Obamad

Barack Obama's first presidential ad, from all the way back in December 2006:

Stars What Sell. #11: Johnny Rotten

The great John Lydon consolidates his (increasingly plausible) national treasure status by appearing in a funny little ad for Country Life butter. No doubt there are those who would claim that this is 'selling out'. Utter rot, of course - mainly because Lydon sold out many years ago. And good on him for it too; why should he continue to carry the flag for a movement that died almost as soon as it was born, fantastic though it was?

Anyway, his reaction to the Morris dancers is an absolute joy. As is the way he intones 'the best' at the end of the ad. He could have a great future in advertising, that boy.

Truth in Advertising

Further to the post below, a very funny - and brilliantly acted - account of what really goes on in the world of advertising:

Creatives Good. Clients Bad. Yes?

We've all heard the old adage: that advertising would be a great business to be in if it wasn't for the clients.

The little film below attempts to bring to life the constant frustations that creatives suffer at the hands of clients. You know, how clients always want the logo bigger, how they're never happy, how they like to interfere with the creative work etc.

You might expect us to be on the side of the creative person in this film. But we're not. And the reason for that is not once does that poor, beleagured Art Director challenge the client about any of their ludicrous decisions. He just sits there, like a dimwit, doing exactly what he's told to do. At no point does he flex his creative muscles or demonstrate his knowledge and expertise - the things that the client hired him for in the first place. So, as far as we're concerned, he gets what he deserves. Which is, presumably, not the response the filmmakers were hoping for.

Saying that though, the film is still pretty funny and well worth a watch:

As Good For You Today....

At last, Hovis lives up to its brand strengths with a great, nostalgic ad that covers the past 122 years in 122 seconds. Epic stuff. What's really good about it, however, is the little touches, the attention to detail. I particularly like the blink and you'll miss them nods to immigration in the 60s and 70s. And it's all done, essentially, from a working-class perspective (explicitly so with the miners' strike), which is where Hovis has always been best at placing itself. The only thing missing is Dvorak's Largo, the famous Hovis theme.

It's lovingly shot, it looks accurate (the street in the 70s is spot-on) and the kid's performance is superb.

Dead Man Walking

From Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas, a rather unique endorsement of their services:

You Could Eat Your Dinner Off It

Despite the fact that they're all over 50 and still earning minimum wage, there's never been a happier bunch of mop and broom pushers than the fellas appearing in this great McDonald's TV ad from 1971.

Saving Lives in Scotland

It's good to see that advertising not only works but can also work as a force for good. As was the case with this Scottish organ donor ad which was linked to an amazing 300% rise in donor numbers.

This hard-hitting ad can be seen on the BBC news site:



And you can sign up to donate your own organs here, on the NHS site.

Don La Fontaine RIP

Voiceover king Don La Fontaine has died at the relatively young age of 68. Best known for his deep-voiced "In a world where..." narrations for film trailers, he was also kept extremely busy working on thousands of TV and radio ads. As the BBC reports, he was probably the busiest ever actor in the history of the Screen Actors Guild.

To see him at work, there's a great Geico ad on this page (scroll down a bit). And to hear him at work, there's this Birdseye ad - proof that a great voice can turn something mundane into something quite special:

Kitchen F***ing Nightmare

A great little ad for a hospitality jobs site called caterer.com. It features a very young Gordon Ramsay telling his mum where to get off. And quite right too.

Part 2, where he gives a restaurant manager a piece of his mind, can be found here.

Stars What Sell. #10: Mr James Brown.

Trading on the old Blues myth of doing a deal with the devil at the Crossroads, the Godfather of Soul attempts to re-negotiate his contract. Which is, of course, exactly what you'd expect to happen in a BMW commercial.

This slick, brash and noisy production makes good use of its stars: Gary Oldman is superb as the devil, Clive Owen is unflappably cool as Mr Brown's driver, the silly Marilyn Manson pulls off a neat comic turn and James Brown is, quite simply, James Brown.

