If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

For those of a literary bent, I’d say it was about as good as Saturday, ie: not one of his best, but still both good and entertaining.

For those of an advertising bent, one sentence in particular caught my eye. It describes the passage of the main character through Heathrow Airport:

‘An avenue of ads for banking and office services, weakly humorous, effortfully eye-catching – clearly, advertising was an industry for third raters – increased his irritation…’

Nice to be dismissed so cleanly and sharply.

However, it might be worth remembering that airport advertising is some of the worst there is: two-word puns over metaphorical pictures of wildlife vie for space with dismal attempts by perfume brands to distinguish themselves from one another.

Very poor.

But overall, is McEwan right? Are we third raters?

Certainly when compared to Nobel Prize-winners, rock gods, successful head teachers in sink estates, Olympic athletes, film directors etc. we are indeed a rung or two below some others. But then we can probably count ourselves a rung or two above shelf stackers, cell-centre operators or people who bum others for money.

Perhaps, after due consideration, ‘third rate’ is something of a compliment.

Then again, of course it fucking isn’t.

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.