And watch jamie Foxx being really fucking mean, but in a way that you sneakily enjoy:

Not much, but it’s in the comments section.

The new Cadbury’s ad.

Yes, it’s here: the Mr Plinkett review of Attack of the Clones.

‘Star Wars Episode Two, Attack of the Clones is the worst thing ever made by a human’

There is an hour an a half of this genius (thanks, K) and it includes the usual women tied up in basements and pizza rolls.

I can’t remember what this is (I saved the embed code a few days ago) so I hope it’s good:

If you haven’t checked this out, please do.

And, amazingly, there’s a worse pun out there than the ‘hooked‘ one from a couple of days ago. Shame it had to ruin an otherwise quite excellent ad:

So, the sequel to last year’s Carousel ad is here.

For those of you who have not heard about it, this year Phillips have created five short films all using the same few lines of dialogue.

I think you have to admire the ambition, craft and scope of the films/ads/promos (all are shot by a different RSA director).

But there are some difficulties:

1. I think the tricky thing in doing this is that the quality of each one becomes starkly relative to the others. By that I mean that the best ones can make the less good ones look worse by comparison. I loved two, liked one and wasn’t that bothered by the others.

2. None is a good as Carousel. Not by a long chalk. That means that one ad last year has not been bettered by five this year.

3. Do we have to look at the bloody TV all the way through the clips? Carousel seemed to work fine without it.

4. This whole thing was done better almost a decade ago by BMW.

However, I’d certainly be very proud if I were part of the team that could convince a massive client like Phillips to create work like this.

These two are my favourites (click through them to find the rest on YouTube):

If I was Scamp I would now write something along the lines of, ‘What do you think of them?’

But I’m not, so I won’t.

But do feel free to comment. It feels ripe for an opinion or two.

Hot on the heels of my literary opus (or airport fiction) and Scamp’s guide to making it as a creative, we now have the debut novel of one D. Abbott, latterly of Marylebone Road, NW1.

Here’s a review on Amazon from Hamish Pringle that might whet your appetite (thanks for the tip, D.):

David Abbott’s first novel took me just three sittings, which gives an idea of its readability. Beautifully worked, as might be expected from one of the world’s greatest copywriters, with many memorable turns of phrase of which just three here: “The terrace, as is the way of these things, had its own Siberia and Golden Mile.”; “It was 6.00pm. In the bar at Delray Beach they would just be kicking off their Happy Hour. She poured vodka into a kitchen tumbler, pleased to know that she was not drinking alone.” and “Henry had come to her bedroom like a visitor to a museum, expecting to look, but hesitant to touch.” Overall a thought-provoking book which will bear re-reading and leaves one hoping for a sequel.

Another (anonymous) reader called it ‘really dark’. But will it be as dark as ‘This doggy bag contains a dead doggy’?

Anyway, I think David’s will be the most literary, Scamp’s will be the most useful and mine will be the one with the most scenes involving the consumption of a leg by a giant cockroach.

Here’s a cracker for those of you who are about my age or older:

I found myself singing all the words to it as I cycled to work this morning.

It’s 28 years old.

And it’s an ad.

Crikey.

I must confess though, I thought (for obvious reasons) that it was for oven chips.

But I still remember how my brother and I used to say ‘fried onion rings’ to each other in the slightly ethnic voice that they gave the token black character. But then it was around the time of Mind Your Language:

And Chalky:

Oh dear…

Maybe this post has gone a bit negative after all.

I quite like that fact about the fish that have never been frozen. Makes me think that shitty old Morrison’s does something good.

But they couldn’t stop there.

Oh no.

Apparently, ‘You’ll be hooked!‘, written in curly fucking writing with a a fucking exclamation mark.

Why?

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

I know that people ‘hook’ fish when they catch them, but become ‘hooked’ on these well-prepared, unfrozen fish?

It’s tortuous.

(By the way, that ad runs just near the market in Camden, so I have a feeling that the number of people seeing the poster who are already ‘hooked’ on something other than fish could be quite high, making the poster unintentionally funny.)

