Creepy paedo gameshow host (thanks, J):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM2n4DPuDX0
Unintentionally sexual church signs (thanks, J & L).
Why capitalism is fucked (thanks, H).
Let’s go snowboarding (thanks, H):
Art of the Title: Emmy winner, Game of Thrones.
Best exit from a reality show, ever (thanks, J):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEuJ3dLLYco
Samuel L. Ipsum (thanks, J).
The bears are kind of fun, but the old Heineken Refreshes The Parts… idea is somewhat tenuous to say the least.
And what kind of parent lets their kid eat a bowl of cereal in her room? It’s obviously up some stairs so she’s bound to spill something on the way. And then she’s got to bring the stuff back down, and the crumbs…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YpOw8o34BM
As a YouTube commenter says: weetabix filling cereal with crack cocaine since 2011.
UPDATE: my five-year-old said, ‘Cool, dancing bears’, but declined the opportunity to watch it a second time. My nearly-two-year-old said, ‘Again!’, but to be honest she says that about anything, even Hitler documentaries on the History Channel.
Here’s an anti-drinking thing by someone.
Very good.
Art of the Title: Taxi Driver.
We haven’t checked an Epic Meal Time in a while, so…
As Owen Paul might have said, Fail compilations are my favourite waste of time (thanks, S):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71vI5hvG-xQ
Utterly amazing pencil sketches (thanks, K).
This has been sent to me by several people, but thanks, D&C.
Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porno (SFW. Thanks, A):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MakIB_IJnu0
Best promo I’ve seen in a while (thanks, O):
Best text message conversation ever (thanks, K).
George Osborne at the vinegar strokes (thanks ALS).
If only there was a machine that could help you draw a picture of a German politician on a window (thanks, P).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzowzUsq6iY
And ‘I’m not a well-decorated sea captain who battles large monsters on a nautical vessel, but thanks to Old Spice I smell like I am.’ ?
Why would you want to smell like that?
(Thanks, G.)
And to mark the occasion here’s a post/column he wrote that is better than 99.9% of mine.**
*Actually, I’ve changed my mind. It can stay.
**I think I’ve written at least one post better than this one but I can’t remember when.
Occasionally I hear the complaint that advertising has ruined one song or another for its listener. The whine usually goes that some poor sod will now forever associate Let It Be with Persil Automatic or Rhythm is a Dancer with Pampers when they should have remained forever pure as a a context-free arrangement of musical notes.
Well, nothing exists in a vacuum so here is a random list of absolutely brilliant things I only found out about through advertising:
That Leftfield track off Surfer. It’s about 10% as good without the horses.
I Heard It Through The Grapevine.
In fact, a whole load of fifties and sixties soul through Levis.
Crosstown Traffic (I don’t have a copy of the relevant Wrangler ad. If Mr. Denton is reading this, perhaps he can send it over.)
What has advertising done for you?
I very rarely watch TV.
It’s hardly ever as good as a DVD movie, and if it is I can either watch it on iPlayer/4OD etc. or wait for the box set.
This also means I don’t watch many TV ads in their natural habitat.
Yesterday I started watching the thing about Fred West on ITV. I managed about half an hour before switching a movie on instead, but during that half hour I sat through a few ad breaks and it really struck me how bloody awful the writing was.
It’s not so much the homogeneity or the lack of real persuasion that got me; it was more the meaninglessness of what it was trying to tell me.
For example, a car ad said something like, ‘Who would have thought something so spacious could be such a great drive?’. Now, what does that mean? Is it really that spacious? Is the drive really great? Compared to what? In reality the ad says nothing more than ‘We want you to think this car is spacious and is good to drive.’ Well, thanks for that. No chance of telling us that it’s the most spacious car in its class, I suppose?
Earlier in the day I had been at Marks and Spencer. On the wall was a perfect example of meaningless vs meaningful writing. The first sentence said, ‘Animal Welfare? There’s nothing woolly about our commitment to it.’ Underneath that it said, ‘Environment? We show our commitment by supporting sustainable fishing.’
Sentence one is a great instance of a tortuous, meaningless and unnecessary pun creating a strangely ironic sentence. Did they really use the word ‘woolly’ because sheep produce wool and sheep are animals? Wow. Puntastic. Unfortunately they have been entirely woolly with their assertion. What is woolly about M&S’s commitment to animal welfare is that they specify nothing about it. They just make a vague (woolly) claim of such behaviour, and all for that stunning bit of wordplay.
Sentence two, on the other hand, eschews the pun for the straightforward piece of information. It isn’t very detailed, but at least I know that in some way they support sustainable fishing. I could now find out more about this and see how well it chimes with my own commitment to such practices. Great. And I don’t even feel shortchanged by the lack of ‘Carping on’, ‘We know our plaice’ or ‘Fintastic’.
I suppose we’re now so used to these attempts to make companies sound like they are saying a lot while they say absolutely nothing that we just let them wash over us.
Do they result in more affection or sales?
It’d be a depressing world if they did.
Chuck Norris on the couch with Frank Zappa (thanks, T):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvfO_284lSQ
Lady Gaga for Thierry Mugler (thanks, J):
How to hide booze in your Facebook pics (thanks, J).
Trailer for Scorsese’s documentary about the best Beatle (thanks, P):
Beautiful liquid type in motion (thanks, P).
Quiet, innit?
I don’t know about you, but to me, 2011 seems to be shaping up to be year number five in the UK advertising slack streak.
But what seemed worrying a couple of years ago has now become the status quo. It’s been five years since the Gorilla put away his drumsticks. Yes, there have been a few very good ads, but nothing truly great.
And I worry that that means the spinning of the vicious circle continues: crap ads get made, the standard falls, the best ads of the year are less good, clients and creatives are less inspired, crap ads get made…
So there is absolutely no reason to stop it and anyone who tries will be a lone voice in the wilderness.
It feels a little like we’re looking out of the window at a grey rainbow and no one seems to think its unusual.
That sounds quite sad.
Any ideas how to improve things?
Failing that, what’s your favourite ad since Gorilla?
