If Carlsberg did supermodels

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Two stories. One caption.

It's a big knob on a roof.

A lesson in cultural stereotype reinforcement

Borrow yer scissors mate? Eh, eh, eh?

I found this gem of an article during some research into credit crunch behaviours. For some reason it amuses; I can't think why.

Hair cuts hit by the credit crisis
5 February 2009
Liverpool Echo
Hairdressers have become the latest victims of the credit crunch - as more people cut their own locks.
Almost half of Liverpool men who were questioned admitted to cutting their own hair while 30% asked a friend to chop it for them.
The poll also revealed that 28% of Liverpudlians are letting their hair grow long to avoid pricey cuts.
Men aged between 35 and 44 were found most likely to cut their own hair, whereas men aged 16 to 24 prefer to grow their hair long.

Does this mean the return of the Keegan perm? Do gangs of Scouse geezer blokes congregate in each others' houses with their tinnies and scissors for a communal beer and grooming session? More research needed.

Why sometimes it's a bad idea to use real people in ads

Currently spreading ennui around much of the London rail network. Take my word for it: this looks far, far worse as a poster.

Clickage for biggage

Mr Sanderson's expression is due to
	constipation
	imminent dribbling
	a generous person hiding under the table
pollcode.com free polls

Big balls!

With delicious timing, LBC's deranged supermum Jeni Barnett's anti-vaccination rant was swiftly followed by the public death throes of Andrew Wakefield's deluded claim that the MMR jabs were dangerous. What the world really needs now, in order to nail the destructive claims from such dangerous idiots, is some pro-vaccine advertising. First strike goes to Canada.

via Respectful Insolence

I’m glad this wasn’t in my Xmas stocking

I’m sticking with the same two resolutions as last January: no alcohol for half the year (i.e. no beer in the mornings), and try and stop swearing in this blog. Unfortunately, really shitty advertising still fucks up some decent telly watching, even at Christmas.
Here’s something from the arse end of midnight, shown between episodes of Father Ted.
I have to try really hard to understand who would buy this crap: several hours’-worth of stolen music accelerated to 100rpm with a duh-duh-duh beat. Oh, hang on, I was in Basildon last week – the chav capital of Essex and dammit, wasn’t it just this kind of noise I could hear from every other motor?
Incidentally, if you see two chavs in a car and there’s no music on, who’s driving? The Police.

Bang!vertising

See those tiny grey marks on this advertising blimp? That's yer angry locals firing shotguns at it, that is. Very un-English behaviour. I think they need bigger guns.

And just opposite the church...

not really, but found on Flickr

The Chimpometer S89 detects casual racism and paedophiles up to 500 yards

This Nikon work from Euro RSCG Singapore is weirdly disturbing and shows a breathtaking lack of imagination.
The snapshot from Paedophile Towers gives me the willies, but not in a good way. OK to stare at if you are a teenager who should be revising for exams, but otherwise just too darn creepy. Why is there a boy hiding behind the curtains? Why aren’t these girls at school? If only Sony would come along and blow this place up with paint bombs. Now THAT would challenge Nikon’s facial recognition widget.
As if our own racial stereotyping of Indians dancing for industrially produced emetic sauces wasn’t bad enough, here’s something straight out of Tintin’s Guide To Spotting Dangerous Natives Of Indeterminate Race.
I’m surprised the hidden chaps from Indiana Jones’ central casting don’t have bones through their noses.

Pics from Coloribus

"An Adman from A to V"

The intro to this love letter to David Ogilvy says "Caution: the following video clip is an amateur effort. It was produced and edited by the staff of Bold Ogilvy Athens", as if the "amateur" bit excuses the toe-curling embarrassment of even watching this.
My fave bit: "You said many and beautiful things, but this one is the Lord of your rings..."

**Edit: For some inexplicable reason (e.g. being laughed at by most of the advertising world), this video has been pulled.**

Picked up via comments on Scamp

You doth protest too much

I am unconvinced of the existence of omnipotent desert-born sky ghosts, but if people want to believe in them and wear the badges, then let them be, I say.
Religion is responsible for some of the most resilient brands in history, plus some awesome patent protection. Their brand directors tend to stay in their jobs for life and follow strict dress codes. Being a brand loyalist is usually pretty harmless, although switching brands occasionally raises eyebrows.
It was therefore a shame to see a touch of religious nuttership in my sleepy village. Every piece of street furniture has one of these stickers. The odd thing is that the target of this spite attack doesn’t actually exist. A nearby neighbour occasionally travels about 30 miles to the nearest mosque. He told me this in the pub. Over a pint.
And there’s the Turkish family who run the kebab shop on the high street (opposite the quaint Norman church), but bearing in mind the contents of their shopping trolley, spotted in Asda one parched summer’s day a year or so ago, I’d hardly label them as committed members of that faraway mosque.
This campaign, should it occur in Wembley or Bradford, would be inflammatory and whip up some nasty feeling. The reaction at Sleepyville? Any angry marches by outraged Christians worried about a Saracen invasion? No, just a letter in the local paper complaining about the eyesores spoiling our lamp posts.

Laptops Direct - doing their bit for chav marketing

I'm still not entirely convinced that this isn't an April Fools joke, but this was posted in March and there's a little too much effort in the supporting website for it to be a one-day-wonder by some small company. Still, this call for volunteers to wear marketing tattoos is a bloody good laugh. Check out the website and look at the fee chart.
My favourite bit is in the press release:
"I know some will think of this as exploitation but they are misguided. Lots of people have tattoos for fun and we are giving them an opportunity to get paid for doing the same thing! Besides our logo is a lot more tasteful than say the Leeds United logo or the name of an ex girlfriend. We are also doing a careful screening process to ensure vulnerable people such as drug addicts and the mentally ill are not branded."

