The best thing I ever made

I'm a very creative person. I have lots of creative ideas, I spend a lot of time writing, and coming up with creative concepts. However, I have the dexterity and manual skills of a foetus. I cannot create anything with my hands, as my hands are very prone to destroying and breaking things. Recently it was my girlfriend's birthday and I baked her this cake. It's pretty shoddy looking but it tasted nice, and it's the best thing that I ever made with my hands, and I am very proud of it.

Just humour me!

Biggest cocks in advertising

Just a quick one to share these hilarious videos. Enjoy!

Unilever Hypocrisy

This article on Brand Republic outlines the fact that Unilever has been criticised for giving out mixed messages about women and the beauty industry. The YouTube video from the article (included below) is a parody of Unilever adverts spliced together to make a very interesting point. It is without doubt guilty of giving out mixed messages but how in the wrong is it?

Article: http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/770806/Unilever-fire-hypocritical-portrayal-women/

YouTube Video:


I'll be the first to admit that this is funny. It's always nice to see people "socking it to" the big brands and picking them up on their hypocrisy and their dodgy dealings. The video makes a very interesting point - Unilever owns both the Lynx (or Axe depending on where you are) and Dove brands and both are giving out very different messages. One is campaigning for 'real beauty' and highlighting the dangers of the superficial beauty industry, whilst the other more or less objectifies women and promises you that a few sprays of a very cheap deodorant will have them stripping off and oiling themselves up quicker than you can say "pffft, like that'll ever happen". I'll let you figure out which is which.

Dove has very famously done very well by striking back at the beauty industry and telling women that they are beautiful however they look and that true beauty comes from within. The real genius is that they still managed to sell beauty products off the back of this. It's like a car advert telling you that driving is overrated and you should probably get the bus anyway. But, somehow it works and it has worked very very well and given the Dove (and in turn Unilever) brand a massive boost and a very clear brand image: one of a caring, benevolent company doing something genuinely different and selfless.

So how does that sit with the Lynx (I'm going to stop saying "or Axe" now because Axe is a stupid name and the idea of summoning women with "the axe effect" has always sounded rather frightening to me) brand? I'm going to try and break down some of the main points and have an argument with myself whilst talking authoritatively about it all. Then I'll try and make my mind up at the end (I'm still not sure where I sit on this one)

• Lynx and Dove are totally separate brands targeting different demographics and as such the messages in their advertising do not have to run parallel and can indeed be quite contradictory of one another.
• But they're owned by the same parent company, and therefore Unilever is endorsing two completely opposite messages about women, and as such should not be preaching about the negative effects of how women are portrayed by the beauty industry when its own adverts feature scantily clad women pole dancing.
• That's a good point, but the adverts aren't made by the same agencies, so perhaps the agencies are ultimately responsible.
• Unilever would have to approve the concepts and its marketing managers would be well aware of what was happening.
• But each brand within Unilever will almost certainly have a different marketing manager
• They should speak to each other a bit more, they need a water cooler!
• That's a stupid point...wait are you writing all this down? You bastard!

So, in conclusion: I need help and so does Unilever. I think that it is unfortunate what has happened and it almost certainly isn't any one person's fault, but perhaps someone somewhere along the line should've pointed out that they were in fact being really contradictory and sending out mixed messages. The two brands are totally separate and they target different audiences so it is entirely understandable that they portray women in different ways: ways that will appeal to their target market. However, I do think that as they fall under the same umbrella that is Unilever they perhaps need to have a rethink and bring the company's thinking more in line or face more criticism.

It's definitely a difficult question, and I think to answer it properly I would need a much greater understanding of parent companies and corporate responsibility, but with the knowledge that I have of advertising, and the opinions that I have as a man on the street, I think that Unilever has done wrong, but unwittingly, and does not deserve to face any ramifications, but it does perhaps need to have a bit of a rethink about where it stands as a whole company, and how its own image is affected by the individual brands that it owns.

