Effort?

A recent TV commercial made me grinch. Cannot tahan.

The commercial started with a scene in the office, and a lady in blue stressfully at work, and suddenly started suppressed and stifled screaming, her face contorted in different degrees. They were trying to prove she was so stressed that she could do without a chair, and flashed the word "much effort!". I thought it was an ad for laxatives or Viagra. Then the screen changed to another lady in red, very relaxed and smiling, eating a snack and flashed "little effort!" Then they showed the Soyjoy fruit bar at the end. Soyjoy is a nutritious fruit bar by a Japanese company promoting its bars made from soybean rather than the sinful candy bar.

The mere usage of these tags "Much Effort!" and "Little Effort!" made me grinch. Something was wrong with the English, somehow. From the intention of meaning to say "so much effort" or "lots of effort needed", they shrunk it to "much effort"! From "a little effort is all you need" or "it takes a little effort", they shrunk it to "little effort!" They could have used "Stressful!" vs "Effortless!" but it would be too "cheem" for the layman audience. Or "Too much effort" vs "Too little effort" would be a mouthful. Or "Real effort!" vs "No effort!"??

Anyway what and how does "effort" got to do with fruit bars? It was pretty misleading and simplistic. Are they trying to say it was so little effort to buy the bar that people could "afford" it? Or a little effort in a choice of snacks could make you relaxed and happy? While not eating the snack will make it "much effort" to concentrate at work?

Maybe if they had invited Jack Neo and his repertoire for this ad, it would have been easier for the local audience to stomach the disparity of usage of the "Much effort, little effort" using local slang, which I am sure the likes of Liang Po Po /Mark Lee /Henry Thia/ Pat Mok would be able to pull it off EFFORTLESSLY. One could easily imagine the lady in blue replaced by Henry Thia's enactment of "Much Effort!" and Mark Lee's or Liang PoPo's enactment of "Little Effort!". It would bring the house down with the comic relief, attracting all the aunties and uncles and children from all walks of life in throngs to try Soyjoy. Haha!

Anyhow, a commercial is just another way of advertising a product. How it influences the consumers' interpretation and perception is vastly different. The ultimate objective is the product get noticed and people are motivated enough to want to buy and try it. Then that makes a successful ad. For me to be convinced, they only needed an ad to show me simply the benefits of consuming snacks made of soybean compared to unhealthy candy bars. It is that simple. Then again, consuming too much snacks is unhealthy itself. Best is not to snack, (too) much effort.

But anyway, I think the company should pay me for advertising for them here. Little effort. :P