2011

I thought I had deleted this, but a kind reader called Copy and Paste seems to have saved it:

The week before Christmas is the perfect time for a round up of the year.

And as Campaign have printed several of my posts with whatever changes they deemed appropriate, I now present for you their top ten ads of 2011 with their commentary (small alterations made to fit the space):

John Lewis ‘Same Ending As Se7en’: Yep, it’s really good because it’s darn, darn, darn hard to do an ad that makes people cry for the right reasons (as opposed to boring them to tears). Hats off. If that doesn’t win all the top awards next year, we’re Chinamen (we’re not Chinamen).

Stella ‘Apartomatic’: The latest in the series of Stella ads that makes people miss the old Stella ads. We heard a rumour that Wes Anderson said he’d be co-directing it with Roman Coppola but then rarely turned up for the shoot. A bit like Robin Van Persie promising to co-play with the Campaign five-a-side team then fucking off down the pub. So it’s another one of Mother’s disappointing Stella ads, but the thing is our tongues can’t get enough of Mother’s orifi, so we also gave Stella Advertiser of the Year. And if you think that’s the end of our Mother bottom-love, you are of course wrong.

Cravendale ‘Cats With Thumbs’: Another year, another good, yet inexplicably fawned-over, ad with cats in it.

Pot Noodle, ‘WAG’: Mother at its comedic best. And if that’s not damning the place with faint praise, we don’t know what is.

Barnardos ‘Life Story’: Good one this. A couple of the performances are quite poor (guy one and guy two), but overall, it’a cracker. Thank god, because it gives us a good, credible opportunity to start smooching up to our other favourite agency.

Weetabix ‘Fuel For Big Days’: Do you think we’ll get away with putting this in the top ten of the year? Hmmm… It’s really dismally sexist, and the strategy is as old as dirt, but maybe people will think it’s the one with the girl and the teddy bears, which still ain’t great, but at least it’s memorable.

Yeo Valley ‘Boy Band’: Yes, it wasn’t as good as that one from last year, but as you might have noticed by now, this year has been so awful that you could pretty much put anything at this end of the list and no one would complain.

Thomson ‘Quality Time’: Nice. Beautifully shot, well-observed. Better than Weetabix, but not done by BBH.

Wall’s ‘Thank You, Kitchen’: Proper good. Funny. Sausages are hard to do, but these are top. Funnier than Pot Noodle, but not done by Mother.

Lucozade ‘Yes’. Almost good enough to balance out the one with everyone skating around on Venice Beach. Quite an achievement.



The eternal sunshine of all sorts of things

Earlier today I wrote a post about Campaign’s top ten ads of the year.

It was sort of funny, but a bit mean.

Then I watched this and took it down.

(Thanks, Fabian.)



I think this might be the best ‘weekend’ I’ve ever compiled.

Coogan in Alan Partridge book reading:

I don’t understand what anyone is saying.

So much great stuff in Drunk History (thanks, P):

Rudolph the Red Nosed Rehab (thanks, P):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIDrv3ax1Qk&feature=youtu.be

Tom Kuntz incredibly fucking brilliant Christmas goodness (NSFW. Thanks, A).

Old Spice explosions (thanks, K).

Ice Cube on LA/Eames (thanks, P):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRWatw_ZEQI&feature=youtu.be

The Spielberg Face (thanks, G):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VS5W4RxGv4s

2011’s movies in under five minutes:

Blog comment wankers categorised (which one are you? Thanks, C).

Download this Louis CK gig for $5. It’s a great bargain but you might have a coronary thrombosis from laughing so hard.

WherethefuckshouldIgofordrinks.com (thanks, C).

And you already know this, but bottled water is the tears of the damned (thanks, P).



Nice Agency Christmas Card

They’ve done it properly and some of the gags are TV sketch-show worthy (I don’t mean to damn them with faint praise; I think that standard is way beyond most ‘funny’ ads).

Well done Fold 7.



Burger King around the world

What do the following ads say about our good nations?

I have no idea, except that we seem by far the least bat-shit crazy…

Russia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zojkbkaZwo&feature=youtu.be

Asian:

UK:

(Interest declared: the very nice UK one was done by my friends Cam and Elliot.)



