If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

I can’t remember if I did a post about this in the former location of this blog, but if I can’t remember, hopefully none of you can either.

There are some creatives who don’t mind that certain ads don’t entirely make sense, then there are others (myself included) who act like Kathy Bates in Misery when she’s going on off on one about the false endings of movie serials.

BUT WHY IS THERE A CHOIR MAKING NOISES LIKE A HONDA? WHAT DOES IT COOK-A-DOODIE MEAN? AND IT CAN’T BE ANYTHING LIKE ‘HONDAS ARE SO NATURAL THEY MAKE NOISES THAT PEOPLE CAN REPLICATE’ BECAUSE THE CHOIR MAKES THE NOISE OF RAIN LANDING ON THE WINDSCREEN AND THAT’S THE SAME FOR EVERY SINGLE COCK-A-DOODIE CAR IN THE WHOLE COCK-A-DOODIE WORLD!

Those people are called the Logic Police.

They (we) do tend to be the rain on some otherwise quite contented parades, but when these ads have to pass through such enormous and anal approval processes, I think it’s a reasonable question to ask why they don’t make sense. (Why no one seems to care that they don’t make sense once they’ve aired, therefore proving the people who approved the ads absolutely right, is another question entirely.)

On one side of things, as I hope I’ve proved with the above rant, being part of the Logic Police is like pissing in a very strong breeze: nobody cares that you’ve done it and you end up looking like a twat. But I like things to make some sort of sense, so fuck you if you don’t.

The exception is the kind of ad that has no real intention of making sense, yet is wonderful for that very reason:

These are above the Logic Police because they actually obey the logic that they have created for themselves. There are things that Flat Eric would and wouldn’t do, even if they are many miles from the things that I would would and wouldn’t do, so that’s fine.

But it’s the ads that have flaws through which you can drive a tank that annoy me, even if I like the other aspects of them.

For instance, 99.9% of the people who watched this ad would have done so on a non-Sony Bravia TV and therefore would not be able to appreciate how it has colour like no other. The other 0.1% of the population already own the product being advertised, rendering the ad somewhat pointless.

But nobody really cared.

I don’t know why I care.

It’s all pretty sad, really.

Sorry.

(Thanks, G.)

Must be something in the air.

Anyway, I kind of like this because it’s fun and I was getting bored of the other Pimm’s guy.

Then I’m less keen because it features the age-old anthropomorphising of inanimate objects that was seriously dated in 2002, after the same agency made this ad:

Ah, they don’t make ’em like that anymore.

Or rather they do! Geddit?!!!???

…Because it’s different, positive without being cheesy, well-shot, very re-watchable and makes you feel quite nice about the idea of drinking fizzy piss.

Parts of it remind me of this:

(By the way, I’m quite thick. I first saw the Star Guitar video in a hotel room in Rome and didn’t get the whole ‘beats as the things through the window’ thing. I just thought Michel Gondry and the Chemical Brothers had broken with tradition and made the dullest promo ever. See? Quite thick.)

Is it adorably charming or Satan-jumping-out-of-the-loo-while-you’re-taking-a-dump fucking creepy?

You decide:

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

UPDATE: Sorry, just to clarify, I’m so bored of Lance. He’s a real hero, I’ve read the autobiography, I have nothing but respect for his resilience in the face of cancer, but could he by any chance shut the fuck up about it? Especially when his thoughts are being translated by Hank. P. Nike-Copywriter who seems to think that same old platitudinous dog toss is like the finest work of Dylan Thomas as long as it’s broken up into small sentences and read like someone really needs a shit.

Aside from being a self-hating black man and a predatory paedo, MJ was also a pioneer of the YouTube theft that is now so prevalent in advertising.

Back in 1981, before YouTube even existed, he checked out some dancing on YouTube and STOLE it.

And I really got my ladies version of the poll wrong. What was I thinking? Who wants to be Carly Simon right now, singing ‘You’re So Vain’ into a hairbrush while the memories of Warren Beatty blush your loins?

Three of you, that’s who.

“Cowboys are your dad’s generation, so we went back to the animal.”

Etc…

(By the way, you can skip to 2:30 and still get all the info your brain can handle. And this particular F (Fred) seems surprisingly normal. I was expecting frogs to jump out of his ears and eat the Palais Du Festival. Maybe eet eez Farid who eez, ‘ow you say, ze whacky one.)

I was going to post this a couple of weeks ago when it would have looked really prescient, but instead I got side-tracked and now I’m just going to look like a lame band wagon-jumper..

No matter.

I think it’s about time that someone pointed out just how brilliantly Philips is doing what we’d all like our dull, giant, international brands to do: it’s becoming, for want of a better word, cool.

I won’t put Carousel up again, but let’s not forget this ad, which won a Cannes bronze last year:

I wrote a post at the time that expressed my surprise at a big, boring corporation promoting themselves with the whimsical musings of a tranny.

And this year, the bar has been well and truly raised again with Carousel taking the Film Grand Prix at Cannes.

It reminds me of Honda, and how it went from spewing out some of the worst advertising on earth to some of the best within the space of a couple of years. Philips appears to be doing the same (can you remember any of their advertising before these two?) and it has to be the mark of a good agency and a very good ECD.

Step forward Neil Dawson. Here’s hoping you have even better ads up your sleeve.

And while we’re on the subject of huge international corporations suddenly producing award-winning advertising, is that T-Mobile I see carrying several Lions away from Cannes?

T-Mobile used to be the most anonymous-bendy-world-generic-metaphor-shot-in-Cape-Town telco in the universe, until the most recent work came along.

Then it became talked about, famous and highly-awarded.

And all this has happened since Paul Silburn joined Saatchis London as the joint ECD.

Possibly not a coincidence.

Is it not enough to have elected someone president of the USA?

Do you really need yet another, far smaller pat on the back?

I mean, for crying out loud, that’s like winning the Olympic Gold at swimming then claiming your 100m Butterfly Cub Scout badge.

And that’s aside from the fact that the campaign was helped somewhat by the crapness and stupidity of the man who held the office before Obama. Will Dubya Get a credit for his part in electing his successor? What about Dick Cheney?

Super-Duper Platinum Lion award for dumbest comment of the year goes to Steve Mykolyn, chief creative officer of Toronto-based Taxi, who said: “We’re going to get another copy of the award and send it to Bush.”

Yeah, and the man who ignored international treaties to wage war and dismiss the importance of global warming is going to give a big old shit about that.