Here’s the new Comcast ad, directed by Smith and Foulkes:

There are others along the same lines, but seen one, pretty much seen them all. That’s not to say they’re crap; I actually rather like them. I think they’d stand out in ad breaks and temporal lobes and they’ve got some lovely little touches (although they remind me of the excellent Nationwide Ads that MIke Stephenson shot for Leagas Delaney about ten years ago. I can’t find them on YT, but they had little songs about customers set to live action stop-frame animation).

I guess they’ll appeal most to the kind of people who lapped up Juno last year. The music is all along its appealingly amateurish lines, epitomised by the lovely work of Kimya Dawson:

Also, it gives me an excuse to put up the other excellent recent Comcast ads (sorry about the shitty music and intro at the beginning).

There are lots of guides of this kind on YT, but here’s a charming one (thanks, A):

These all got a good laugh on Monday night:

I was having a chat with a couple of creatives this afternoon.

One said that ads might soon get very interesting because of the oncoming recession. It’s been said a few times, but the lack of budgets might force us all to think more laterally to make the most of the limited resources we have.

The other said that the rise of new media, as evidenced in this week’s news that the heart is being ripped out of commercial TV, will be the real catalyst for a positive change in the way companies communicate with the public.

I said that they were both wrong: it would be the tipping point of value-added communication that would have the most ameliorating effect. We will no longer be able to chuck stuff out there without it being inherently interesting, or it will be mercilessly ignored.

Then a thought occurred: perhaps it will be a perfect-storm confluence of all of the above.

Perhaps we are about to enter the greatest era of advertising the world has ever known.

There will be a gigantic collision of communication and entertainment that will make Playstation Mountain look like Cilit Bang. We will simply not be allowed to do anything substandard because it will be like waving a flag in space. Russell Davies’s prediction that adspend will be 100% production and 0% media will come gloriously true. The agencies that think they can get along with anonymous dross will go under in the time it takes a beam of light to pass across an atom. Our industry will no longer be a by-word for morally bankrupt hucksterism. Instead it will become a beacon for all that is good and warm and right – even the stuff that is depraved and caustic and foetid. For it shall all make us sit up, learn and be changed.

Interesting times are just ahead, but don’t forget to steer in their direction.

Like this does (thanks D2):

I intended to put up the other ad from Monday night that really impressed me, but it seems to have been removed or ringfenced from all the usual interweb sources, such as this one. No idea why. Maybe it’s not supposed to be exposed yet, but then I found some people discussing it, so it can’t be that. Oh, hang on…it might have something to do with the prominent inclusion of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, who are a pair of naughty little boys.

Good luck finding it. It was one of several really good ads from RKCR/Y&R. These also won Gold:

(And while looking for the above, I found a great blog called twoifbysee. Coincidentally, it also had the Gold-winning Museum of Childhood ads.)

So, on with the frivolous shite:

Most of you (40%) got the right answer to last week’s poll/question. The ablative singular of puella is puella. The 60% of you who got it wrong have either too much confidence but too little ability in Latin, you haven’t heard of Google, or you simply didn’t give the matter the time and attention it deserved.

There’s now a new question that is just as inconsequential, and you can’t look it up on Google.

And if you’d like to waste a bit more time and irritate those who work near you, try this. (Thanks, D.)

Finally, I just saw this on TV:

It made me laugh hysterically. I am a very bad person.

But in my defence, it is very 1970’s and seems to go about its business in a pretty clodhopping fashion, failing to do a serious subject justice.

Full list of Golds here.

Last night was the Creative Circle awards.

It was a really good do, full of truly beautiful people and some quite excellent ads, especially when you consider that 2008 was supposed to have been a crap year for creativity.

