Serious Nuclear Threat!

Its closer to home than we thought! Its time to Panic!!!!!

Thanks Jag for pointing this out to me!

ITV going for the hat trick!

God two posts with football related titles one after another! Well this one concerns ITV's coverage of the UEFA champions league final. We only have digital TV so I had to watch the final on ITV. Judging by ITV's cock up earlier this year with the Everton Liverpool match where they cut to the adverts during the game at pretty much the point where Everton scored you would have thought they would learn the lesson regarding technical issues, but oh no! The coverage on Wednesday night was littered with technical issues! Firstly the sound levels kept changing constantly, and when interviews where taking place there were echos. Secondly and more importantly they lost the score and clock from the match up until about the 70th minute, which was a right pain in the arse!! Mainly because I had no idea what time was left but also because people arriving late had no idea of the score. My brother came home during the middle of the first half thinking it was still 0-0 as there was no score on the screen! Also images kept freezing and you could only tell what was happening as the commentary was still in time. Maybe these issues where out of their control but hearing people who watched sky say there was no such problem, which makes me think it was ITV up to its old tricks. Anyway ITV go for the hat trick of major match cock ups this weekend with the FA cup final! I wonder what kind of issue they can come up with! Maybe they could just show the crowd for the full 90 minutes and not the match, therefore having to let the viewer guess what is going on from just the reaction of the fans? We'll just have to wait and see!

Another thing that annoys me is ITV bias! On Wednesday night for the duration of the match ITV was quickly swapped with MUTV, its the only way you can explain the man u cheer leading squad that was on! Sheringham is possibly the worst for this! They usually try to make out that everyone in Britain will support the British team, this is a nice idea but it isn't the reality, which was even said once during the commentary, so at least they have realised! The thing that was the worst was in the build up they only concentrated on Man U, like they were the only ones that could win it and it was their destiny, not giving Barcelona any time at all! I'm not stupid enough to say this only happens with Man U matches as it happens with Liverpool matches all the time as well and as a Liverpool fan some of the stuff they say makes me feel nauseous! Things like "the kop are like one mind" and all that bulls**t, we know you are trying to build up the British team but come on give us a break!

Everton Two - Liverpool One

I'm not talking about football here. I'm talking about the branding of their new superstores. Everton are re branding their superstores and have come up with a nice concept in calling the superstores numbers. For the store at Goodison Park it will be called Everton One and the city centre store will be Everton Two. Its a simple strategy but one that is clear and works well. However whats exciting about about that?? Well they have managed to get a nice little PR stunt out of the rebrand. You see the store in the city centre will be in the Liverpool One complex therefore making the address of the new store: Everton Two, Liverpool One. Its a great idea, its witty and is a great way to publicise the new store in the media. I mean its got me talking and I probably wont have even bothered to blog if it was not for this angle. It could also be great in that the store could have instore advertising with the Everton Two, Liverpool One line on it which again is a fantastic idea. I know that in reality no one cares about the address? No one is going to turn up to the shopping complex and ask where is Everton Two, Liverpool One is! Its a gimmick that will wear off soon and the store will just become a generic shop name maybe discussed occasionally in the sense of "have you been to Everton Two in Liverpool One?" which doesn't quite make sense of the angle. But as an exercise in initially bringing peoples attention to the store its brilliant! Good work Everton.

Is the jingle making a comeback??

Ahhh the good old jingle, back in the day the jingle was on top form and was pretty usful and it made people remember the brand and they probably still remember the jingle and therefore the brand! Here's some example of good old jingles.









I could go on! Anyway jingles fell out of fashion with agencies and the public, for example the reaction to this ad was amazing!



But can we now see the "green shoots" of recovery for the ad jingle!

This one has to be one of the worst songs ever!!!


I actually like this one!


A remix of a classic

Scooter Cleaning wit..
Watch the ad...

