I am what you might call emotionally incontinent. At a wedding at the weekend, I cried from the minute the bride walked in right through to the speeches.  No sobbing, just the kind of tears that you can deny if you need to and hide behind your hat. I also cry at films, award ceremonies, sport, live music, East Enders…the list goes on. It’s usually happy occasions that set me off – in fact it’s almost like an indulgence – a chance to let out some pent up energy.

More recently even adverts have been enough to set me off; from the plain emotive charity commercials through to the clover family buttering their bread. The old man ‘licking the lid of life’ has been known to set me off if I’m feeling particularly emotional!

So imagine my excitement when reading the Sunday papers I was strangely drawn to the TV: “I am the teacher that failed me and the one that spurred me on……..I am the people who put me down and the people who pick me up…I am who I am because of everyone.”

Tissue in hand, I was ready to well up at the emotional crescendo of the piece when……..ORANGE. Is that it? Is that all I get? What no punch in the heart message about valuing my family, friends and the short time we have on this earth? No, just ORANGE.

Gutted.

I would expect a charity or a life insurance company to play with my mind in this way…but a mobile network?

What is ORANGE trying to say?  Is it simply an uber-emotive campaign to spell out the people you would or could speak too, if you were feeling nostalgic?  Or is there some other subliminal message that hasn’t yet made it into my subconscious?

Either way, for me, this ad is a deal breaker. In the land of advertising, is it ever fair to pick people up and kick them down?

Helen Stevens