brand new

A nation no longer on a diet

After all the noise of the Atkins revolution which has now (thankfully) ended - from a peak of one in ten people following strict carb diets it's plummeted in three months to one in twenty - sodas are now dropping the diet from their names. It feels like another sign we're getting tired of being told to be healthy, when generally there is a trend towards self-controlled wellness. It also may help the obesity problem as it'll give people one less excuse to buy the donuts when they're in Walmart.

Lost In Translation

This is why I love the interweb. All those Western 'stars' who took a lot of Yen for appearing in some truly horrendous ads that they believed no one over here would ever see. If you're a Brit and remember the 80s, you'll cherish the Rick Astley cider ad. If you watch movies, check out Brad Pitt's Edwin Jeans attrocities.

Thanks to John Griffith's site for discovering this treasure chest.

A blast from the past

Thank you Joey Tomatoes for reminding me how great the PlayStation Double Life spot was. To me, this is one of the few examples in the last decade of advertising that gets it - an arresting, clear articulation of the idea and values of a brand. An idea that rewards you for taking the time to be interrupted from your day to day life. An idea that was worth probably billions to Sony, and put huge barriers up to their competition.

It also shows the value of teamwork between Client and Agency. I'm lucky enough to have worked with Ed Morris and James Sinclair, the team who came up with the spot and this is their finest hour so far. It's also has been Sony's so far - the newer Fun Anyone? work just doesn't touch you in the same way, and doesn't make PlayStation feel so different and compelling. It's proof that the really great work comes from a really great team of individuals (and, as Russell Davies always says, a big dose of luck.)

I thought our job was to make things different

But it seems from the new McCann website that no one told them. Apart from the fact that the Blue Man-esque treatment is a bit creepy, the talking heads could come from any of the big networks. 'Creating demand' is their mantra but isn't that the point of any communications? I'm sure they have some convoluted process charts that make them look clever and oh so expensive, but where's their big idea?

Feeling dirty

So the profession I work in is now less trusted than lawyers and closing in on car salesman fast. That's according to the latest Gallup poll on professional ethics and honesty.

I actually find this depressing. My personal top 5 reasons are:

1. Ads that wildly overclaim - soap powders that make your children more creative et al
2. OTC drug advertising - those twenty seconds at the end of each spot that tell you that a drug you don't need for a condition you don't have may have fatal side effects
3. The public face of advertising - Donny, please take a bow as well as pretty much any ad person who appears on TV
4. The increasing pollution we are supplying - ads on kids' schoolbooks, guerilla postings every where you turn
5. The fact that certain agencies will do any work for anyone as long as the money for them is right

Anyone want to add? I actually think this is pretty serious - it's another symptom of increasing public anger over advertising's increasing intrusion in their lives and another factor on why we will continually find it hard to recruit the best young talent. It's time to start thinking about our whole industry again because more and more evidence is there that the machine's broke.

CP&B do it again

a fantastic site for Borders - it's the HAL of gift shopping.

I truly feel sorry

for any agency that pitches for Jaguar. So far, in two weeks, they have managed to narrow down their longlist of search consultants to four. They hope to narrow this to two in the next couple of weeks. And then they start looking for an agency.

This has all the signs of the most tortuous pitch process ever. And if they take this long picking a consultant, how hard must it be to get an idea through?

The business of advertising

I was interviewing someone the other day and he talked about how his agency was good because it was good at 'the business of advertising'. By this he meant they were good at ensuring all their clients made enough money for the agency, and there was lots of process in place to ensure costs were kept minimal. This frankly scared me. Sure, we need to make money. But shouldn't that come from the ideas we produce? The ideas that can have transformational effects on businesses and brands? I then saw a great post on Russell Davies' site berating us as an industry for trying to turn ourselves into our clients' mirror image rather than acting as a resource for creativity.

It's time to change the way we make money. We need in my belief to move away from time based remuneration (at least as a source of profit) and move towards the model Rainey Kelly championed where time is covered at cost but profit comes from the commercial return on a creative idea. After all, isn't that what we do?

AWOL

Sorry for the lack of posts recently but I was busy getting married. I'll try and keep things more regular from now on.