This ad really got under my skin and not in a good way. The reason is the way that it illustrates and in a sense sanctions or renders unproblematical the notion that happiness may be a zero-sum game: my happiness is increased or bought at the expense of your envy or unhappiness. I think this may be insidious because it legitimises a view of the world where we see happiness or, rather, the things that may contribute to happiness as in short supply and so if we are happy then that means somewhere else someone else has not to be (there has been another seriess of tele ads about similar 'balances'). This could be a slippery slope to accepting gross injustice and inequality ("someone's got to be poor and unhappy, so why should it be me? Alternatively, why shouldn't it be me that's the lucky one: blow the other poor sod.") and it also seems to be relating strongly to the Yin-yang/Force view of the world: it's all about balance. And that latter is only a step away from cosmological dualism; good and evil are equal and opposite forces.
I could say more, but I won't just now as I'm due to help with a Storytelling project run by our church in a local school ...
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