Not the chronic

Dear devoted blog-disciples, apologies for this most recent week long intermission; I'm sure you've all been hovering your cursors eagerly over refresh for my latest post? Never fear..here it is. The reason for this gaping hole of critical nourishment has been my reengaged preoccupation with actually making some damn ads or at least trying. Which, coincidentally brings me onto the reason and subject for this particular post.

So the competition brief I've been working on..although I'm sure I'm maybe not supposed to talk about it if i'm working on it.. is one for Hewlett Packard. Has anyone seen the new ad with Dr Dre? If not cast your eyes over this spacey shocker.

Now there's some fairly legitimate criticism I could raise here, most of which I'm sure you can see for yourself so I won't bother mentioning. However, I'm frustrated for another reason...and it's with HP. The HP brief (half-heartedly recycled for two years no doubt...please God don't let them see this) was put forward by a major advertising and marketing body, who for my sake what remains nameless. In a nutshell it's aim was to place HP tech in the forefront of creative minds as high-performance and cool. With specific consideration of competing with Apple; a tall order.

Apple's Macbooks are everywhere..the most visibly present example that comes to mind is DJ's. Nowadays every single DJ I can think of uses a Macbook.. so, and I hate to say this as a budding adman, it's nigh on impossible to compete on this level as it is. This ad fails to sufficiently push what sounds like a really good feature and majorly wastes an opportunity to borrow some organic credibility from Dre; the mask, a spaceship..does Dre produce dance, is that what he's renowned for? Are you serious?!

With regards to actually finding a solution to the problem of pushing HP into the forefront of creative minds I'm still thinking, and imagine I will be doing so for sometime. But I guarantee I'll come up with something, anything better than this. Whatever HP pull out of the bag it's going to have to be far far more savvy.

'And Yet It Moves'

Alright so I've been meaning to do this next blog for a while now. What at first I thought would be a time-buster has turned out to be an insanely addictive and wonderfully weird 21st Century platform with a twist, that's a 90 degree twist to be specific. 'And Yet It Moves' is available on Wii but I've purchased the Mac version which I'm finding so enjoyable. It's a physics puzzle game with the basic premise of manipulating gravity to manoeuvre your paper thin character through the levels. The levels look stunning in their makeshift composition: with photos of real leaves, stones and trees torn into shape to make up the ground, trees and other environment. The soundtrack is also another point of worthy note; eerie noises and melodies accompany every movement and change in your surroundings making for a quirky, surreal and strangely beautiful experience.

The trailer ad doesn't let this game down one little bit. Striking in its visual simplicity, the white living room scene perfectly portrays the quirky charm of 'And Yet It Moves' and at the same time captures the sense of involvement with every frenzied tumble. Great all round little game.

Please affix your message

Continuing on my hunt for client to customer communications I found this lovely piece appended to the wall outside 'Sovereign Point' brrrp brrrp, massive. My personnel feeling is its creator has adopted intentional misspelling with a view to comically affix the message to our mammaries. This man is a keen-eyed copywriting guinness from whom we can all learn a thing or two.

In sincerity though, we don't all have the benefit of a good education so perhaps I shouldn't be so scathing. At least Mr Shop Keep has taken the initiative, right? Well it just so chanced that the youths who drew my attention to the sign revolted in typical teen fashion, i.e throwing litter. So be mindful of your target audience my young padawans.

So then what charming witticism would I have chosen? Nothing too conventionally authoritative (dull), but nothing to try-hard or urban. It all depends on the shop. I'm opting for, 'Drop rubbish - I'll drop ya.' Only the other day I was discussing the well loved, much missed culture of adult-fearing youths and I do feel the man behind the till had the clout to back up such a deterrent. Harrah! Cane or belt boy?!

Can bad copy be good copy?

Copy isn't always 'copy.' Often the people that write the most eloquent and effective lines are those who aren't trained to do so for a living. This is not to be forgotten in a hurry. This little piece however is not effective for its wonderful wordplay. She's legible once you click on the image.

