I absolutely love this new advert for Robinson's fruit cordial, promoting the brand's naturality. It would be so easy to shoot an advert alongside a tennis court, signing up Andy Murray who could tell us that he loves a swig of Robinson's in between each shot he plays.
No. Gone are the Wimbledon days of Robinson's, and the team at BBH behind this twee little TV spot have recognised this. Is there a possibility also that the creatives are linking this little number into the mindset of all those Twitter folk out there? That's certainly one to think about.
I can just see Stephen Fry twittering now: "Just had a splendiferous glass of Robinson's."
I've got to be completely honest with you, it came as a bit of a shock when I finished watching an advert starring Bruce Willis and Elle Macpherson only to realise it was for NORWICH UNION.
There was little 'ol me thinking that Norwich Union was some 1970s insurance company who had enjoyed some limited success in Norwich, despite an ill-chosen flagship color of canary yellow.
And yet low and behold, here they are with a new £9 million pound advert with every (famous) man, woman, and his/her dog attached. Bruce Willis puts his name to the project (although to be honest - Bruce Willis would put his name on my ass if I gave him £10 - ok, maybe £20).
This is a bit of a doozy, a knockout, an unexpected surprise which gains Norwich Union some much deserved street cred. Especially important as they go through a name transformation, moving their business outside of Norwich, and reinventing themselves as 'Aviva' - a name which just as easily lends itself to a brand of fruit juice as a large-scale insurance firm.
A genius new advert for PG Tips by Mother hit the screens of millions on Christmas Day, and I think it's a little piece of genius.
The advert brings back to life a famous sketch by British comedy duo Morecambe and Wise. For those of you who may be culturally blind sighted by this, the duet was featured in a Christmas show of 1974, which saw the two comedians making breakfast in time with a gaudy strip-show musical song.
PG Tips have timed the release of this advert perfectly - right at the time of year when classic comedy sketches like this appear on Christmas repeat shows. The advert works both as a touching allusion to a comedy great, and a well-executed piece of marketing, putting PG Tips right back on the map.
In the times of Assam, Earl Grey and Chinese white leaf, it's nice to know that we can all enjoy a good 'cuppa if we want to.
I'm quite a fan of this Pepsi Max advert, which I found lying around the internet somewhere.
Twist, follows twist, follows twist = FUNNY. Well done Pepsi, you piqued my interest.
BUT - let's not kid ourselves - massive stereotyping has it's place in this world. How do we differentiate between a geeky girl and a hot mama? Simple: a pair of wide-rimmed glasses and a book. Hot mama wearing the time-tested LBD - simple formulas work, as upsetting and impersonal as they may be.
What is the gay guy wearing? A black 't', tightly fitted around the biceps and chest region (yes, I notice). Is this a formula? Yes and no. Yes because a lot of gay guys go for the black 't' look. No because if you're straight, the chances are you can't pull one off.
They have responded however with a little gem, this time original and genuinely amusing.
Good direction, an upbeat Christmas ditty that makes me want to dance around the Christmas tree, and some snappy editing makes this one of the best Christmas adverts i've seen so far in 2008.
A rift of Bond related advertising swept over the nation in the past few weeks, as relentless and unpersonal as a tsunami. Perhaps we can forgive the host of companies for jumping on the Bond bandwagon. It presents a good opportunity to cash in on something which will have all eyes firmly rooted on it, and therefore whatever you advertise will also share a piece of that attention. Whether this strategy is a sensible one, or perhaps just marketing for maketing's sake, is a question even the secret agent himself would struggle to answer.
First up is my favorite of the lot, the Sony TV spot featuring Daniel Craig. A slow, computerised zoom-out (and then in) on Craig as his surroundings begin to explode and various debris crashes into his evidently steel tuxedo. It's easy to say that the advert lacks direction because it doesn't reveal its message (which is 'Bond in Sony High Definition') until the very end, and some might consider it a waste of audience 'thinking time' - they could be thinking about why they don't own a Sony HD TV instead of wondering why exploding debris is bouncing off the invicible Daniel Craig for the first 50 seconds of the advert.
All of these criticisms of the Sony Bond advert are valid, but also invalid. An advert for a High-Definition product needs to fulfill one simple aim: make TV look luscious, wonderful and beautiful. Do this and the audience will simply gawp, wonder why all of life isn't in HD, jump up and run to the local Comet to buy their life-sharpening new television. Does the Bond advert do this? Tick.
Sort of well done to Coca-Cola Zero for their Bond-related effort: a TV spot which employs the Bond theme song (a well executed collaboration between Jack White and Alicia Keys) and also the lavish animations which tend to run over the opening credits of a Bond film - you know, lots of naked ladies silhouetted so we can't see the naughty bits. It's pure and shameless cashing in on the Bond publicity, and instead I would actually like Coke to tell me what their new Zero drink is all about.Why should I drink it? Should I drink the new Pepsi drink because I can attach a huge balloon to my back and jump off a tall building? No.
Come on Coke and Pepsi - give me an advert which tells me about your drink. It's all very well putting out all of these cool cartoons and crazy stunts, but I'd like to see you sell your drink to me personally for once. It's largely irrelevant because I drink Diet Coke like a fish drinks water, and that fact is unlikely to change. Perhaps Coke know this and have just decided to leave me alone.
I would tell you about the other Bond related adverts, but the truth is they were all so obvious and lacked even the slightest bit of imagination. Samsung or Sony Ericcson, I forget which one, put their logo next to the 'Quantum of Solace' logo and called it a day. Avon decided to go the distance and produced a perfume called 'Bond Girl', and got new Bond totty Gemma Arterton to look stunning next to a picture of the bottle. It was all so plain and ordinary, and as I sat in the cinema, watching these adverts before the film began, I just felt as though I was being harrassed. In purchasing a ticket to see the film, I was forced into shameless direct selling.
The Bond film was not too bad, and you can read what I thought of it in my other blog:
But when I left the cinema, I was all Bond-ed out, and frankly, unimpressed with those that had jumped on the publicity bandwagon and taken me for a ride with them.
Good Ad: Bond Sony HD.
Bad Ads: The rest of the Bond-related raft of adverts.
The Christmas Ads have started, and it is only the end of November.
Perhaps a little early, but reasonable in terms of securing the market of 'planners' - those rare breeds that shop early, make their lists in July, and do all the wrapping by November. If you know someone that is a planner, the chances are that your gift from them will be fairly boring.
Nonetheless, these planners do exist, and its important to snap them up before any one else does, which is exactly what Argos has tried to do with its latest TV spot.
Now, I appreciate their efforts to get in their early, but the creative department behind this must surely have realised the obvious connections between their shiny advert and a celebrated scene from 'Love Actually' in which Rowan Atkinson overkills the gift-wrapping process, must to the chagrin of a hurried Alan Rickman character.
You can see that wonderful scene here, pure physical comedy:
The similarity is there for all to see, but somehow, outright plagiarism is there for all to see, and the creators of the new Argos advert don't seem to mind.
There is just no excuse for this form of blatant copying. In my mind certainly, the commanding thought that arises from this advert is one of disappointment that the agency, CHI, have refused to come up with any original content. I am left with a negative opinion of sham brand Argos, cheap imitators.
Is this just me though? Will the normal consumer be affected by the same moral pangs? I don't think so. They will just see this ad, perhaps think about the scene from Love Actually, be amused by the connection, and then go and buy Love Actually, probably from Argos.
Well done to CHI and Argos for being the first off the Christmas mark, but in a season which repeats itself every year, with the same mince pies and the same predictable presents, someone needs to stand out.
