AM I alone in being often bewildered by what seem to be bizarre ads on the telly?

Long ago, before I switched to journalism, I started my late teens career as a trainee with what was one of London's top swanky advertising agencies.

We studied "motivation". What made people buy a product against its rivals on the market? Was it the colour of the packaging and some slogans and images to persuade you to opt for a particular brand? Washing powder was a regular example.

We thought we were the trendy best with ideas to promote some of our clients such as Esso and Ideal Standard. 

"Put a tiger in your tank" had been one of the best - and successful - slogans with graphics of at first a real pouncing fierce looking tiger but that was altered to a comic cartoon on instructions from on high.

It was felt that a real tiger photo looked too aggressive and might persuade drivers to think they could go faster and be OK.  And so the comic sort of tiger was used in the promotion and tiger tails were produced and distributed everywhere. People tied them to the rear of their car or motor scooter.  It was a craze.

One of the funniest effective ads was for Smash, the potato powder, with little metal aliens laughing about us humans peeling potatoes.

In those days in the 1960s most ads also showed the product and gave you information about it. There was a tube of toothpaste and then a smiling man or woman just about to brush their gnashers. Simple and clear as that.

That doesn't happen much now.

Consider some of the other recent ads for oddness, I think.  There's an elderly smart looking lady in her lounge thinking about furniture but then in walks a handsome young man she has employed and says is called Carlo, stripped to the waist, and serving her some tea.

Then there's an ad showing a big Range Rover pictured alongside a small ornamental pond. Nothing happens for about 20 seconds and then a ball splashes into the pond followed by a leaping dog splashing down to retrieve the ball. Does it give you the urge to go out and consider buying an expensive Range Rover?

What about a man at the rostrum in a lecture theatre and he says a lot of the world's troubles are caused by not enough people eating the usual straw-like Weetabix.  Does it persuade you to go out and buy some and cure some of your problems and worries? 

Until recently there was an ad for Lucozade, I think, and it showed a couple in their lounge who suddenly got a deluge through their ceiling.  Then a photo of Lucozade. Would a bottle of the drink help stop their cascade?

One of the latest odd ads shows Ross Kemp, who lives in Cookham, crawling along a ditch in aid of having a new smart meter.

I would simply like to know if these ads are really effective and the products are being snapped up.

These were some good ads:  Fairy Liquid, the Oxo mum Linda Bellingham, Fly Fishing by JR Hartley for Yellow Pages, John Lewis fantasies at Christmas, Campari, Nescafe Gold Blend, Martini,  British Airways, Shake and Vac, Tango and Carling Black Label.

And so on a funnier note I end and recall a basic local poster advertising a fete near Aylesbury. It included a bold statement that there would be a fly-past by the Red Arrows or an old memorial flight Lancaster bomber at 3pm on Saturday. 

Someone had then scrawled across it: "If wet -  in village hall!"