Growing up I always learned it was cool to be different - just not too different.

When it came to media, and especially television, it just wasn’t cool to have an accent. Most sitcoms depicted the “foreigner” as slightly bizarre (for anyone that remembers Latka from “Taxi”) or innocently naive (Fez from “That 70s Show” is a good enough example). But despite their shortcomings and head-shaking foolishness they always offer up one common element- humour.

Here’s a short list in no particular order of ads that include people or characters with accents:

1. ING Direct. The duke of banking “Frederick” urges you to ’save your money’. If you are anything like me it took you quite awhile to figure out he was Dutch.
2. Alexander Keith’s. Since the charges of child pornography reigned down on their man the beer maker’s have changed their style just a bit. Now people must get permission from a statue that still has some sort of accent.
3. Extra gum. The Scottish piece of gum that comes to life - and is pissed off when he does.
   
4. Kia. Loaded with yahoo’s!, this Australian mascot was able to make even the non-conforming Goths enjoy an adventure through the Outback.
5. Every tropical beer and liquor imaginable. Brava, Marca Bavaria, and Malibu to name a few. Cheersh! (I know Grolsch is Dutch, but come on, who doesn’t love that guy?)
6. Boston Pizza. Ok, I cheated a bit here but I felt justice must be served. I’ll bite my tongue a bit and conclude that Boston Pizza simply got lazy and figured they would give this character a chance - a sort of low risk high reward strategy. “Louie the manbearpig” as I like to refer to him as, is Boston Pizza’s new promotional character. A marketing executive must have caught the 1980s family comedy ‘Meet the Henderson’s’ over the weekend and got the idea. I guess they figured Louie wouldn’t have a problem shaking customer’s hands - sorry Howie.

Most of the products listed, with the exception of ING Direct primarily target Generation Y (a case could also be made for Kia). So what explains this recent surge in accent-related marketing? Is there an increase in humour-directed marketing?

My guess is that it is a fad that was made quite popular by Alexander Keith’s and their child-loving, label-peeling nazi mascot.

Another guess is that the use of accents in humour-related advertising is more of a North American phenomenon. Now I have absolutely no basis for this assumption, but is a Canadian speaking an Indian dialect half as funny as an Indian speaking English is?

The real reason probably lies with the most basic advertising problem - noise. There are so many brands, so many commercials, and so many ways to access information nowadays. So, how do we get our message out to the consumers?

Well, for Generation Y in particular, it has to be funny or have some sort of sex appeal, and preferably both. But hey, why don’t we just make up a character, give it an accent and we can all have a laugh? The problem is now it is not unique. And when something isn’t unique anymore it isn’t different. And when it isn’t different it just isn’t cool.