  All the audience’s worst fears appear to be confirmed when the poor fisherman eventually returns home only to discover an empty house and a solitary letter waiting on the mantelpiece.  It is the classic “It’s not you, it’s me” scenario.

Except, in this instance, the fisherman’s wife has not deserted her husband.  Instead, she’s only gone and won the blimin’ lottery and upped sticks and bought the nice house down the street, which they had always dreamed about.

“I bought it.”
“We won?”
“We won.”

It is a clever ad campaign volte-face, which leaves everyone smiling at the nice fisherman and his nice wife’s well-deserved happily ever after.  Everyone except me.  I have a problem with this advert.  It doesn’t leave me smiling; it leaves me unsettled.  And, for a long time, I couldn’t work out why.  But now I can.

Go back to the beginning of my blog.  Most people have daydreamed about what they would do if they won the lottery.  Give up work.  Buy a yacht.  Go on a world cruise.  For some people, they would buy a nice house.  Buy a new house.  That is the imaginary backstory that is supposed to make sense of the fisherman’s wife impromptu purchase.  However, it does not ring true with the dialogue:

“I bought it.”
“We won?”
“We won.”

Surely, if you had been daydreaming about what you would do if you won the lottery you would say:

“We won.”
“We won!”
“And I bought it.”

It is a subtle distinction, but the conversation that the fisherman’s wife has with her husband fits better with an imaginary backstory whereby the pair have dreamed of buying the nice house, have talked through how best to finance the purchase, and decided the best way is to win the lottery, which they duly go on to do.  Don’t get me wrong, I wish the nice fisherman and his nice wife every happiness in their nice new house, but the logic of their daydreaming is preposterous.

But when has logic had anything to do with entering the lottery?

© Stephanie Snifter

Celeb stalker Steph Snifter thinks there’s still time for a spot of gazumping.