Ohh la la! Hotpots never been so sexy

I was talking about tourism ads a few posts ago. Mainly about the trend to start using celebs from that country to promote it. But Blackpool has gone in a totally different direction, and its a direction I like. A nice story shot in an art house fashion that is trying to appeal to a french audience that they should go visit Blackpool. Its good, it made me think about visiting Blackpool for a split second and I bloody well hate Blackpool so imagine someone who has never been to Blackpool and seen the horror (opinion), this ad would probably persuade them that its worth looking into! There are however a few things that got me!

At first glance you think god this girls sexy, but after a few watches you realise you have been well and truly conned! She isn't good looking at all and this con is all down to the french accent, it makes her seem good looking but all the time she only sounds good looking (This isn't a negative of the ad but probably more an observation on the effect of different accents, and before you pull me up on it people can sound good looking!)

If you listen closely you can hear alarms or police sirens it starts at about 9 seconds and stops at about 15 seconds, not the greatest sounds when you are trying to promote a place to someone! Another thing is the subtitles. Subtitling is great as I can understand different languages instantly, however they at one point subtitle the french with french! It happens when she mentions food. Why would the French need french subtitles?? Also it suggests that if they go to Blackpool and order a croque monsieur the waitress/Waiter will know what it is, well I don't think they will, I had to look it up! (Its a ham and cheese toastie).

One thing they got right was the stereotypical Northerner, a role model for Northerners everywhere! He hates London and thinks the "weather is rubbish in London" as apposed to the almost Mediterranean climates of Blackpool, Liverpool and Manchester! And he gets "love" in wherever possible! Oui love, oui will surely become the latest saying for all Northern kids.

Finally there are some words that said in English by foreigners accents are hilarious. For example pyrotechnics from a South African accent but with the french its short rhyming words like splish splosh and now the amazing hot pot.

Credit Crunch Millionaire!

In these tough times everyone has to watch their pennies! Even Millionaires! Take a look at this fellow, he's had the good fortune of winning the monopoly lottery scratch card and won a million pounds!



But this hasn't changed him one bit! He still eats out at burger king and values every penny he can get his hands on!

Our survey says

According to research carried out by the cinema advertising association these are the UK's top ten favourite films:

1. Dirty Dancing

2. The Shawshank Redemption

3. Star Wars

4. High School Musical

5. Lord Of The Rings

6. Grease

7. Mamma Mia!

8. The Sound Of Music

9. The Matrix

10. Gone With The Wind

I mentioned in a post some time back that for people to register a complaint they should take some sort of test to prove they are of sound mind and not just a nutter. Well I think this survey proves that the test should also apply to people taking part in surveys! Dirty Dancing! Come on! I know many people love the film but its nowhere near the best film ever. I could understand if it snuck in the at number 6 -10 but number 1! And don't get me started on High School Musical!!!!

A futher example of the nutters gettin there complaints in has been the ad below which has recieved 11 complaints about the ad being racist!

As one commenter put it "It's so racist! Just like in snooker where the evil Ayrian white ball keeps bashing the coloured ones into isolated makeshift prisons. Ban that too."

Fantasy Dinner Guests

If you could invite 1 person to a fantasy dinner (dead, alive, fictional (maybe we could expand it into people who aren't even born yet?)) who would you invite and why? This question came up on loads of the application forms I was filling out last year for the big ad agencies and is pretty much guaranteed to come up in any ad interview. However it may also stray into everyday situations. I'll let you into my thinking on the subject! 1 person is easy! For me its Sooty. The reason for this being:

1. What does Sooty sound like? Some people say he cant talk but they're wrong, he can talk. I have seen him whispering into peoples ears! Also on the same theme what accent does he have? He could be a cockney geezer, a brummie, scouse who knows? Maybe he could be from foreign lands?



2. What does Sooty eat? I don't think I have ever seen him eat? I think he probably doesn't eat which is a positive for me. You see for a fantasy dinner you will probably be eating at a very posh restaurant and judging by the portion sizes I have seen on the tele from posh restaurants I could eat two mains no problems, so if Sooty doesn't eat that all the more for me!



