01/07/09

Death cuts through

Summer advertising is all around us: upbeat, colourful and oh so happy. As it is every year. And given the yearning for some escapist relief after months of malaise, this season’s batch is shaping up to be sunnier than ever.

Which is probably why this poster keeps making me smile…

Since their debut album came out in February (title, ‘To Lose My Life’, naturally) White Lies have been painted as morbid miserablists. So how to present their summer tour? By seeing that accusation straight in the eye, and raising it.

Good for them.

In another summer of froth, ‘The Summer Of Death’ will stand out a mile…

27/05/09

Sh*t brand no history

Just a bunch of lemmings, aren’t we?

When the economy was va va voom it was all about being new, and history was bunk.

Now it’s in the toilet, with even venerable names going belly up, every advertiser in Britain seems to be lining up to reassure us how long it’s been around.

Selfridges’ celebration of its 100 year birthday felt fair enough…

But is anyone beyond Unilever Towers really up for celebrating that Persil has also been around that long?

Applauding yourself for reaching the neither here nor there milestone of 125 starts to feel a bit like bandwagon following…

…while Sainsbury’s attempted one-upmanship riposte completely jumps the shark…

Who the hell, apart from darts players, cares about 140 as a number?

Where will this fad end?
Will it become mandatory for every brand to sign off with a ’since a long time ago’ number?

Or is there one out there bold enough to swim against the tide and flaunt its youth?

20/05/09

A massage for you oldie

At The Specials reunion concert at Brixton on Saturday, you didn’t have to be male, over 40 and balding…

…but it certainly helped.

By the way, I think that The Specials playing live should become our leading economic indicator.

Think about it: their heyday was 1979 to around 1981, a period when the economy was fully in the toilet.
Then they break up, and within a a year or two it’s into steady growth.
And apart from a flutter in the early 90s it stays in growth mode right up until, well, the very moment last year when they announced they were to reform and head off on the road.
At which point it promptly went belly up, and has stayed that way ever since.

So when they announce their Leonard Cohen style ‘earn back the pension’ tour of student unions and the Wycombe Swan in 2015, sell, sell, sell…

19/05/09

Why haven't royalties come in gangs?

INT. MOTHER BLACK CAP. PUBLIC HOUSE. DAY

This is an Irish pub. The bar is full of men. Only two women in here and they look like men. Faces like rotten beetroots. It’s a horrible place. Shit-coloured formica. Carpet like the surface of a road. The atmosphere is rank with smoke and Irish accent. WITHNAIL leads the way to the bar and is served at once.

WITHNAIL: Two large gins. Two pints of cider. Ice in the cider.

(Taken from ‘Withnail and I’, Bruce Robinson)

The revival of the cider category, through the suggestion of serving it over ice, has long been credited to Magners.

But has it ever been publicly acknowledged that the idea was actually advanced almost twenty years earlier in the script of Withnail and I?

Also makes me wonder what other potential commercial gems might lie within the screenplay.

Could the Camberwell carrot now be monetised?
Lighter fuel repositioned as the recession-friendly way to get wasted?
Or might M&S consider a ‘Cake and Fine Wine’ deal as the follow-up to its dine in for a tenner promotion?

The greatest decade in the history of mankind may indeed be over.
But the marketing opportunities have surely only just begun…

How did we miss this murmur?

While we’re on the subject of Magners, I confess myself to be baffled by their latest campaign.

I thought that the burning issues currently exercising the collective mind were things like the collapse of the global economy, the avarice of our parliamentary representatives and why Arsenal won’t ever spend decent money on central defenders.

But apparently not.

What’s really getting us all riled up this summer, it seems, is the disappointment caused by cider manufacturers’ sneaky habit of adding other types of fruit into their pear cider blends…

Must admit that this whole pear purity crisis had passed me by. (Where have I been?)

But it’s giving me a warm feeling to know that those good people at Magners have put the whole thing to bed.

Bless them for so elegantly solving a problem I didn’t even know I had.

Obviously people who know how to get things done.

Any chance they could give Arsene Wenger a call?