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It's that time of year again, when our screens are taken over by adverts for the latest series of magazines available from the likes of DeAgostini and other purveyors of crappy, overpriced magazines.

Prepare to be suckered in with promises of cheaply priced first issues only to wind up paying £7.99 per issue thereafter for a DVD you could pick up cheaper on Amazon, although that would, of course, be sans the magazine to guide you through the life and adventures of Columbo.

You heard (read) me correctly, the latest offering being advertised with painful regularity on my TV is a magazine that will provide you with all 11 series (68 episodes) of Columbo across 34 DVDs. All of this can be yours, complete with a magazine, all for 7.99 per issue (except the first one) coming to the grand total of £263.67. Some very half-arsed research informs me that the first 7 series can be obtained for £44.99, and my superb maths skills inform me that the other 4 series will have to come to roughly £218 to make the magazine worth buying. Unless I am underestimating the quality of the magazine: perhaps it is written by the land's finest journalists, printed on gold gilded pages and will massively accrue value for ebaying in just a few short years.

Also, if I wanted to sit down and have a Columbo marathon (which, I can assure you, I most certainly do not want to do), I'd have to keep getting up to change the DVD, as the thoughtful magazine providers have deemed it suitable to only have 2 epsiodes per DVD. I can imagine it would get somewhat tiring. Perhaps some sort of DVD changer would be worth investing in (if they even exist and if there's any money left in the bank after subscribing to the Columbo collection).

Some current titles from the kings of this particular industry, DeAgostini, include: British Steam Railways, Harry Potter Chess, and Star Explorer - Build Your Own Telescope. The last 2 of which are sure-fire money spinners. Drawn in by low priced first issue, after starting to collect the pieces for a chess board, or constructing a telescope, it would be hard to justify stopping buying the magazine as it would be (and here's the real kicker) a waste of money! The irony of continuing to purchase these magazines to avoid wasting money should really be used to teach Americans about the concept of irony.

I recall one magazine where you built a model of a famous boat (the Bounty, maybe, or something with the word Rose in it). This particular series spanned well over 100 issues at a cost that would be almost into the thousands by the time you'd finished. I think that all these (and stop me if I'm being presumptuous and using stereotypes) fat, middle-aged, balding men in desperate need of a hobby should all club together the hundreds of pounds they're spending on their model boat magazine and build a full life-sized replica with fully functioning maritime equipment. Then they could sail the world together and almost certainly save a generation of housewives from a lifetime of boredom and grief.

People of Britain, I implore you, if you want a DVD collection then buy it online. If you want a chess set just buy it from your local chess retailer. If you want to build your own telescope, don't, just buy one instead! It will cost less and actually work. If you want to build a model boat for hundreds of pounds, see a marriage counsellor.

If you subscribe to these magazines I would love to hear from you and your financial adviser.

DSappointing

Firstly, sorry for the bad pun in the title. The late great Richard Whiteley himself would've been proud of it, I'm sure, and therefore it's certainly good enough for this post.

Secondly, I love my Nintendo DS. It's amazing, I take it on most non-public transport journeys, and I spend a good portion of my spare time playing the games on it, and I rarely go to the bathroom without it. I may have given too much information there.

What I want to make clear is that I love the Nintendo DS, and I love Nintendo. I also, generally, love their advertising. I think the for most part it has been very well targeted, simple, but effective. One only has to look at how well the Wii has been outselling the PS3 (which is technically a far superior console) and can see that clearly the clever marketing has played a big role in it. Both the advertising for the Wii and the DS is well integrated across all media platforms, and exudes the message of simplicity and fun for all ages and families.

The new adverts for the DS on the Tube, however, fall short of the mark. The adverts in question show a happy commuter playing the DS next to a selection of games with one highlighted in the middle. Below the games is a piece of copy relating to the game in question. The copy suggests that we spend 3 years of our lives commuting and, naturally, why not buy a DS and spend this time doing something more fun and productive than the crossword. Other than a single line specific to individual games, this copy reads the same for all of the adverts.

My gripe with these adverts is that they are really badly targeted, in my opinion. They are trying to make the DS a must for every commuter, and create a mini-network of people all sat on the train playing games together via Wi-Fi. Seems reasonable enough, but there are several flaws in this plan.

For instance, some of the games they are advertising require you to speak to your DS - Brain Training and Nintendogs both use voice recognition. Whilst these do not strictly have to be used, they are reasonably important parts of the games, and a feature that could not be used on the Tube, certainly not by the stuffy, British public. We are a nation of awkward, socially inept people and we do not speak on public transport. We don't even speak to each other (even our friends!), the very prospect of a British commuter speaking to a computer game in front of fellow travellers is almost frightening.

Another thing is that some of these adverts push the Wi-Fi capabilities of the DS, both for local play with other people nearby and online play. Local play could effectively work on the Tube, but it is INCREDIBLY unlikely that you would ever get to play with other commuters: they would have to be near (quite possibly in the same carriage), playing the same game at the same time as you, and both of you would almost certainly need a seat (a further gripe - you simply could not play the DS standing up on the Tube, in rush hour OR when it's calm). Playing on the internet would definitely not work underground. Most people's mobile phones don't work on the Tube, let alone wireless internet. To advertise this feature to commuters as something they could do on the underground is just cruel.

