OPINION: PERSPECTIVE - Why car advertisers prefer quantity over quality.

It is early on a Sunday morning. The radio is on full blast. The washing machine is roaring on a fast spin cycle. Two small boys are wrestling noisily on the floor. I am trying to have a conversation about what we are going to do today with my husband.

I am doing the most taboo thing that you can do as the editor of an advertising magazine. I am blatantly consuming ads with four other things going on, just like consumers do.

In spite of years spent talking to people who spend their lives second-guessing consumers and turning it into marketing plans, I rarely put myself so firmly in the shoes of a consumer when consuming ads Talking to advertising people kicked from pillar to post by 22-year-old brand managers who cannot even write effective briefs, I never dared. I always felt it was only right to give their efforts my full attention. It was the very least I could do.

Still, we all know that millions of other people will have experienced their Sunday magazine supplement in just the same way, with four other things going on. I have written 'Sunday magazine supplement', I have not identified the particular title I was leafing through, for all Sunday supplements are essentially the same. They are what Brian Braithwaite (the old doyen of NatMags) used to call the publishing equivalent of airline food - in both instances only consumed because it happens to be in front of you.

Travel ads all look the same. So do most technology/camera ads. But car ads in Sunday supplements are the very worst. The anonymity of these ads is so profound - in art direction and tone of voice - they might be Everyad.

They exist in a cheerless netherworld between Bose Wave radio ads, Stannah stairlifts and ...