But I don’t like this:

I don’t like the leads.
The dance is sad.
The music is shit.
I don’t buy their connection (too quick).
What sort of retard ties their shoes to someone else’s?
They’re a pair of pricks who ruin a shoe shop with their selfish, self-indulgent ways.
It just rubs me up the wrong way.
I was very nearly sick.

…But I think Danny texted this one in.

Odd also that comments have been disabled on YouTube.

But never fear, comments are allowed on this blog:

This campaign is as tired as a short-sighted rabbit who mistook a huge pile of Viagra for his morning lettuce.

It was once great.

It is now coughing up blood.

Over the course of what I might laughably refer to as my career, I have come to many conclusions about what I do and don’t like in the industry we call ‘ad’.

I thought it might be interesting to see how they all ‘net out’, as cunts say.

So here I present to you my agency:

First thing’s first: it’s called Pavement. I once read a study that said ‘pavement’ was the most pleasant word to say in the English language. That’s enough for me. I don’t want names above the door and I don’t want any meaning at all to be conveyed by the chosen title. If it all works out everyone will think it’s brilliant; if not, they’ll think it’s shit. As Jeremy Bullmore once said, things imbue names with meaning, not the other way round.

Next, the company philosophy. ‘Philosophy’ is a word dripping with wank, so it’s just here to indicate that I think everyone in the agency needs to know what we’re all about. It helps to provide an answer every time someone asks the question, ‘Should we be doing this?’. So here goes: happiness before money. Of course, money can increase happiness, but chasing it at the expense of people’s contentment seems fucking stupid to me. Would you like to work for a giant corporation full of wrist-slitting pill-munchers or a small place where joy exudes from every pore?

Now we need an M.O. that will help us decide what clients to get and how we work with them: Pavement will only do advertising for non-cunts who value happiness over money. This, I hope, will lead to a self selecting process where the companies in question produce decent things which don’t fuck people over and do not fuck over their own employees for the sake of a shekel.

Other corporate policies will flow from the central philosophy:

1. No placements. Why the fuck should we exploit the high supply/low demand model just to save a few quid? Juniors in all departments come in with a proper job from day one. If we fucked up and chose the wrong one (which can happen at any level), then we bite the bullet and see, on a case-by-case basis, how a conclusion can be reached.

2. Good bogs that you can’t hear the next-door bog from. Good Lord, why, in this day and age do we have to listen each other defecating? We don’t. I know plenty of agencies that get it right. Hats off to them.

3. If you need help, help will be provided. People should use their initiative but they shouldn’t just be left to drift. The good ones improve the young ones; it’s part of the job.

4. No Campaign. You can select any weekly magazine you like, but not that one. It’s a huge waste of money.

5. The CD’s decision on work is final. He/she will listen to other opinions, but there is to be no three hour whinging period for the people who didn’t get their way to attempt to do so just by being a whiny prick. The CD is employed for his or her creative judgement. What’s the point in failing to use it?

6. Creatives have offices. This is fucking obvious. Anyone who can give creatives offices (I appreciate it’s not possible everywhere) but doesn’t is a giant cock.

7. One afternoon off during the working week to compulsorily sponge. Off you go. A tenner each, every employee, every dept, have fun.

8. The office shuts at 6. You can work afterwards if you really want to, but that’s up to you. No one wants to stop you working hard but Pavement does not want you to feel compelled to endure a life of pointless presenteeism.

9. No pitching unless a pitch budget is agreed in advance and not surpassed. Pitching is a shite process and a giant fucking waste of money for most of the people involved. However, the pitch will be organised properly so that the people involved are not Mac-ing stuff up at 3am the morning before. I fully believe this is possible. Indecisive twattery stops it being so.

10. Office in Hampstead or Primrose Hill. Regular walks in grassy areas encouraged.

UPDATE: actually, everyone should have an office, then you wouldn’t have that strange and annoying phenomenon of people wandering around communal areas trying to make personal phone calls on their mobiles then scampering off when you arrive to get a Coke out of the machine.