The best thing about the film is that it's basically a loving homage to a genuine cultural giant. It's quite poignant in places, with Brown himself acknowledging the downside of growing old. Overall though, it's just great seeing him enjoy himself.

The only sour note is that, when all's said and done, it's a commercial for a car. And if anyone should have been beyond hawking his talents in ads, it should have been the great James Brown.

Oh, and it's directed by Tony Scott.

Stars What Sell. #9: The Star Wars Robots

R2D2 gets caught puffing behind the spacestation version of the bike sheds. And CP30 doesn't like it one bit.

Remember kids: Most robots don't smoke.

Frame By Frame By Frame: RAC Insurance

A beautiful piece of work for RAC by The Brand Agency in Australia. There's no 3D magic or post-production trickery - it's all good old-fashioned stop-frame animation (albeit done with the very latest gear). We could argue whether it actually does much of a job of selling RAC's insurance, but it certainly grabs attention and stands up to repeated viewings. Which is more than you can say for most insurance ads - or any ads, come to that.

The high quality version (recommended) can be viewed by clicking here: Motionographer.

The lower quality version can be seen here:

Dave Trott: "Uncreatives"

Thought-provoking stuff from Dave Trott who reminds us what creativity is - and what it isn't:

I see lots of people calling themselves creative, yet all they ever do is headlines and pictures.
(And maybe occasionally choose a director and go on a shoot.)
I think they’ve confused what creativity is.
Edward de Bono said, “Lots of people call themselves creative who are actually merely stylists.”
For me creativity isn’t what you do.
It’s a quality in whatever you do.
A really dull, predictable painting isn’t creative just because it’s a painting.
Whereas Muhammad Ali was creative, even though he’s a boxer.
Napoleon was creative.
So was Rommel.
Murdoch is creative.
So is Branson.
Steve Jobs.
Walt Disney.
In their own fields they are/were as creative as Picasso, Bob Dylan or Orson Welles.
Yet all our so-called creatives do is argue about ATL or digital.
Creativity is wherever you find it.
Look at George Lois.
He did a lot of ads.
Some good, some bad.
He also designed restaurants.
He designed packaging.
He designed magazine covers.
He did logos.
He did album covers.
He did anything and everything he could get his hands on.
Some good, some bad.
But the sheer tsunami of creativity he was involved in meant that even if you thought 50% of it was crap, the remaining 50% was still ten times as much great work as the entire output of anyone else.
The dictionary defines creativity as, “Bringing into existence something which did not previously exist.”
It doesn’t define it as, “Sitting in your office waiting for the perfect brief to land on your desk.”
If you’re not creating something, you’re not creative.
It’s no more complicated than that.
If nothing is happening, make something happen.
Maybe it’s not ads.
It doesn’t matter what it is, just make something happen.
The clock is ticking.
And that’s your life going by.

Stars What Sell. #8: Eric Sykes

If you're going to use a celebrity in an ad it makes sense to use one who has a distinct, and likeable, personality. As Creda did here with Eric Sykes in the early 80s. The ad itself is serviceable enough but it really wins through as a result of Sykes' gentle, and very funny, mugging. Which could be just another way of saying that he's got a great face (and what comedians call genuine "funny bones").

It helps, of course, that he's also one of the few (relatively) modern comedians who understands the art of silent comedy.

There, There

From JWT Cairo, a series of ads for first aid cream that are wrong on just about every level. Once you've got over the images of babies being pig roasted, toasted or burnt to death with a flame thrower (by their parents, no less) you can enjoy the terrible, and decidedly creepy, illustration style.

Click the pics to see them big:

Irn Bru: If

Engaging, funny, moving, beautifully shot... a lovely ad from Irn Bru that makes excellent use of Kipling's If and captures some of the great things about Scotland and its people.

Stars What Sell. #7: Johnny Cash

There was a time - from around the late-seventies till the early-nineties - that the late, great Johnny Cash wasn't, in fact, so great. He still had that voice, of course, but it was often heard over some of the most mediocre songs of his career. At the same time, he seemed happy to trade in his Man in Black persona for something a little more cuddly.

