I dunno, but I was a fair way into the OP before I decided it wasn’t talking about the 1980s sci-fi miniseries.
I have a colleague who is fairly mild mannered, but who will come quite close to giving you a smack if you call him “ginger”, so apparantly it is…
Grim
Dunno about the ad, but anyone who doesn’t like redheads can kiss my redheaded ass.
Um, AFAIK, my ass isn’t redheaded, but you know what I mean…
Well I can’t speak for Britain but every redhead I ever knew got a very rough time at school. Red head girls seem to seem to become cool somewhere in their teenage years, red head boys seem to catch grief forever (maybe the ad meant red hair blokes=abstinance?).
V is one of those wake-you-up drinks, isn’t it?
The statement Who needs X when you have Y means that Y is more X-like than X itself, such as the classic: “with friends like these, who needs enemies.”
Thus :
** Who needs To smoke when you’ve got pollution. ** means that the air is so full of car fart that breathing air is worse than inhaling tobacco.
**Who needs stalkers when you’ve got telemarketers. ** means that telemarketers behave in a stalker-ish fasion, almost as much as stalkers themselves.
Who needs sugar when you’ve got Guarana. means that Guarana gives you more of a jolt of energy than sugar does.
Yeah, red haired girls are generally at least okay-looking, but are frequently smoking-hot. Meanwhile, red-haired guys … I just don’t see many of them who I would think of a handsome. That pale look just doesn’t work as well on men.
I remember being razzed about my red hair in school, but it never rose the the level of harrassment. I was never a ‘ginger’, I was a ‘carrottop’. One of the female surgery residents called me “FC” (for ‘fire crotch’) when I was a 27yo intern - I had never heard that term before then. Apparently she thought the pale look worked on me. 
There must be a different sort of political correctness at work in Britain, because I can’t imagine putting up that sentiment in an ad over here. You’re insulting a huge group of people for having a hair color? How asinine and insulting and classless is that? Someone would really jump on you for that here.
Really? I would’ve thought that image would just say, “Irish.” In fact, speaking as an American who’s rather puzzled by the flack red-haired people get in the UK, I somehow get the impression the “anti-ginger” blasts are just a thinly-disguised way to make derogatory comments about the Irish (or the Scots).
Prince Harry.
It’s a fundamental principle of advertising. Witness this exchange from Roger Dodger:
Roger: You can’t sell a product without first making people feel bad.
Nick: Why not?
Roger: Because it’s a substitution game. You have to remind them that they’re missing something from their lives. Everyone’s missing something, right?
Nick: I guess.
Roger: Trust me. And when they’re feeling sufficiently incomplete, you convince them your product is the only thing that can fill the void. So instead of taking steps to deal with their lives, instead of working to root out the real reason for their misery, they go out and buy a stupid looking pair of cargo pants.
Stranger
This seems to be a good place to ask about the phrase “Pikey”. I was watching an old Top Gear episode, and this exhange occured:
“Don’t hit it with a hammer.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the tool of a pikey.”
I thought this was a psuedo-racist term that would get bleeped even in Britain. No?
I’m not arguing, I genuinely don’t get how this relates to my point about being a jackass to insult people’s hair color.
Didn’t you see the link I posted back in about… Post #10?
“V” is an energy drink, full of sugar, Guarana, and all sorts of other stuff that allegedly comes from the depths of an Amazonian Rainforest or something. It’s a lot like Red Bull, but easier to drink, and doesn’t have the “Ravers/Clubbers tripping on pills” associated that Red Bull seems to have.
I drink a can of V every morning, in lieu of coffee. And the ad makes sense to me.
(Gen X, in case you’re interested)
Are you sure it wasn’t “the tool of a piker?” It would make a lot more sense in context; ie; the universal tool of someone who is too cheap to possess appropriate tools.
Yeah, that is exactly it.
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You don’t need to feel guilty on your own because charity collectors will make you feel guilty enough.
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Atkins is worse for you than high cholesterol.
Also, I really think the red hair one is meant as a positive instead of a negative. “Who needs abstinence when you’ve got red hair” is based on the common perception that red heads are sexy and wild. The implication is who needs to abstain when you can party and have hot sex. This makes a lot more sense in the context of a trendy ad.
I just found it again, and if that’s “piker”, then I have no idea how the English understand each other. There wasn’t even the awwww sound that they seem to make when they mean the letter “R”. Nope, I watched it a third time now, and it’s “pikey” or some such.
No, all the other comparisons (that this American can understand) are of the format, “Who needs A, when you already have B, which provides essentially the same thing?” For example, I don’t need a physical exam, because I’ve already been felt up every which way by airport security. I don’t need to smoke, I already get enough lung irritation from the ambient air pollution.
It then follows that it means, “I don’t need to practice abstinence, because I’m ginger, which means I already don’t get any sex.”
Who needs sleep when you’ve got the SDMB?