**Edit**

From Laptops Direct's Marketing Manager (see Comments):

"This was an April Fools joke but we were amazed by the response. We had over 100 emails from people expressing outrage at our moral indecency!"

Gordon, get out of my F-ing face

In the last year Gordon Ramsay has appeared in TV ads for BT and the Blood Donor Service, and had his grumpy face on a press campaign for Gordon’s Gin (Gordon’s… geddit? Yes, I laughed so hard my spleen ripped). His Kitchen Nightmares and F-Word series are on perpetual loops on satellite telly, and his Hell’s Kitchen format is being flogged mercilessly in the USA.
He has also lost his top spot in the Good Food Guide, has been sued for non-payment of bills, has had his New York restaurant panned by the food critics, and has seen the end of his tenancy at the Mayfair Connaught.
His sweary aggression has been great fun to watch, but the Gordon Ramsay brand is starting to look a bit thin. A rumbustious public profile is telegenic only for so long… too much of it and you just start to look like a rude, self-parodying dick. Where will it end? Coming later this year: Gordon F-ing Ramsay in Panto.
It’s time to lay off the media and just concentrate on the bloody restaurants.
The last word goes to this brilliant piss-take from twobob:

Someone fire the decorators

Yes, we get it. Gentlemen. Blondes. White vs Black & Red. That's a distinctly odd kink on display. But "beautifully co-ordinated rooms"? It's a bloody mess!

Now that fox hunting is banned

I really, really want to see this in London. Preferably at about 11 on a Friday evening, in Peckham. Or New Cross.

Found on Flickr

Brain mash

I like to kid myself that I'm a mean and moody fucker, someone you don't want to mess with. I even use Viagra eye drops to make me look hard. But this illusion is shattered most Saturday evenings when I squirm at the pretend blood on Casualty (an improbable hospital drama on BBC1), or on Thursdays when House's patients succumb to exploding eyes and lungs leaking out of their noses. Retch.
This fucking disgusting ad has been gracing the morning papers for several weeks, and I'm sure CHI decided to deliberately target the hard nuts who laugh at blood and guts on the telly, because there's no way I'm buying Britvic's new mineral water. I will forever associate it with leaking brains.
I know that's not what the ad intended, but then again I now associate Smirnoff with the taste of seawater.
I'm starting to hear voices in my head too.

Gateway to ad heaven

I'm trying to tune in to the zeitgeist of 1993 to figure out why this Gateway ad wasn't taken out and shot. Maybe the shock of the recent ERM crisis immunised the almost-bust British population against crappily-presented price messages.
Gateway, if memory serves, eventually became Somerfield. Not an improvement, if the Lady of the House's opinion is to go by ("We're out of milk - off to pikey old Somerfield then").

For you, the games are over

Something very curious is going on with Bryan Ferry's favourite bank, Barclays, who are trying to buy Dutch finance house ABN Amro. Some commentators, aware of Dutch sensitivities about Naziism, have complained about Barclays' Teutonic-looking logo, which bears a close resemblance to the eagle emblem that frequently accompanied the swastika.
Here's the Barclays eagle:
Barclays are likely to drop the eagle in the Netherlands (should the takeover of ABN Amro go ahead), but I'd be very surprised if it disappeared in the UK. According to the BBC, Barclays have been using the eagle logo for over 250 years.
This isn't the first time we've heard of such comparisons.
The London 2012 Olympics logo, which I still like, had a heap of criticism dumped upon it. One of the less regular complaints was that if you squinted really hard and looked at it from the side while standing on your head with a halibut in your mouth, then the logo looked like a swastika.
I would like to apply my mighty marketing brain and (on the Red Adair principle of using an explosion to blow out a fire) suggest Barclays become the main sponsor of the 2012 Olympics. This would show the world that Barclays is a truly global brand interested in promoting joy and good health and healthy competition.
Here's my design for a new logo. I'd go for a monotone approach, because I think grey colouring would evoke the calming effect of England's skies. And I know our dear mayor Ken would like it.
A bill for £750,000 is in the post.
Cheers.

Loving the Olympic logo, part 1

"We don't do bland." Thus spaketh Lord Seb Coe, officially the third blandest sportsman this country has ever produced (according to the CMM league table the wooden broccoli award went to Nigel Mansell and Tim Henman, both in joint first place), about the logo for the 2012 London Olympics.
I'm going to buck the obvious trend and say that the official logo is a damn fine piece of work. The fact that the great British public hates it proves its worth (as any despairing planner will reluctantly agree when those ignorant numpties blast that fabulous idea in pre-testing). I know it's good because my 13 year-old said so.
I like the logo because it says a loud "Fuck Off" to the way the rest of the world has branded previous Olympics. It's extremely difficult on the eye, looks like a car crash in Mr Man world, and is the gayest shade of pink (a provocation in the offing to homophobe Tellytubbie-hating Poles and Bible Belt Extremists).
I sincerely hope that Mr Bland doesn't cave in to the tide of disgust and change it.

Eye'm nearly ok

Another spanner was thrown into the blogging works, this time with a thoroughly evil infected eye ulcer that had the docs in the eye clinic cooing.
"I've seldom seen such a huge ulcer", said one.
"It's spectacular," said another, possibly unaware of the pun.
"Take these drops and come back next week. We need to keep an eye on you."
Ha bloody ha.