Sep 12 2011 September 12, 2011 September 12, 2011 27Comments by ben

I’m about 30 years too old for this

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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.


Sep 11 2011 September 11, 2011 September 11, 2011 14Comments by ben

I can’t really fault this

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Here’s an anti-drinking thing by someone.

Very good.


Sep 08 2011 September 8, 2011 September 8, 2011 3Comments by ben

weekend

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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).

Excellent Loony Letter.

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).


Sep 08 2011 September 8, 2011 September 8, 2011 9Comments by ben

Oh dear. They’re starting to reach the stage in the campaign where it sounds like they’ve been written by the placement team.

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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.)


Sep 08 2011 September 8, 2011 September 8, 2011 2Comments by ben

I think I’m going to remove NOT VOODOO’s link from the list on the right*

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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.


Sep 06 2011 September 6, 2011 September 6, 2011 20Comments by ben

A few ways in which advertising has enriched my life

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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:

Venus in Furs.

That Leftfield track off Surfer. It’s about 10% as good without the horses.

Some Like It Hot.

The work of Nadav Kander.

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.)

A Tribe Called Quest.

J. Otto Seibold.

What has advertising done for you?


Sep 05 2011 September 5, 2011 September 5, 2011 30Comments by ben

How to pay a lot of money to say nothing

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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.


Sep 01 2011 September 1, 2011 September 1, 2011 1Comment by ben

weekend

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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):

Kubrick gifs.

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).

The Onion on Libya.


Aug 31 2011 August 31, 2011 August 31, 2011 34Comments by ben

The sad normality of the grey rainbow

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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?


Aug 30 2011 August 30, 2011 August 30, 2011 9Comments by ben

two sides of the same coin

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Picture the scene: a young creative team joins an advertising agency.

In the early days its hopes are high. They are on the CD’s radar for decent briefs and the honeymoon period is in full swing. The account teams want to work with this breath of fresh air and the briefings are all back slaps and banter.

But then things start to change. The CD likes the early work but for one reason or another it hasn’t made it past the client. The team’s creativity is praised but the whispers have started, the raised eyebrows that suggest they might be a bit too out-there for their own good. They know how to have an idea that might win a Titanium Lion, but can they make a silk ad out of a sow’s brief?

Gradually, they start to fall off the CD’s radar. He has more important things on his mind, and besides, he can’t keep propping them up forever. The other teams are grumbling about how they don’t get the juicy briefs, so to quell the discontent the CD passes over the newbies to throw the senior guys a bone.

But the groovy youngsters have to do something, so it’s their turn for the more prosaic tasks: the 30″ retail radio. Can they crack that? Is that what they were hired to do? But then, if you’re good you should be able to spin gold from anything, shouldn’t you?

So a year goes by and the team have made a few radio and press ads that no one’s noticed (they haven’t even told their mums) and they’re starting to question their move. The CD is definitely not paying them much attention these days. He might chance them on a good brief once in a while, but only after someone else has had a crack at it first. What reputation they had has been forgotten and they are now just another team. Is it the bad briefs making bad work or should the blame be laid at the door of the creatives?

But hang on… what’s this? They’ve just been given the brief from Winston’s Dog Food and against all the odds they’ve knocked it out of the park. Campaign makes it pick of the week, some washed-up old CD tickles its balls in Private View and it starts to look like a shoe-in for all the top awards.

Then the offers start coming in.

At last, thinks the team. Our nightmare is over. We can get the fuck out of here and try our luck somewhere that appreciates our talents. Let’s weigh up the offers and start again with an office stuffed with Lions and Pencils.

Meanwhile, in the CD’s office the thoughts are somewhat different: At last, thinks the CD, those two wasters have finally paid off the faith I had in them. I got them in here and gave them all the good briefs but they just coasted as if the world owed them a living. Now that they’ve come good we can finally get a good run going on some other stuff.

Then the team leaves and the extent of their relief is matched perfectly by the fury of the CD.

Same situation, two entirely different perspectives, neither right nor wrong.

If any of that sounds familiar, it might be like the man says: ‘to a worm stuck in horseradish, everything looks like horseradish.’