What's most endearing about the blurb on this sumptuous pack of exotically seasoned nuts is the comically phrased but heartfelt tone used by a writer trying his best at English. There are in truth nowadays so many blurbs on our edible products that the novelty has started to wear off. This example, perhaps somewhat due to the nature of the product, breaks the mould. The phrasing is overworked but the tone is individual and achieves believability by talking straight to the reader.

Audacious Internet Marketeer

Despicable infringement or guerilla marketing? O2 invest millions on Press and TV advertising, directing people to their website, only to be pipped at the digital post?! As always it's pertinent to consider context. O2 afterall are playing catch-up or more accurately, copycat. The introduction of this service, one which Mazuma, Envirophone and even obscure sellmymobile.com have been doing for some while, is frankly a 'you don't say..' moment. In my eyes Mazuma have played a smart, commendable defensive move; taking advantage of O2's oversight to buy all permeatations of the service search name. This is oh so sneaky but exactly the right move when a larger competitor tries to move in on your turf.

The Father of the 2p 'Penny Sweet'

Ye olde '99p rule'

Common sense tells us it shouldn't work, we'll never admit it does; but it does. £29.99 is essentially £30, we know this any day of the week but get us in a shop and we see 20's! True, we consumers are fair savvy to the adman's knack but faced with one of the oldest tricks in the book we lapse. Why? Perhaps it's the wallpaper effect; there around every corner! Okay not so much lurking but in shops. We know 99p so well, it's harmless, or is it?! Mwahahaha!

Maybe it's because we want to believe we're not spending as much, a sort of subtle lie we tell ourselves when we really want something; it's a very cheeky insight in the psychology of the customer. Which makes this minor tweak an age old, commercial gem.

Still that's absolutely no excuse for your £159.99's; when you get into the higher figures how much wool is actually left to pull over your would be consumer erm sheep? There stands to be much more gained at tactically made lower prices such as your £4.99, your £14.99 which is of the same ilk but in truth your £9.99 isn't fooling anyone is it?! However, the mother of all these price points, i must say is the 0.99p. That lil 'p' is so friendly, no? Anyway you get my gist, that is all.

The Next Generation in Price Point Psychology!!! That'll have your purse lips ajar.

Tiny Lens, Big World

After our brief textual communing the other day and viewing his blog 'My Life in Phone Photography' I've decided to follow in Ciaran's suit. Let's be honest, he sets a grand example. In particular his choice of topic struck a chord with me and no doubt many others with an eye for the world around us.

So following careful review of the stockpile in my own technological swiss-army knife (that means iphone for you Blackberry users) I managed to dig up some treats. Here are the fruits of my recent day to day observations, please enjoy.

The pic with the swan could of been better but I was battling through a deeply ingrained (not phobia) but distrust of swans. But hey, there you go.

Show me the shape of your he-a-r...bus.

Another routine calling for 'vital' stats. Did you fill it out? If you did, chances are you didn't think it would actually make a difference. You probably felt you were going through the motions...as you may think are the government? 

So the actual ads? Any semblance of an underlying positive motivation is neatly tucked away...'Help tomorrow take shape' in tiny copy.  Though eye-catching and technically in line with the strap, the art direction has no emotive resonance. 

The concept itself generates no audience connection, which i'm guessing you'll see i'm implying the need for... Cynical as the British public are I think the right way to go with this would have been to make people 'care' or more specifically believe in the role or results possible from the Census... And that would have been achieved if we thought the people paying for the advertising truly 'cared' or were any good.

The 'care' connection is lost..It's there in the strapline... But there's no emotion elsewhere. It feels like a chore...'let's get on the bus..cos i have to go to work.'  Their obligatory threat of 'avoid facing a fine,' is shamefully non-effectual except in it's grounding of the government's flight in colloquial tones. 'Drop it in the post.' So sad.

As usual i feel i've been extremely harsh; i like the purples, i honestly do..they add colour to a colourless ad.