Also, these adverts are simply naff. The captions include variations along the lines of "Things fall into place on the Circle Line" and "Figure it out on the way to Notting Hill". It is a blatant attempt at trying to connect with the consumer, but failing miserably. It's almost as if someone in a boardroom somewhere said "Hey, if they see it says the Circle line they'll think 'wow! I use the Circle line too, I should get a DS' and BAM, there's a sale right there".

Finally, Nintendo's media buyers have gone absolutely all out with this campaign, and whole carriages are plastered with the adverts, with no other adverts in sight. All this really does is highlight how similar the adverts are to each other, and how little thought has actually gone into them. It's almost like a gallery of how not to advertise.

Lastly (I know that's the same as 'finally' and not technically the last paragraph was a lie, but feh, this is my blog) I have never seen anyone on the Tube with a Nintendo DS, and everyone I know who owns one (myself included) would never whip out their DS and play it on the Underground for fear of it being stolen. I honestly can never see people changing their stance on this and creating the happy network of travellers that Nintendo envisage, all playing together, all having fun. The only way I see the DS becoming commonplace on the Tube is when the next generation of handheld consoles comes out and the DS is no longer a desirable device. Of course when this situation does arise we'll be far too busy reading the adverts for this new console to play on the good old DS.

Cold reception

I recently stumbled across the website for the Icebar that Absolut vodka have created in London. When researching genuinely cool stuff, it's often hard not to sell it to yourself - I found myself really wanting a drink of Absolut (even though I'm not much of a vodka fan) and I really can't wait to visit the Icebar.

One of several across the world, it's made entirely out of ice (as the name suggests) and by the bar I mean the whole bar: seats, tables, the floor, and the glasses. If you want to visit you can book a 40 minute slot for around £18, which includes your thermal suit, an ice glass and a vodka (Absolut, of course) cocktail. I am definitely planning to go to this bar at some point, it sounds like a great night out and an even better anecdote to be have (always good to have a few icebreakers).

I think the Icebar is a masterstroke of marketing on the part of Absolut: the idea of the bar sells itself by word of mouth ("hey, have you heard about that ice bar?") and in doing so it sells the brand. Visitors to the bar are immersed in an entirely branded bar, which may not sound that impressive, but if you consider how many drinks brands you would normally be exposed to the imagery of in a bar, the power of seeing only one has got to count for something.

I certainly think that the anecdotal power of the bar would encourage people who had previously been to the bar to buy Absolut next time they are purchasing vodka. I admit that had I been to the bar, and was having a party, or taking a drink to a party, I would be sorely tempted to buy Absolut in order to give myself an opening to talk about my night at the Icebar.

And so it begins...

Here it is, my first ever post on my first ever blog. I plan to keep this regularly updated with my thoughts and feelings on some of my favourite topics: comedy, advertising, technology, music and games, for instance, and most likely the various ways in which people offend, annoy, and amuse me in my daily life.

Recently I seem to have been unwittingly (actually it was entirely wittingly) engaging in some serious brand experience: The Innocent Smoothies Village Fete and The O2.

The former was a fantastic day out for old and young, and a fine example of brand immersion. Innocent have built up a very strong image of a fun, zany, caring and environmentally sensitive brand, and the Fete exuded this brand identity from every inch of grass of the occupied Regent's Park. From astro-turf and cow-print vans (complete with flowers and/or udders and tails) to the Village Green featuring welly-wanging, a dog show and a rather scary dance display (think Little Vicky from that episode of The Simpsons and you'll have an idea what the instructor was like) they had everything that made you think, "aren't innocent lovely". Couple this with some free smoothies and they had more or less everybody eating (or drinking) out of their hands.

The festival also featured a host of other brands piggybacking Innocent's squeaky clean image and setting up stalls of their own, including Virgin Trains offering a train ride around the park for kids, The Guardian propounding its environmentally friendly image by creating a forest of used newspapers, and Lastminute.com handing out free suncream. The real highlight of the festival for me, though, was Dyson's washroom featuring The Airblade, their revolutionary new hand dryer. One simply dips one's hand into the air blade, and then slowly draws them out as the water gets blasted off to the sides, and your hand skin ripples in the way of an old man on a motorbike.

The O2, which will almost certainly never shake off the Millennium Dome's name, is a well branded bubble in the middle of London, with O2 imagery sprinkled liberally about the place. I sincerely hope that O2 do well with this, as I feel they have done everyone a great service by providing another great venue in London, complete with plenty of great places to eat (unlike Wembley, which charges around £10 for fast food Fish 'n' Chips).

One word of advice, though: don't go for a meal in the O2 on the same night that an artist formerly, and currently, known as Prince is playing a concert if you don't have tickets to see the show, otherwise you're just a mug in a half hour queue for bad service and a much dimished menu.