Mario creates a buzz

I found myself in Nottingham this weekend, in particular I found myself in Nottingham's Victoria Centre, where I was lucky enough to spend 10 minutes playing Super Mario Galaxy on the Nintendo Wii. The game is to be released on the 16th of November, and let me tell you, it plays like a dream.

The graphics are excellent, the music and sound effects are spot on, but where this game really shines is in the gameplay. The low gravity and exploring small asteroids literally adds a whole new dimension to the classic formula, and the Wii controls felt 100% natural after about 5 seconds. The level I played centred around Mario's bee power-up that lets you take flight and buzz around in stripy overalls. I was planning to ask for this game for Christmas and the sensible adult within me is still thinking this is a good idea, but the child within me who got to play the game is screaming at me to preorder it. I think we all know who wins when a child has a temper tantrum, and I'm not about to send myself to the Naughty Step.

I have criticised Nintendo's advertising on this blog before (I have also praised it) but they are pretty much spot on with their experiential marketing (courtesy of BD NTWK). The booths with people playing games caught everybody's attention and the staff were both enthusiastic and knowledgeable. Everybody wanted a go - Wii owners wanted to try the much anticipated game and vowed to buy it, non-wii owners had a glint of conversion in their eyes, and kids looked on in bemusement as a 21 year old man set the new high-score and reached a level that none of the others had!

My only criticism of the experience that Nintendo had set up is the choice of games: most were good choices, particularly an unreleased Mario game, but I saw one man attempting to play Tiger Woods golf, which hasn't received particularly good reviews and doesn't really show the Wii off at its best. That's my only problem with it, though, and the whole experience on the whole was brilliant, my hat goes off to Nintendo and BD NTWK.

Run Fatboy Run (brought to you by Nike)

Last night I saw the film Run Fatboy Run. Seeing this film came with much anticipation for me having absolutely loved Simon Pegg's previous 2 films, the brilliant Shaun Of The Dead and the even better Hot Fuzz. I was fully expecting this film to follow the trend and be even better than the last. This, sadly, was not the case and the film was nothing more than a bog-standard RomCom with a brilliant cast sadly wasted on tired jokes and a hackneyed plot. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it: it was entertaining, and reasonably funny in places, but I left the cinema feeling somewhat indifferent.

What made the film a lot less palatable was the product placement, or perhaps I should say brand placement, of Nike.

*A few spoilers may follow, though nothing that would really spoil the film, as the plot was horrendously predictable.*

Firstly, the whole premise of the film is based around the main character Dennis running a marathon. The marathon is sponsored by Nike, with Nike logos emblazoned across the start and finish line banners, and along the entire length of the course. The commentators and news reporters in the film, naturally, mention the sponsors of the marathon many, many times.

I can handle this just fine, in fact it does add a sense of realism to the film that would be taken away by having the supposed marathon not sponsored by any brand (which simply does not happen) or inventing a fictional brand to sponsor it. However the sheer volume of Nike swooshes (the tick logo) to be seen was somewhat over the top.

What made this product placement unbearable, however were the ways in which the shoes had been worked into the plot:

Dennis is presented with a pair of running shoes by his assistant coach prior to the marathon. Cue a close up of Nike running shoes followed by the comment "the man in the shop said they were the best!" Cue cringing from the entire audience.

One of the other marathon runners proposes to his girlfriend at her birthday party. He gives a speech about how he's running the marathon, and how marathon running is normally a solo pursuit, but he would like his girlfriend to become his partner. He hands her a birthday present the size of a shoebox. She opens it and, lo and behold, inside is a pair of Nike trainers! Out of the trainers he pulls a ring box and proposes to her. Cue puking from the entire audience at the most clumsy product placement they've ever seen.

As I said previously, I don't mind the sponsorship of the marathon by Nike. That is product placement that makes sense. I could almost handle the fact that he was given a pair of running shoes and told that they are the best if it wasn't for the close up shot of the clearly Nike shoes. But to have a character propose by giving someone a pair of Nike shoes and pulling the ring out of the shoe is just about the most desperately ridiculous way of working in a product to a film that I have ever seen.