3. What is he like in real life? On tele he is great, but is he a bit of a diva in real life?



4. He's entertaining!!!! He can do magic after all! Also if he gets a bit boring/is a diva then you can just lock him in his box!

At the moment for two people I would choose Sooty and Hugh Jackman. For my feelings on Hugh see my previous post.

Its when you have to think of 3/4 people that it becomes a little more tricky! I wont go into that here as I overthink the whole thing, so much so that I could probably write a dissertation on the subject and to be honest its quite disturbing the lengths I have thought into this! So I will avoid it!

Good work!

Here's some ads I am liking at the moment, maybe its an animated silhouette thing? I particularly like the first one for Jordan's Country Crisp. Great use of the line 'thinking inside the box' and some lovely subtle touches in the ad, especially the high five!!! Also who better to signify nature in the voice over than Bill Oddie! Brilliant! I think the Red Sky ad is also nice maybe its the use of music, similar idea with the nature animation but also lovely use of music. Ads just seam that much better when they have a good soundtrack.





The thought of a great soundtrack got me thinking about a blog post I saw a few weeks ago. It shows perfectly how important music is and how a change in the music of a certain scene can change the whole mood.

original


with new soundtrack

Celebrity promotion

Ahhhh good old celebs, they'll get onboard anything! Coleen Nolan and Kerry Katona love Iceland food (actually I can see Katona going to Iceland for her shopping! I wish she would go to Iceland the country and not not come back!), Lineker cant get enough of Walkers crisps, there's too many to bloody count that love Morrisons/Tesco and Nell McAndrew loves pretty much anything that will pay her! But its not just the domain of your Z listers, heavyweights such as Emilio Estevaz (amongst others) for Orange, Bruce Willis, Ringo Star and Macaulay Culkin have been spotted in the Aviva ads, Numerous glamorous women in make up/Loreal commercials and even Georgey boy Clooney (I hope that's what his friends call him! Does he have any friends?) has been spotted in ads such as Nespresso and Martini. The problem with the majority of celeb endorsements is that you know that they probably don't use the product! There are exceptions of course, apparently Marco Pierre White loved Knorr stock cubes and hearing this Knorr approached him to become a "brand ambassador". But its nice to see celebs promoting something that is/was an essential part of their lives. I'm talking about the countries that they come from. Over the years we've seen many an ad for different countries/parts of the country, take for example at this very moment on TV there are ads for Cyprus, Italy, California, North East England, Wales, Scotland and the Balearic Islands (from memory). Most of these ads show the country/area and what it has to offer, but recently there's been a switch to using celebs from that country/region to promote it. The majority of these ads are horrible (California is an exception). Especially the Scotland singing one and Rafa Nadal's horrible ad for the Balearic Islands. Firstly the Scotland one:



Connery's non singing is cringe worthy!!! I also have a slight problem with Lulu. It seems to me that over the years she has been trying to get away from her Scottish roots, by adapting her accent but breaking into it at certain points (especially talking about her parents or childhood), probably to the point where many people have totally forgot she is from Scotland. In my view if you are going to use a celeb to promote a country then the celeb must be synonymous with that country and Lulu doesn't fit the bill in my opinion. To test this theory I asked my mum where Lulu was from, she said Liverpool! I could be wrong on this though!

Although Rafa Nadal is synonymous with Spain and the Balearic Islands it doesn't make up for this shocking ad! Which I can only find in Spanish on Youtube.



What can I say about it! The computer graphics are rubbish, the part when the fish comes out the picture and he flicks it away is terrible and the voiceover is worse. With the most horrendous part (on the UK version) being where it says "this is my home" trying to make out the voiceover is that of Rafa Nadal himself, even though it quite clearly isn't! They even have put a making of video up on youtube, its not innovative in any way and to be honest the ad is nothing to be proud of! For some reason it reminds me of this ad in Zoolander:



I can't wait for the next installment of Celebs ads promoting Countries!