Stop me if you've heard this one before. A bored young man answers his telephone and his face lights up. "Diving?!" he says. "I'll be there." In the next scene we see his friends on a pier, happily putting on scuba gear. Then, from the end of another pier, the young man comes running, with only a snorkel.

It's a TV commercial, not a joke, but obviously the protagonist is meant to look like one. In another spot, he's invited to go "cycling," and while his friends all ride big shiny motorcycles, he arrives on a puny mamachari (mama's bicycle).

These two commercials are for Aiful, a consumer-credit company. The young man is both the butt of the ads' supposed humor and representative of their target. It's a strange combination, but if you find it patronizing or ethically objectionable, then it simply means you don't belong to the demographic it's aimed at.