It’s common, here in Singapore, to see adverts about people, either vouching for the service they offer and looking straight at you or – for more senior people or more refined services – looking to the side and slightly up, a calm smile playing about their lips. Of course there are people in adverts in the UK, I realise how that sounds. It just seems more common to see this type of very personal, non-stock-photo representation of individuals who are offering you something, alongside the sorts of presentation of people in adverts that are more usual in the UK. Real-estate agents and shop managers look at you, along with life coaches and people enjoying government services. Religious leaders, esteemed politicians and community leaders, people undertaking their National Service or joining the police, successful entrepreneurs, unsung community heroes and singer-songwriters all look to the side and up. It’s the vision thing, some kind of indication that they are focussed on something un-noticed or unobtainable to the vast bulk of us. You know the sort of thing.

Anyway, I was wondering what they were all looking at. Maybe there’s a way of placing the ads into Google Earth or similar and using eye-tracking software to work out what it is each of them is staring at. Then you could put something worth looking at there, a giant dragonfly on the side of a building or a huge trilby or just another poster of someone looking back at them. It would be great to discover that they were all looking at the same thing.