February 2011
1 post
Test
January 2011
1 post
October 2009
1 post
September 2009
2 posts
June 2009
4 posts
May 2009
6 posts
Magner's pear cider
I’ve been intrigued by the strategy behind this campaign since I first saw the huge billboards denying that any other fruit was used in their pear cider.
To be honest, it hadn’t occurred to me that any other fruit would be used in their pear cider. And isn’t it usually the nasty ingredients like preservatives and added sugars that brands spend money trying to deny?
So Magners seem to have taken...
April 2009
8 posts
The news in 140 characters or less
Following yesterday’s posts about April Fools ads and the death of traditional media, I thought I’d combine the themes with an April Fools article from the Guardian.
On Wednesday morning they announced that they were giving up the traditional press format and would now be published exclusively via Twitter.
You’ll still be able to find the full article online but the bit I enjoyed was this snippet...
Everything is dead
Time for another copy and paste job I’m afraid - this time from the highly amusing Ad Contrarian (an American agency bloke - http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/).
He’s always angry about something and has recently been getting very worked up about reports and articles proclaiming that advertising and traditional media is dead. This is the latest in a long line of his posts on the...
New domestic abuse ad starring Keira Knightley →
(The headline above acts as a link so you can watch the ad on the Guardian website. It’s not available on Youtube yet.)
Domestic abuse is not a laughing matter.
However, having said that, why did Women’s Aid agree to using Keira Knightley in their latest advertising campaign? She’s got to have one of the most slappable faces in showbiz. The “shocking new ad” is,...
March 2009
6 posts
Community payback
The government has just launched a new initiative called “Community Payback”, which almost sounds like a very good idea. And that’s because it sounds a bit like a project called RockCorps, which took place last year. (Rockcorps involves kids signing up to do four hours of community volunteer work in exchange for a ticket to a special gig). This government scheme is also about...
Lost cats
In a bid to unblock my blog block I have decided to cut and paste something I read recently on someone else’s blog. I’m assured this is OK as long as I don’t pass it off as my own work.
I’m definitely not doing that, I am simply posting this as I think it’s one of the best articulations of the client’s viewpoint that I’ve ever read. It’s called the...
Been suffering from blog block... very painful...
“Hi, I’m Dwaine Chambers…”
Celebrity endorsement is a tricky area. At its worst, you pick the wrong celeb, annoy your target market and waste a lot of money in the process (see L’Oreal’s use of Scarlett Johansson, apparently…). However, I think I’ve just found the best use of it – and possibly a whole new category, which I will entitle “Opportunism Celebrity Endorsement”.
The BBC website reports that the disgraced sprinter...
lost three minutes.com
Lastminute.com ran three consecutive 1 minute TV ads across three different TV channels at the weekend. They were billing it as an “amazing TV first”. Seems a bit more like a “media-buying first” to me, which makes it considerably less amazing.
Anyway, they found it sufficiently exciting to email their entire customer base about it. And this was probably the only way...
February 2009
18 posts
The inaugural government-funded short horror film...
Here are the five films selected for my very first short horror film festival. There were a lot to choose from and no doubt I’ve left out some classics that stick in your memory. I tried not to limit myself with too many criteria, but all the films must be government-funded ‘public information’ films and each must have a good narrative. (This makes each one feel more filmic to me than simply...
Horror season
Following my post below I’ve decided to host an online short horror film season. I will be selecting five of the scariest/goriest ads created through the COI in the last few years and posting them up here for your viewing pleasure… In true film season style I would recommend watching them back-to-back on your own in a dark room.
Anti-speeding ads
I’ve done some research into the effectiveness of these scary road safety ads.
OK, that last sentence was a lie. I googled “anti-speeding ad effectiveness” and found someone else’s research, which I’m now about to paraphrase minus the scientific bits.
So, I found this study which focused on the effectiveness of fear in anti-speeding adverts. (The idea was to conduct a controlled study that...
Department of Transport anti-speeding ad →
I was watching a classy ITV drama last night about a modern day serial killer imitating Jack the Ripper. The scariest thing in the whole programme was this road safety ad…
January 2009
24 posts