As he did here, in an ad for Taco Bell (which, as you might expect, also makes good use of his surname).

Interestingly, the ad was made just a couple of years before he made his triumphant return to serious artist status with American Recordings in 1994.

Happy Holidays

It's vacation time. We're going to be away for a couple of weeks. And because at least one of us will be in New York (and visiting Madison Avenue) we thought we'd post this great clip from Mad Men - Don Draper pitching a campaign for Kodak's new 'wheel'. That's how to do it.

No Meat

Another bizarre piece of work. While this ad features a bowling bull, the other two in the campaign feature a knitting sheep and a trolley pushing pig. The gag (explicit in the line "Let meat live") is that they're all enjoying their old age. Or something.

Coup don't want to tell potential customers all the good things about their vegetarian restaurant (the fantastic food, the wonderful atmosphere, the great prices etc.). No, they prefer instead to push a silly student idea about one of the effects of vegetarianism - that animals will live longer (except, of course, they won't, given that those animals wouldn't have even been born in the first place were it not for the demand for meat). So yet again what we have is a practically useless piece of work that no doubt owes its existence to the agency thinking that funny (even though it's not even that funny) and creative (even though it's not even that creative) overrides anything that might touch on actual communication.

But perhaps more worrying than all of that is the question of: how on earth did that bull get its hooves into the bowling ball's holes?

Stars What Sell. #6: Don La Fontaine & Little Richard

A couple of cracking ads from Geico Car Insurance. Very funny and right on brief.

Can You See What It Is Yet?

There have been some wonderful ads for Lego recently (scroll down to the bottom of this page for a couple of great examples). This, however, isn't one of them.



If you knew what it was, good for you. For those that didn't - it's supposed to be the periodic table of elements. The gag, of course, is in that 'make anything' line.

As a piece of communication, it fails completely. Yes, it may well induce a knowing smile in chemistry students, but your average six-year-old will probably just wonder why they've used Lego bricks to make a boring pattern. And in the end all it does is suggest that the agency 'creatives' were more concerned with talking to each other (or, rather, showing off to each other) than they were with talking to their target audience.

Hansaplast To The Rescue

From TBWA Barcelona, a lovely response to the proposition "plasters that heal".

Stars What Sell. #5: Bo Diddley RIP

The utterly wonderful Bo Diddley died the other day. This is an ad he appeared in for a Dutch recruitment agency in 2005. It features him playing the blues, rather than the unique brand of rhythm-heavy rock 'n' roll he invented in the mid 50s (often described as 'Bo's Beat').



But this is more like it - Bo (and The Duchess on second guitar) knocking 'em dead on US TV in 1966:

Low Price as High Art

Created by O&M Malaysia for Carrefour stores, proof that price-driven retail ads can be things of beauty. It must have made the client very happy too.

Click for the larger view.

No Shame

What's most horrible about this ad? That it's 'kooky'? That it's full of self-consciously hip hipster types? That it thinks, by virtue of its 'Oh my God what did I do last night' premise, that it's somehow daring? That the actors deliberately sing just out of tune in that half-baked, half-closed eyed, slacker way that so many indie singers do these days? That they all seem to live in an idealised New York that makes it look a bit like Trumpton?

Or is it that you not only have to work out what the product is, you also have to guess what the benefit of using the product is?

Mother's Ruin

In the old days it wasn't obese kids they worried about. It was skinny, listless drips like the kid in this Cream of Wheat ad from 1933. Of course, it's his mother's fault he's like that. Maybe if she bought him a PlayStation and took him to McDonald's more often he'd put a few pounds on.

Mopey. Now there's a great word to use in an ad.

Click to view the larger size.

Go With Jacko

Funny and clever. Well, more funny than clever. Still, it's good to see a poster that's not just a piece of graphic design with a logo on it. At least this has got an idea behind it.

