afternoon all,
i must be really bored or sad lately, as i find the "ads" on telly more interesting than the programs.....all of which i seem to have already seen!.
however, when the car ads come on, i have found that most of the cars that show a number plate have the number 8 in the reg somewhere, no matter who the makers are....is there a reason for this??
my list of numbers in plates to date is
toyota avensis...808
mg/rover ad....888 (on the 75)
suzuki grand vitara ad.....831
jaguar s-type.....118
ford fiesta (pinball ad)....801
chrysler crossfire........825
and to finish it off.... part of the telephone number on the ford thunderbird ad.....111888!!!!
d`oh i think i must be ill or something!!!
billy.
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Time to get out more me thinks....:-)
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I was about to agree with you billy until I saw how much detail you went into!
I've noticed that they're all along the lines off 888 VVV or something but that's it!
Adam
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It's probably for aesthetic reasons, similar to clock and watch companies' advertisements nearly always having their products displaying the time at ten minutes to two.
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You might find its because when the tv ad is shown in another coutry who drive on the other side of the road to us, the manufactures like to have the steering wheel on the correct side.
They do this by flipping the film & they need a number plate that reads both ways to do this.
Its so they can use the same ad in lots of different countries & save money, Its also a pity they cant get the lip sync right on some of these ads.
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They should drive on the proper side of the road like wot we do...:-)
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I asked my Greek brother in law what side of the road they drive on over there and he replied, "In the shade"
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If it was over here, (NZ) I'd say it was to appeal to the Chinese market, as 8 is a lucky number as it apparently looks like the pictogram for fat/wealthy/happy. Lots of personalised plates bought by our more recent arrivals from China feature this theme.
On the other hand 4 looks like the character for death, so is very unlucky. It's not unknown for hotels here not to have a fourth floor, or rather for it to be marked as the fifth. We must remember that NZ is now part of Asia... /Basil Fawlty: Mumble mumble, sorry, nothing dear.../
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Very slightly off topic, but I think I remember a Toyota advert during yesterday\'s Grand Prix (you know what an ITV Grand Prix is..it\'s adverts with the odd bit of a car race shown from time to time).
Anyway I don\'t recall any no. 8 in it but I do recall the letters NBG. Might have been NBG 215.
When I was a lot younger and worked in a drawing office the standard term NBG was used for No ****** Good.
Not quite what Toyota intended.
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On the other hand 4 looks like the character for death, so is very unlucky. It's not unknown for hotels here not to have a fourth floor, or rather for it to be marked as the fifth.
In a similar vein, on a business trip to Toronto a year or so ago, I found myself in row 14 on the plane, and on floor 14 in the Hotel. In both cases there was no 13, they'd missed it out.
Now, I'm not generally a superstitious person, but to my mind what they'd actually done was made a particular point of the fact that I WAS sitting in the 13th row and sleeping on the 13th floor. If they'd just been numbered 13 I wouldn't have even noticed.
If God really doesn't like things associated with 13, I don't think, in his ineffable wisdom, he's going to be fooled by someone missing out a number!
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If God really doesn't like things associated with 13, I don't think, in his ineffable wisdom, he's going to be fooled by someone missing out a number!
Ahh, but does he count the ground floor as "0th" or "1st"? ;-)
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