Complaints about the Haribo Tangfastics advert

The latest Haribo Tangfastics advert really annoys me. It continues the general marketing theme for the addictive brand of gelatin-based snacks. That is, essentially, kids and grown ups love them so. This advert features a mischievous young page boy at a wedding offering the sweet treat to various members of the wedding party who are assembled for a post-nuptial picture. All who partake - we are led to believe as a result of the Tangfastics taste sensation - contort their faces in a manner unbecoming of wedding guests set to be photographed for posterity.

Rather than the bride taking part, she discovers after the picture has been taken that they've all been acting like idiots and she is demonstrably unimpressed and upset. You might expect in an advert of this nature that she would laugh along with them at the joke and partake in a Tangfastic herself, for a closing shot of everyone pulling an hilarious face for the camera that unites us all in admiration of the wondrous ability of Haribo to bring out the best in everyone. Instead she's just pissed off and everyone's laughing at her.

So on what is most likely the biggest day of her life, one that she has spent months preparing for and looking forward to, she has a large group of people - most likely her own family and the family she has just married into, the people closest to her in the world - making fun of her. One of the bridesmaids seems to take particular pleasure in ruining the photo, seemingly because she gets moved out of the way as the bride makes herself centre of the attention - obviously outrageous behaviour for a bride on her wedding day.

I've spent far too much time imagining what happens post advert, as the whole episode taints the rest of the bride's day. She is left wondering why people would be so insensitive to ruin a photo on what is meant to be her special day, while her guests wonder why she's so uptight about them having a bit of fun with some sweets. Most likely she manages to put a brave face on it, but it simmers for months, eventually erupting to the surface in (what is to her husband at least) a completely unrelated argument about what colour they should paint one of the spare room walls (that's right, just one of the walls - it's one of those feature walls where you make a bold statement with a different colour from the rest of the walls, and stuff).

In the closing seconds of the advert, the little bastard who offered the sweets around in the first place sniggers with his indulgent parents, who really should firmly discipline him for such errant behaviour. So to conclude it is abundantly clear that Haribo want you to see their Tangfastics sweets as an accessory to bullying and exclusion. All of which leaves a *sour* taste in my mouth. Get it? Sour?