And so it was the week where the nation was transfixed by a moonwalking Shetland pony. Racking up nearly four million youtube views, and prompting the Daily Mail to ask ‘Is this the funniest ad of the year?’, Three’s Fleetwood Mac loving, Tina Turner wig wearing equine has taken the blogosphere by storm. My inclination…
Channel 4’s valiant efforts at major sports broadcasting have met two very particular challenges this week, each testing their capacity to cope with the full burden of an excitable, demanding and very very large public. It’s a classic David/Goliath situation. Channel 4, having spent a good deal of promotional budget painting itself as the rising…
“The Wettest Drought on Record”: so a dry wit in the back row of a client meeting recently described our current weather situation to me. It’s a spectacularly British situation to be in- a combination of monsoon-esque precipitation levels and poor local planning found nowhere other than Virgil’s ‘edge of the world’. The whole situation…
The KONY 2012 phenomenon- from breakout viral success to liberal/conservative/far-left battleground to terrifying masturbatory breakdown- is difficult to fully unpick. One thing’s certain, however: it’s had the kind of success which most digital marketers can only dream about. Clearly, this is something unignorable, particularly for those who work within the space of charity awareness campaigning….
Last Thursday, I was fortunate enough to be asked to present at the Media Business Course in Brighton for the fourth year running- the only PR, I’m told, who has ever had the invitation extended. Usually, it’s a day of great value to me: being pushed up in front of the surprisingly intimidating face of…
I respect Dave Trott. He is an Ad man and Guru of considerable stature I read and liked his book Creative Mischief. Usually, Dave provides clear thinking and words of wisdom. I’ve been preoccupied; I missed his recent CampaignLive blog Stuntvertising. I read the post, my heart sank. This got my goat; “Normally I’m not…
For those who’ve not heard, a Saatchi & Saatchi campaign for client Toyota has led to a $10m suit being filed against the ad firm and the car company, as well as various individuals connected with the campaign. The campaign, which allowed people to sign up their friends to be ‘pranked’ with a serious of…
The Media Buying world is clearly in need of some PR help to drag it out of the 1980s. I found myself reading, jaw dropping to the table, this Media Week article by MediaCom’s Claudine Collins. It’s as if it had been ghosted by Charlie Brooker, Chris Morris and Helen Fielding – it reads like…
It may be stating the bleeding obvious, but we all know the media is changing rapidly – every few months, something comes along that fractures the old order more and more. The latest is the iPad, one more thing in a long line of technological advances that are making it easier for brand and public…
There’s growing concern, and a fair amount of hand wringing, about alcohol advertising and the possibility of banning it. It looks like the glory days of inventive, witty and satirical booze advertising may be over for good. This would be very, very sad. Ban them and yes, you’ll get column inches. Keep them and you’ll…