Enjoy.

Read the article here.

Interesting theory that throws up a couple of interesting questions:

Does Sir John believe his own agency’s creative output has deteriorated in recent years?

If there’s been a problem with advertising getting to grips with new technology, how come truly great TV work was still being a produced a long way into the digital revolution? How come advertising has suffered most in the last five years and not the ten before that?

Why did the person who wrote the article think that BBH produced the Pregnant Man ad?

And ‘…one of the other problems I have today is people have retreated to the edges of advertising. You know, they’re happy to do some small little campaign somewhere or they’re doing something on the net that hardly anybody sees and they’re getting awards for it and everybody’s cheering. But they’re not changing the way people feel or think.’

Amen.

Peerless blogger The Ad Contrarian has begun a new venture.

If you’d like read about it you can click on either of the two links above.

I’ll just reprint one of his most salient points:

It wasn’t long ago that the agency business was the province of independent entrepreneurs. In the 1980’s Y&R was the largest agency in the U.S. with a 1 1/2% share of the US advertising market.

Today, four global holding companies control over 70% of the advertising in the U.S. We don’t believe this is a good or healthy thing.

Best of luck, Mr. Hoffman.

It’s another amusing Amazon review (thanks, J).

Brilliantly defaced textbooks (thanks, A).

Teddy has an operation (rather wonderful. Thanks, G):

Kaleidopope (thanks, V).

The Nicolas Cage matrix (thanks, G).

The creepiest things kids have ever said (thanks, someone I’ve forgotten).

Tonight, Leslie, I’m going to be Gary Glitter (thanks, J):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUtot09AnHI

How to play chess properly (thanks, G):

Please help me, Ja Rule (thanks, J).

Soderbergh on the state of cinema:

Stop frame atoms (thanks, M):

Film posters with the original titles of the books on which they were based (thanks, G).

And some hand-painted bootleg Ghanaian movie posters (thanks, G).

Following on from that VW commercial we have a new American ad for a massive brand that is ‘racist’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8-SaUrvQck

It’s just been pulled, apologies all round etc.

I have to say that although I see what the racism-accusers are saying, I find its offensiveness more obscure.

The problem is that it reinforces stereotypes (black criminals, white victim etc.), but I was too busy watching the strange and somewhat disturbing goat to notice all that.

Back in ‘the day’ (1996?) there was a poster campaign that depicted several fake ads where a white person was gaining some advantage over a black person (one for a recruitment company showed a white woman climbing over a black man to ascend a ladder). These were then revealed to be fake, along with an accusation that if you saw them and didn’t report the ‘racism’, you too were racist. Well, I didn’t see/report the racism because I didn’t see black and white people, I just saw people, and therefore saw no problem. Maybe that makes me a lazy observer of latent racism but I’m unconvinced.

So back to the goat ad: I just saw a situation and some people (and a goat). The skin colour didn’t occur to me as problematic because it didn’t occur to me at all. There are many depictions of black people as criminals. Many black people are convicted criminals. Many white people are convicted criminals. I suppose the racism-accusers would have been OK with a white line-up and a black victim. I just don’t think I’d have noticed either way.

But I’d love to hear what you think, dear reader.