The big winner on the night was the Wallace and Gromit Press/Poster campaign for Harvey Nichols (6 Golds and the Platinum award – when did that last go to a 2-D campaign?):

That should see it also succeed at D&AD…except, I’m a little concerned. When St Wayne failed to win at D&AD, I pointed out that we’d be unlikely to award a poster of Alex Hleb painted in the Belarussian flag, so why should we expect the foreign members of the D&AD jury to award the English equivalent? Will the same happen with W&G? One hopes not, but imagine an ad for the new Goan Branch of India’s best department store, featuring Suki…

…in Alexander McQueen. Worth a pencil? If it’s as well art-directed as Wallace and Gromit, why not? But I think we all know it wouldn’t stand a chance.

The other big winner was Dave Trott, who entered the Hall of Heroes. They played a selection of his and his agency’s greatest work and it all looked like it could run and win awards today, despite some of it being nearly 30 years old. Dave writes such a good blog that you sometimes forget what an amazing ad-man he is. This was a fine reminder:

There were also some brilliant ads that I hadn’t seen on the big screen before, most of them done for TV channels:

And this one (embedding disabled by request. Thanks, Channel 4).

A lovely bit of writing from Joe and Sam at Fallon:

But this one (Gold for special effects) was my favourite:

Overall, another excellent night overseen by Mr M. Denton Esq. and the brilliant team at Creative Circle. Mark won two Golds himself, by the way, and a greater testament to bribery and corruption you could not hope to witness (just kidding).

Thanks to all involved, now it’s over to Trevor Beattie for next year.

UPDATE: I can’t remember them all, but Hovis was best TV/Cinema, Barnados best Charity and Editing, Dothetest was best Viral, the Carlsberg announcement and Honda Live ad were best Ambient, Museum of Childhood got best illustration and art direction, Creative Circle Call for Entries also got best Art Direction and an illustration from the CC annual got best illustration, that Kubrick ad was best Production Design, HSBC Lumberjack was best Direction, VW everyday was best Sound Design. That’s all I can recall. If anyone remembers any others before they put the full list up, add them in the comments. x

About ten years ago I had a chat with a copywriter who is now an ECD. As we drained our pints, he made the heretical assertion that Mary Wear was a better writer than David Abbott. His argument went that Mary created a completely different voice for each of her clients, while David tended to write in his own voice for whichever client was blessed with his copy.

I don’t think I need to point out that both were/are extremely good and successful at what they did/do, so either way could work well. But that’s just on the level of single creatives; what about agencies and the wisdom of having a house style?

Even if most shops would suggest that they find an individual tone for each of their clients, that may only be true within the parameters of a consistent approach that is broad enough to accommodate different voices.

For example:
DDB generally coveys its communications with a slightly irreverent intelligence, and has done so brilliantly for decades.
BBH has always existed on the ‘cooler’ and more visual side of things (Sir John is a famous believer in the minimalism of copy, although the recent Barnados print ads have provided an admirable exception)
Delaney Lund has had a reputation for marrying their clients to a musical solution.
There’s something about WCRS that seems very likeable, almost persuading you without you realising.
Mother: for years, nothing but funny. Now: funny with an occasional bit of ‘cool’.
Wiedens don’t seem to take anything on unless they can do it ‘well’. The definition of ‘well’ is is obviously subjective, but they never just chuck things out.

Etc.

I’m sure you can find common threads in many of the agencies, and that’s understandable: after all, clients come to agencies because they want their kind of work. If you want Mother, you don’t go to Publicis, and vice versa. Generally, the same group of people will be imposing their unique personalities on the work, so it’s unlikely they’ll be able to lurch from gently intellectual to bat-shit crazy without it seeming odd.

So there may have been a very good reason why David’s voice didn’t change hugely from client to client: many of those clients existed within a middle class, deeply British, fabric-of-society area that could take a similarity of approach. And it’s pretty difficult to argue that Sainsbury’s, BT, RSPCA and Yellow Pages were harmed by that similarity. If anything, it may have provided a benefit, as each brand bolstered the others as the kind of companies you could like and trust.

So, your style or theirs? Looks like ‘yours, but within it, theirs’ works pretty well.