The line, if you can't be bothered to enlarge the picture, says: "Navigation and entertainment in one."

Created by DDB Germany Berlin.

Like Lynx. But Better

Despite featuring a succession of scantily-clad women, this lovely new ad for Axe Bullet manages to be very sweet and refreshingly un-laddish. The excellent little-boy-lost casting helps, but it's mainly due to the underlying premise - that although it's obvious that he's looking for one thing, you know that he's also looking for something more. Great stuff.

Oh, and it really does help that the ad features The Seeds' fantastic Can't Seem To Make You Mine.

Created by BBH New York.

Hitler Bad. Cigarettes Even Badder.

Further to an earlier Jukebox post ("Smoke and Fire"), a ridiculous campaign by Brazil's F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi agency that basically tells us that cigarettes are more evil than Hitler. Note that it doesn't just say that many millions of people have died from smoking. They have to make, for some reason, a stupid and offensive comparison to get that point across.

But what else kills more than Hitler? Cars. Domestic accidents. Heart attacks (or, rather, fatty foods and alcohol). All sorts of things, in fact. So it'd be quite easy, say, for health councils to make Hitler faces out of hamburgers or bottles of beer. Or for road safety campaigners to form parked cars into the shape of a swastika. And they could all carry a variation on the same line: "Fatty foods/Alcohol/Cars etc. kill more". Brlliant.

Millions murdered at the hands of a genocidal maniac and they think it's appropriate to compare it with people who die from something they choose to indulge in - something, moreover, that anyone over the age of three knows is very bad for you?

And what do they think this ad will achieve? It's been proven that trying to get people to stop smoking by telling them that many people die from smoking just doesn't work. Which is probably something the agency is fully aware of - hence this crass, and rather desperate, campaign that, at best, might get a bit of attention for the agency.

Dickie Beasley - Ad Man

Once again, from the pages of Viz Comic, Dickie Beasley shows the world what life in an ad agency is really like - dead cats nailed to church doors and all.

Click the image for a closer look.

Stars What Sell. #4: Sammy Davis Jnr

Back when stars were stars... the incomparable Sammy Davis Jr (accompanied by a cartoon shell) dances and drives around 1950s London while extolling the virtues of a certain brand of petrol. He even gets in a nice bit of rhyming slang.

It's Fun To Fly!

Of course, if you want to fly anywhere these days you have to first ensure that everyone knows how full of self-loathing you are about doing it. But it wasn't too long ago that flying was fun. So much fun, in fact, that they even incorporated the concept into this airliner's very name. Lovely stuff.

Light Up Your Life

From Thailand, a very - very - strange ad for lightbulbs.

Stars What Sell. #3: God

The ultimate celebrity endorsement. Sort of.

Although God himself doesn't make an appearance, one of his trusted earthly representatives lets us know that New Testament cigarettes are His favourite: "I smoke 'em, He smokes 'em." And there's a lovely little dig at the competitor brand too: "Those are for sinners."

From Woody Allen's excellent Bananas (1971):

Dickie Beasley - Account Executive

From the pages of Viz comic, a stunningly accurate pastiche of what ad agencies are like. Or, rather, what many of them are like (hint: It's not like that here at Jukebox). It's very funny too.

Click the image to see the larger size.

Stork Monster

Another great Monster TV ad. As usual, it's very clever, very creative and bang on brief. But this time it's also quite moving. In fact, it gets you right there. Not there, there....

It's A Steal!

Who was it that said: "Talent imitates, genius steals"?

Advertising has always nodded to the various aspects of the culture it finds itself in. It'd be strange if it didn't. But it's a very thick line between invoking the zeitgeist and just ripping off other people's ideas. As has been the case with two very recent TV commercials: Sugar Puffs' 'homage' to The Mighty Boosh, and Berocca's cribbing of OK Go's Here It Goes Again video.