Water Water Everywhere: the ad

Here’s an ad I’ve made for my Water Water Everywhere campaign:

It cost me absolutely nothing because the following people are so kind:

George@Academy Films was a brilliant help from start to finish. He offered his help even before I needed it, then found me most of the people below for nowt. And Academy is a brilliant production company with top directors.

Gus Filgate (director) and Sophie Cowling (producer) @ Little Fish Films. They took the brief on with a smile and were a complete pleasure to work with.

Stacia, Mark and Jon at Big Buoy Post – several thousand pounds of making it look great for absolutely nothing (also lovely to work with).

Andy and the others at 750 mph. I work with Andy a lot in my day job and he’s one of the nicest blokes in advertising.

The editor was the excellent Matthew Felstead @ Loaded Dice. Great work and a top guy.

Also a great help were Daryl Corps and Adam Tucker who helped with the design and the script respectively. Cheers, guys.

Anyway, all that aside, I need to get this thing seen. If any of you have any media contacts (or, indeed, ARE media contacts), let me know (bwmkay@gmail.com) and I’ll buy you whatever meal you like best in exchange for some TVRs. Likewise, if you know how to seed stuff online and would like a heartwarmingly public-spirited project to do a bit of free work on, do pop me an email. And if you have a blog or Facebook account, why not stick it up on there? It’ll make you feel all yummy inside.

Cheers.

And the rest of you: use the bloody tap.



Screenplay

Good morning.

I’m in a very, very good mood today.

Last night, my wife and I finished our first screenplay.

Hooray.

It’s has an interesting plot: a man’s premature ejaculation is so bad, every time he has sex he goes back in time.

It’s called Fuck Me Backwards*.

So what happens next?

Well, I’m going to be soliciting advice from friends and acquaintances who have experience of such things.

And that extends to the readers of this blog.

If you can help, or have any advice, please leave a comment or email me at bwmkay@gmail.com

Thanks.

Bx

*I understand this title may well have to change, but that’s it for now.



Harvey Nichols ‘Walk Of Shame’ (ish)



Weekend

Find his porn (thanks, M).

Reuters’ 100 best photos of the year (thanks, A).

64 brilliant/shit similes and analogies (thanks, V).

Amazing picture made from 3.2 million dots (thanks, K).

Teen text lingo decoded.

Guy sings like a guitar (thanks, A):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30OGoem9WJg

And staying on the fake guitar theme… (thanks, J):

The Bad Sex in Fiction award.

The wonderful Procatinator.

Update:

Jaws reimagined (thanks, P):

George Carlin on why it’s important not to give a shit (thanks, P):

The most amazing photos of the year (and they really are utterly amazing. Thanks, P).

And more great shots from Stanley Kubrick (thanks, P).

Best Tesco classified ad ever (thanks, K).



The Wisdom of Sir John Of Hegarty

(Thanks to the Escape Pod Blog for the clip. See? I told you it was worth reading.)

It’s a fascinating interview and he seems like very good company, but there’s one thing I didn’t quite get: he says (and I fully agree) it’s a fact that the products the advertising industry makes have been getting worse and seems unable to understand why (see 4:27 onwards).

But isn’t this Sir John’s most recent ad?

I’m not trying to say he’s blind or a hypocrite, but I would have thought that the relative failure and low quality of this ad, by a great creative for a great brand, would have enlightened him somewhat.

It’s damn hard making good ads, let alone great ones, and for reasons I’ve gone into so many times, the situation is definitely deteriorating, but Sir John is right there in the epicentre of it all. He can explain why Levi’s became so dismal they chose to resign it, he can tell us why BBH haven’t won a TV Pencil for several years, and he can talk us through the creative process behind the recent BBH KFC ad I saw on a phone box, which had the headline ‘Ice, Ice, Maybe, but GOOD NEWS!’ then a picture of a Snack Box above the price, £1.99.

Don’t get me wrong: I fully believe that BBH is still one of the best agencies in town, but the bar has been getting so low we’ve had to dig a hole for it.

And if advertising genius Sir John Hegarty is just throwing his hands up and despairing of the situation then what hope do the rest of us have?