Sunday 28 October 2007

Unreality TV

Do you know any women who sit around discussing their slow digestive transits?

No. Me neither.

In fact, the very thought of it gives me that bloated feeling.

Friday 26 October 2007

If you were selling broadband for laptops...

...what big idea would you use for your ad campaign?

Vodafone posters have a Work Naked headline and backview cartoon of a lardy naked body sitting on an office chair.

Good point, well made. But not a pretty sight!

Wednesday 24 October 2007

Only in Oz

I keep seeing the Australia "So where the bloody hell are you?" TV ads.

It seems there have been lots of complaints from we whingeing poms about the bad language – Wikipedia has a fascinating discussion on the subject.

But remember this is from the country which got away with a famous poster campaign: "Buy more beef, you bastards".

Brave, bold and brash – just like their brand identity.

I've visited down under twice before. Loved it. And I do so fancy another trip...

Sunday 21 October 2007

Thursday 18 October 2007

Please wipe your feet

Have you seen this ad about your carbon footprint?

Very disturbing.

Why oh why oh why

... do most mobile phone ads seem aimed at aliens or teenagers?

I use a mobile phone too, and I probably have more disposable income than they do!

I just don't get it.

Just two examples, one recent, one older:

Phones 4 U 'Ted the Squid' ad. Strange colour, strange storyline, strange acting.

3 'singing cherry' ad. Weird and creepy.

Perhaps the oddest thing is that I think I should be the target market, when it seems quite obvious that I'm not.

Tuesday 16 October 2007

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

I saw the new Aero Bubble ad last night, featuring three of my favourite things:

1. A muscled hunk (much better than the Diet Coke bloke I wrote about before, at least this one is a grown-up and he has a cute smile)

2. Chocalocahoc (mmm)

3. Humour (the conversational female voiceover ends: "Has he been talking?")

It's designed to appeal to every woman, not just to me. What's more, I might even go out and buy some (and I bet everywoman does too) ...

Monday 15 October 2007

Words that should be used more often (part 1)

"Hoik"

Great script, great OTT acting, but such a shame that the lovely Nationwide will always be linked with that nasty bank manager (as I mentioned here.)

Watch and enjoy the ad in full, on YouTube.

Saturday 13 October 2007

Only for amateurs

The current ads for TRESemme hair products claim to be 'only for professionals', and feature Ricardo from The Salon bursting onto a film set and wrestling the bottle from Georgia Goodall, beauty editor of Reveal.

Watch it here.

Trouble is, it's badly written, poorly acted and quite obviously a set up. I also hate it when ads are so up their own arses that they attempt to involve the audience in the advertising process. It's meta-filming. The camera pulls back from the shot to see the sound engineer and director as well as the 'actors'.

In a previous ad, Ricardo wrestled the product from a woman in a supermarket. I still didn't like it, but it made more sense to me. Mind you, I'm sticking to Pantene as my 'salon quality' hair product of choice.

P.S. As far as I know, TRESemme has never been seen in a salon and is only sold to the general public.

P.P.S. I'm guessing the name is based on Tres Aimée, French for Much loved. Pah!

P.P.P.S. Read what ad industry professional, Gerry Farrell, has to say about it.

Thursday 11 October 2007

Irish headline of the year competition

I was in Donegal for a wedding last weekend, where I was thrilled to discover this prize-winning headline in the national newspaper:

DUBLIN WOMAN MURDERS CUP OF TEA

Like all great headlines, you can guess how the rest of the story went.

Wednesday 10 October 2007

Repetition, repetition, repetition

It's a good trick in headline writing. Especially when you use a word 3 times. I was reminded of this when I saw an old deep pan pizza slogan:

Real Deep. Real Good. Real Thing.

And then again when I remembered the old Martini slogan:

Anytime, anyplace, anywhere

(I used to have a belt with that written on – it was yellow plastic with red and blue writing. Mmm, nice!)

Perhaps this could be called the rule of 3 + 1. Repeat something 3 times, and add a touch of innuendo.

It sticks in the memory.

Thursday 4 October 2007

The Diet Coke Bloke

I did love those '90s ads where the office girls take a break from their work to drink a Diet Coke and admire the finely honed six-pack of a hunky workman nearby...

But the new version leaves me cold.

The camera pans up the lift engineer's lovely torso, but what a disappointment when it gets to his face!

He's just too young and skinny looking.

Oh dear, I must be getting old.

Wednesday 3 October 2007

"You've been Tango-ed!"

Do you remember those ads with the orange man who used to run up and slap people in the face when they sipped their Tango? It was changed to a kiss when kids started to copy him.

Oh, the power of advertising!

It was hardly subtle. But then again...

In my corporate life I had to design some cheques to include all sorts of security features. One feature is called 'copysafe', which means a design is printed in two inks. The human eye can't easily see the difference, but if the cheque is photocopied, one ink spells out the word 'VOID' and renders the fake unusable.

Britvic took this idea, went one step further and advertised to the fraudsters.

If a crook photocopied one of their cheques, the copy read: 'Sorry, you've been Tango-ed!'

Brilliant.