The problem perhaps isn't so much that they've stolen ideas, it's that they've done it so badly and so shamelessly. Both examples are very poor imitations of the originals. It's almost as if the 'creatives' behind the ads are telegraphing their utter contempt not only for the orginal works but also for their own industry. It's lazy, uninspired and does absolutely nothing for the companies advertising or for the marketing industry as whole. No wonder so many people regard advertising as a somewhat ignoble profession, full of charlatans and thieves.

Anyway, here are the ads - preceded by their sources.

The Mighty Boosh - Soup


Sugar Puffs


OK Go - Here It Goes Again


Berocca

KennedyKennedyKennedyKennedy....

It seemed apt to post this particular video on the day of our local elections.

From 1960, a sweet, and rather irritating, political advertisement for John F Kennedy.

Stars What Sell. #2: The Flintstones

Cartoon characters smoking? Think of the children!

Of course, in those days (1960) The Flinstones' target audience was adults. And as it was quite normal for cigarette manufacturers to sponsor TV shows, there's no reason why they shouldn't have done so here. What's most peculiar about this spot, however, is the reason Fred and Barney decide to light up: because they're bored, because it's better than taking a nap. It's curious, also, that Winston were quite happy to have a couple of layabouts endorsing their product - and prehistoric ones at that.

Stars What Sell. #1: Tony Hancock

From 1965, a whole series of fantastic commercials from the Egg Marketing Board. Fantastic because they feature the talents of the late, and very great, Tony Hancock (ably supported by the gorgeous Patricia Hayes).

The ads are basically mini versions of the Hancock TV and radio series (even going so far as to blatantly copy the famous tuba theme tune). The lad himself potrays his much-loved downtrodden, though curiously self-important, persona, while Patricia Hayes reprises her occasional role as Mrs Ratchet, his housekeeper. As well as being very funny, they also manage to get across that they're all about eggs. Which is quite a feat, considering that Hancock's personality is so powerful.

Look out for the cameo from Celebrity Squares stalwart Pat Coombs....

The Wooly and Worth Show

Everybody seems to be talking about Jackie Chan's bizarre star turn in the latest Woolworths TV ad. It's funny, yes, but nowhere near as funny as the ads featuring Darth Vader and Rolf Harris. If you haven't seen them, simply click below.

Best bit: the recurring gag where Wooly, while supposedly reaching for the item he's gone to Woolworths for, gets distracted and says: "Ooh, hello!" Great punchlines too.

Family Fun

It's good sometimes to look back at older advertising, to see how well - and how differently - they did things then. Here's a lovely example from 1892: one of the first ads for the Nintendo Wii. I wonder if they knew then how big it would eventually become?

Lost Souls

What a fantastic appeal - asking if you want to call your soul your own. Not your home, your country, your identity, your job or even your wife. Your very soul. Chilling stuff.



More great - and bizarre - Conservative Party posters here: I want to sell you a Tory

Green Scene

The best ad currently on television? Yes. But whether that's to do with the quality of the ad itself, or because TV adverts are generally so bad at the moment, is another matter. Still, the fact remains that this is a fun, lively and memorable spot that sports a catchy (well-loved) song, some smart lyrics, great product demonstration, superb branding and the best dancing frog since Kermit. It brings a big smile to the face and can be watched again and again. Best of all, it does a fantastic job of making a boring product (and task) seem essential and fun.

The word on the street is that the kids adore it - there's even a Facebook page devoted to it. Which would be perfect, of course, if Evergreen's target audience were gangs of teenage girls. But as it stands, it's highly likely that even the real target audience (essentially, Dennis the Menace's dad) love it too.

Tight Fit

Very simple. Very effective.

David Ogilvy

It's all happening on BBC4 at the moment. Not only with the excellent Mad Men, but also with a series of cracking documentaries about various aspects of advertising. The most recent programme was a biopic of the great David Ogilvy that, while focusing a little too much on his colourful private life, was a fascinating insight into one of the true giants of the business.

And here, from 1977, is an entertaining and illuminating interview with the man himself. It's almost an hour long - so make sure you're sitting comfortably.