And guess what everyone is wearing when they run the marathon. You guessed it: not only do they wear Nike numbered bibs (which makes sense, and I don't mind) but they were all kitted out from head to toe in Nike gear. This is ludicrous: even if a marathon was sponsored by Nike, people would turn up wearing a whole host of other brands, even a mix of brands (Adidas shorts, Puma shoes, Nike t-shirt, maybe) but in this film EVERY SINGLE RUNNER was kitted out from head to toe in Nike gear, and this was made oh so apparent by the constant close ups of shoes, shorts and anything else with the Nike logo on it.

I'm all for product placement. I think it plays an important role in building up brand retention amongst consumers, and placed subtly it can work wonders. This Nike placement, however, was so constantly and obviously rammed down the audience's throats that it actually made for uncomfortable viewing at times and several audible groans could be heard towards the end of the film. If anything, I think that it will damage Nike's image amongst film goers. If they had stopped with the sponsorship of the marathon I think people could abide it, and would've gone away with Nike in their head without necessarily noticing. Unfortunately the sheer volume and lack of subtlety in this film meant that people went away feeling angry and annoyed with Nike. I heard a few people grumbling about the product placement, and one person angrily (and sarcastically) exclaiming "Yeah! Of course EVERYONE wears NIKE don't they?!" as we exited.

I hope this isn't the beginning of a trend towards more brand placement of this ilk. If it is I certainly will find myself going to the cinema a lot less. In the future I hope that companies just DON'T do it like Nike did.

A glass and a half of awesome

I have a new favourite advert. I have a new favourite advert every few months: I can never settle on just one great piece of work to say is my absolute favourite, it really depends on when you ask me. The same goes for music: I still don't know what my favourite song is after 21 years of life and gigabytes upon gigabytes of albums. Perhaps I'm just indecisive, but I prefer to think that I'm open minded and people keep creating new masterpieces every day, and when I discover them they temporarily take the number 1 spot along with a whole host of others.

To get back to the original point of this post, my new favourite advert is for Dairy Milk and features a gorilla playing the drums along to the classic Phil Collins tracks "In the air tonight".

Here's the ad in question:


I think Fallon have created an instant classic that people will remember for many years with this advert. I think it plays very well on the British love of off-the-wall humour and the simple fact that anything can be made exponentially more entertaining by placing a guy in a gorilla suit into human situations - see The Mighty Boosh and Trigger Happy TV for evidence. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that Bollo the talking gorilla from The Mighty Boosh is also a drummer: this may well be a deliberate link, I'm not sure.

Anyway, the advert is also very attention grabbing, both visually and aurally: the simplicity of the music and the close-up on a gorilla (which isn't obviously a man in a gorilla suit until further into the ad) is very powerful. When I first saw it I missed the opening "a GLASS and a HALF FULL PRODUCTION" which, of course, instantly informs the viewer that this is an advert for dairy milk, with a welcome return of this classic slogan. By missing it I thought that I was watching an advert for an animal abuse charity at first and I was intrigued to see where it was going. Needless to say I absolutely lost it when he (I'm assuming it's a he; I don't know why) started playing the drums. Somehow they've managed to make the gorilla's face gurn perfectly in the same way all drummers (myself included) do, which is a brilliant touch: he really looks like he's feeling the music.

I think one of the main reasons this advert is so good is that it is a refreshing change from the more standard in your face "here's the product, this product is great, did I mention the name of the product? Buy our product, here's the logo, slogan, blah blah blah buy our product!!" school of advertising. It is entertaining, and it mentions the product very briefly. Simple, effective, and I crave a dairy milk every time I see it.

I haven't yet seen any other media from this advertising campaign, but I hope that Fallon have integrated this advert across other platforms - billboards, digital and POS featuring the gorilla would serve as neat reminders of the TV version, get people talking about it and, of course, buying the chocolate bars. I am, in all seriousness, going to buy a big bar of Dairy Milk next time I go to the shop, just to say thanks for this great piece of advertising (honest, that's the real reason, nothing to do with cravings the likes of which have never before been felt by someone who wasn't pregnant).

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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.