Image courtesy of M&G
Time for a quick rant.
I have long felt that the one of the guiding principles for advertising is that it should do some good in consumer’s lives even if they chose to ignore or avoid it.
The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, part of his scheme for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel completed in 1512. I may be wrong about this but as far as I am aware he wasn’t asked to present three different options for the ceiling to go into research.
Once upon a time in a land far away come the appointed hour of the creative presentation, agencies recommended one idea to their clients.
Charlotte Street, spiritual home of London’s ad land. Image courtesy of Chas Folkes
Thought I’d put up two new bits of work from Saatchis in London. Visa is hot out of the edit suite, you may have clocked Carlsberg already.
One of the things that I always bang on about without really thinking about it in depth is the idea that Clients and agencies need to place less emphasis on consistency and more on coherence. So I thought I’d worry this one out a bit.
I still maintain that very few people in advertising agencies really understand what clever digital agencies can do for their clients.
And I had this further drummed into me last week as one of the judges of the NMA and Marketing Week’s Interactive Marketing and Advertising Awards.
So I thought I’d jot down some observations on the work from the perspective of a planner from an above the line tradition trying to understand what is going on.
I am a big fan of the Cadbury’s gorilla ad and fully expect to see some stonking sales results coming in thick and fast.
In the final instance I just think somethimes you need a bit of this – good old fashioned salience delivered by a fame seeking commercial.
For all the analysis, particularly online, I had overlooked they way it was perfectly built to be remixed – or simply have a new track laid over it.
So here are a few of the best remixes I could find on you tube. My personal favourite is of course Total Eclispe of the Heart.
The BBC is in trouble.
It stands accused of endemic audience deception – most specifically over the fabrication of phone and interactive competitions where the participants have no chance of winning and the declared winners are either fictitious or members of the production staff.
Oh and there was some argy bargy about the Royal Family as well but any opportunity to give the parasites a kicking is fine by me.
I recently gave a talk at which I harangued the attentive and no doubt hugely appreciative audience about the enduring power of advertising – the things that it does that the other marketing disciplines can’t touch.
HHCL finally has a proper entry on Wikipedia.
So if you are currently thinking about the future shape of a communications company save yourself the trouble and copy down what HHCL did a decade ago.
This is a kind of mash up of a post.
It is part trip into the HHCL vaults, part celebration of radio and part a feel for the idea of a teaming a planner and creative.
And it is about some radio ads we made for the Wales Tourist Board a little while ago.
Lee Scratch Perry. Image courtesy of Ariel Publicity
When it comes to the back catalogue of the recently departed and much missed HHCL its easy to reel off the famous stuff the agency made over the years from Tango Slap to Pot Noodle’s Slag of all Snacks but I thought I’d draw attention to some of the less famous stuff that I love.
This isn’t easy because most the work predates You Tube and so only exists where fanatics have uploaded old ads, but there is some stuff there to enjoy.
First up is a campaign for Guiness in Ireland and about the launch of Guiness Extra Cold from the early part of this decade.
Listen with mother – backbone of the BBC light programme schedule form 1950 to 1982.
If there is an orthodox medium that has been given a shot in the arm by new technology it has got to be radio (not Last fm and all that marlarkey) but good old gardeners-question-time type wireless.
Radio is in robust health in the UK, most especially the BBC which has recently seen both reach and share of listening hours increase and part of that success is down to new means of distribution, particularly digital TV and the internet.
So it was nice of those people at RAJAR to put together some charts on all of this when they released the lastest figures for radio listening recently.
