The Future, Mr Gittes.
Every year William Hill elbows its way onto page three of The Sun with its annual list of strange bets. For example, it might give odds of 500-1 on Alex Ferguson marrying Cheryl Cole, or 30-1 on Florence and the Machine winning the Eurovision Song Contest.
Well, this year they’ve extended its remit to the world of advertising*:
Evens: Hiring freeze at all agencies not currently in the midst of a hiring freeze.
3-1 Hovis best ad at BTAAs.
2-1: People whinge about Hovis getting best ad at BTAAs.
8-1 New Cadbury’s ad feted as saviour of industry despite trying to portray an evening on Amyl Nitrate as a ‘glass and a half of joy’.
10-1 Creatives marginalised to the point of being asked to clean the agency loos with their tongues.
11-10: uses of the phrase ‘client mandate’ to top 100000 by February.
6-1 ‘Dear Jeremy’ letters are exclusively about avoiding home repossessions.
50-1: New Carling execution features one of the happy-go-lucky chaps going down for sexual assault of a minor. His mates’ decision to stick with him rings somewhat hollow this time.
20-1: ‘Left by mutual consent without a job to go to’ becomes the most popular euphemism for ‘sacked’.
80-1: UK finally produces groundbreaking piece of digital advertising.
3-1: YouTube is the point of origin for the best ad of the year.
150-1: Skoda and Fallon misjudge the mood of the nation by making a car out of aborted foetuses as an allegory for all the substandard models that didn’t happen.
75-1: Credit Crunch leads several agency arse-lickers to try to steer Noel Bussey towards the set lunch menu.
150-1: Noel takes the hint.
8-1: The general lack of cash is mentioned all the bloody time but the actual situation ends up not being anywhere near as bad as anyone expected, but then China starts WW3 over the number of used nappies we’ve been accidentally sending them for recycling and we all end the year hiding from a nuclear winter down the Bakerloo Line.
*Not true.