This is actually an ad for alcohol!

Most of us think this is an ad for cricket, but one Stuff Nation contributor think it is an ad for alcohol:

Long before any interpretation of the poster promoting cricket, I saw alcohol bottles.

And then I read the slogan: “It all starts here”.

I asked my Facebook friends what they saw, and one said “I saw alcohol bottles”.

Another friend asked a room full of adults. They all thought it was an alcohol campaign.

Does it all start here for the alcohol industry? With primary school kids of five to 11 years of age?

I was disturbed by the poster intended for my eight year old because the message I received was that our national sports team and his sporting heroes, the Black Caps, were associated with alcohol.

The wood-grain of the bats, the elegantly wrapped handles, the striking composition, the colours as well as the lighting all gave off an impressive and sophisticated look. 

The reasonable placement for such a poster would have been on his bedroom wall where he would pass it each night before he went to sleep and each morning when he woke up. No battery, electricity or charger required.

Are the Black Caps a vehicle to circumvent the Law Commission’s regulations regarding alcohol marketing to children? 

Wasn’t the alcohol industry cunning. In 1550 they persuaded the gentleman of England to make their cricket bats look sublimally like bottles of alcohol, so that 500 years later eight years old would put posters of cricket teams over their beds, and have alcohol normalised to them.