Do The Test

From Transport For London, a thought-provoking ad and awareness test. How many passes can you count?

Smoke and Fire

Anti-smoking types are always a worry. Even after significant victories (such as banning smoking in public places and casting smokers as society's biggest pariahs - at just a notch below child molesters) they refuse to let things lie. Fanaticism of any kind is disturbing, but these lot are in a league of their own.

Take the ad below. No doubt there are those who would applaud its audacity and make all sorts of claims for its creativity. But they'd be wrong to do so. What are we supposed to take from it? That while innocent people being murdered is all very tragic, it's much more tragic that people die from indulging in a habit that they, by and large, choose to indulge in? The only comparison between the two is that dead people are involved.

The line at the bottom reads: "Terrorism-related deaths since 2001: 11,377. Tobacco-related deaths since 2001: 30,000,000."

But maybe it's fine to make these kinds of fatuous comparisons. How about the chimneys of Auschwitz made to look like giant cigarettes with the line: "6 million dead? Nothing compared to the many millions who have died since 1945 from smoking." Or a picture of Pol Pot (or Stalin or Mao) tugging on a cigar while standing in front of a huge pile of human skulls. And why stop at genocide and murder? They could have a huge photograph of starving African children and make the point that more people die from smoking every year. Why not? If the people who died in 9/11 are considered fair game, then so should everyone else. And look how easy it is to achieve as a campaign - it could run for years making those kinds of comparisons.

Of course, the agency responsible would probably argue that it's just about numbers, about making people think about the sheer amount of deaths from smoking. If that's the case, state it. Don't go using the deaths of other people (who have got nothing to do with your cause) as part of your cause. Otherwise it just comes across as cheap, and easy, sensationalism.

Brick Brains

This wonderful Lego campaign does exactly what ads are supposed to do: tap right into the minds (and hearts) of the target audience. Or, in this case, the target audiences (not just the kids but also their parents who would themselves, I'm sure, had similar experiences with Lego). It's a deceptively simple campaign that plays to the strengths of a very strong brand at the same time as managing to capture the wide-eyed wonder of childhood. And all without the use of a single word.

Hats off to Blattner Brunner, the agency behind it.

Poster Perfection

I'm always a bit weary of nostalgia, particularly when it's used to offer 'proof' of how much better things were in the past - because, by and large, things weren't better in the past. We really have never had it so good.

Of course, that doesn't mean that some things weren't better. Poster design was better, for a start. As perfectly illustrated on this aptly titled site: Totally Amazing Posters!

Big Leggy

Monster have quite a nice history of producing funny ads, particularly with their earlier radio spots. Their new TV ad, Monster Legs, gets just about everything right. Not only is it very funny and very sweet, it's also on brief. A great idea that's almost perfectly executed. I say 'almost' because my only complaint would be that it comes a little too close to Stella territory - a surreal Euopean setting peopled by a whole host of rough and ready eccentrics. Surely it's enough that the fella's walking round with giant legs and doing a very odd job, without padding it out with quirky architecture, old generals, lamas and etc? Really, these ad folk should put away their (now very old) copies of Delicatessen.

That said, it's still a great ad - created by BBDO New York:

Colman's Comedy

From Laurel and Hardy's short film Blotto (1930), an early example of product placement as Stan's wife (played by the fantastically vampish Anita Garvin) reaches for various ingredients with which to include in the liquor bottle she's just filled with cold tea. Among those ingredients is a tin of Colman's mustard. Y'know, as in the Colman's mustard that comes from round these parts.



Of course, that's not the only link between Stan and Ollie and Norwich - they were here in 1954, playing at the old Hippodrome Theatre. In fact, there's a blue plaque - stuck on the wall of the St Giles multi-storey car park - that commemorates the event. Go pay homage the next time you're up that way.

More about Laurel and Hardy's Norwich visit can be found here - which also includes choice quotes from my old university professor, Charles Barr. See, everything's connected....

Lose Pounds!

Ah, if only all advertising could be like this. And a coupon too!