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!