For as long as I can recall I’ve always been perversely fascinated and entertained by professional miscommunication, especially in the field of advertising and promotion. Here, carefully crafted messages are likely to be viewed by many hundreds, if not thousands of people – all of whom would likely be the intended recipients of such sales messages. 

In my earlier youth – and well before social media became a ‘thing’ – I often used to think I should photograph such entertaining promotional misdemeanours but, as usual, other things – including procrastination – took priority.

In this respect I am firstly minded of a specific, large outdoor advertising hoarding (I believe they were known as ’48-sheets’ in reference to the number of separately printed posters pasted onto billboards by talented operatives wielding long-handled brushes; a bucket of paste and a set of ladders). Featured on many high streets, these often national advertising campaigns presented attention-grabbing exhortations to buy this or do that with our hard-earned dosh.

Lodged in my memory is one such hoarding which promoted the services of the then-land-line -telecommunications-giant, British Telecom, promising “the clearest calls”. However, the typeface chosen to impart this important sales pitch could unfortunately and amusingly be easily misread as “the dearest calls” thereby in one typographical swoop ruining a doubtless carefully researched sales pitch and proudly announcing to the nation that BT was the most expensive provider if you fancied phoning your Mum.

And imagine my astounded delight and incredulity, dear reader, when I became recently acquainted with the ice-cream packaging pictured above. Presumably designed by  professionals with experience in these things – and whose remit was surely to promote the delights of Carte D’or Chocolate ice-cream – the packaging instead seems to proudly promote the fact that their ice-cream thankfully contains 93% less plastic than it normally did. I mean, who, in their right mind, would want to suggest that their ice-cream was made of plastic, no matter how minimal a proportion?

In amidst the mirth of this deep-frozen entertainment, we may wonder as to how many professionals would have been party to this faux pas and which highly-remunerated executive would eventually have signed off the artwork and sent probably millions of these bizarrely badged tubs into production?

I’m guessing that “Indulgent Chocolate” with or without “cocoa from Ecuador” proved possibly to be one of Carte D’or’s worst sellers that year?