TELEVISION adverts must show a couple getting together, having kids and then sending their kids to university, according to new guidelines.
The Advertising Standards Authority ruled that all television adverts must be based on a nauseatingly sentimental ‘phases of life’ sequence, otherwise viewers risk not feeling fully patronised.
A spokesman said: “We must see a couple meeting, getting married, the woman up the spout, the couple looking knackered because of the baby, then some bullshit where the now-teenage daughter has been dumped and the dad is consoling her.
“Or any variation on that. Maybe the same thing but set in the 60s, or bring in a grandad, whatever.”
Psychologist Nikki Hollis said: “Advertising thrives on paranoia so laying down a firm template for the correct life is a great way to get the masses terrified by their own inadequacy.
“Then they will rush to buy sofas and insurance in the vain hope of making it right. Which won’t work.”
Advertising executive Stephen Malley said: “How about a shot where a man and a pregnant woman are decorating a house, followed by the same actors with grey hair packing their now-teenage daughter off to college in a suspiciously shiny hatchback car?
“I am a Godlike fucking genius!”
