Who says

A page given over to occasional gems from the advertising industry. If the premise is that advertising should distract an audience’s attention from perceived a product’s shortcomings and not draw its attention to them, any advertisement that starts with the rhetorical, “who said that...” is getting things profoundly wrong.

The classic case, the JC recalls from the Stilton Marketing Board poster in the tube a few years ago, was along these lines:

“Who said port and stilton was just for old men?”

To which the only answer is a resounding, “YOU JUST DID, YOU IDIOT.”

For our purposes, the world divides into three classes of people:

1. Non-customers, and who believe it to be only for crusty old men.
2. Non-customers, and who do not believe it to be only for crusty old men.
3. Existing customers, whoever they think it is for or how crusty they consider themselves to be.

Consider the effect this advertisement will have on those three classes:

To win over non-customers who already believe it is only for crusty old buggers, you will need something more imaginative than to say, “you’re wrong, you know.”

To win over people who do not believe that — and there must be some — the last thing you want to do is admit that this is, in fact the general consensus, even through you believe it to be mistaken.

and lastly, what is it going to do to that valuable core constituency: people who do like port and stilton, and who are crusty old men, and perhaps are somewhat regretful about that, or in denial about it, but wishful in any case that they were not. They will think: I had better not drink port or eat stilton any more, because people will think I am a crusty old bugger if I do that.