the art of conversation

Important conversations I

I have been working on a Brexit project, which is equally fascinating and frustrating. It is a subject which divides people in this country like no other subject I have encountered.

One of the many strands in this complex topic is the Remainer sentiment, 'name one good thing which can come of Brexit?'

I have found one. This advert from JWT for HSBC UK:

 What makes this so good, IMHO, is its very British tone to accompany its global message. To the strains of Elgar's Nimrod (for Brexiteers) the ad, fronted by the excellent Richard Ayoade (for Remainers), is saying that you can be a British and a global citizen.

It is funny (Python-esque humour), self-deprecating, very visual and full of lovely touches.

My only slight quibble is that it is very 'southern middle class'. How will it play to non-middle class audiences in, for example, Sunderland?

I aim to find out ...

Esso wide of the Mark

Sometimes we play 'what's my Brief?' Guess the strategy behind the ad. This one was deceptively tricky - a man drives around, re-fuels, drives some more. "This is Mark and Mark is energy." The American version (shown here) is Gordon.

We see Mark/Gordon from high up, in an anonymous American city with very little traffic, where they drive to meetings, seemingly on both the left and the right hand side of the road.

A clue to the strategy is normally found when the VO says, 'that's why ...' In the case of the UK version we're told Mark fills up at Esso because ... he drives to meetings. And gets Tesco Club Card points.

So Exxon's Brief must have been, 'please spend quite a lot of money - and show the logo at the end'.

It's a good illustration of the perils of trying to 'depict the real consumer' when you take a top-floor boardroom view of the world. Why does it fail to live up to its lofty aspirations?

The ad is part of a major Exxon campaign, Energy Lives Here, which translates Exxon's expertise (energy) into tangible, person-on-the-street (or in the car) terms. Which may be fine on paper, seen on a global, corporate scale, but looks very vacuous indeed when seen in product terms, as an individual execution - certainly this one.

Or is it because Dave Knockles has finally got a job, as Exxon's UK Head of Marketing?

Great British advertising

Another year starts, time to consider the cream of last year's crop of UK advertising. Is it more creative, innovative and mould-breaking than ever before? Not judging by Neilsen's list of the 5 most popular ad campaigns of last year:

1. CompareTheMarket.com: meerkats fighting an army of mongooses in a snowy landscape

2. Magner's Irish Cider: Clonmel home of Magners Cider; lorry over golf course; through brick wall

3. Maltesers: Two couples watch a movie; girlfriends position boyfriends so that they are cuddling

4. Santander: Family driving in car; boy falls asleep with red legos; featuring Lewis Hamilton

5. Snickers: Mr. T doing pushups; listen up, suckers; get tough, one-fingered push-ups

THE hit of last year was of course Aleksandre the meerkat. We had the lo-ong prequels to the original ads (Aleksandre's story); then the book was a massive Christmas hit and now there are out-takes from the prequel of the spin-off of the ads.

So there is a lot of talk about creativity at all costs and innovation and breaking the mould and we've had great ads like drumming gorillas and dancing flashmobs and the like. Meanwhile this poster has just appeared up the road from us.

Happy new year!

Seven Days vs Paralympics on Channel 4

I loved Big Brother when it started, so I couldn't wait to see the first episode of Channel 4's new reality show Seven Days before going on holiday.

I was very impressed (technically superb, fantastic concept) but, I'm sorry to say, not that interested or intrigued.

C4 call it "a docu-soap ... a new kind of documentary series in which viewers can follow the lives of a variety of compelling characters as they actually happen." 

Maybe I just wasn't interested enough in the characters (compelling??), who seemed too interested in themselves to be interesting to anyone else (eg models Laura and Samantha, as opposed to Javan and Moktar). I had the nagging feeling that it was closer to Richard Curtis' vision of Notting Hill than the real Notting Hill. Couldn't it have been set in Dalston or Camberwell? And how 'real' is it meant to be, anyway?

I read some media comments as I contemplated catching up on 4oD. It seems I'm not the only one with misgivings. Viewing figures have apparently dropped from around 1.2 million for the first programme, to 646,200 in week 3, according to the Independent.

One viewer commented "the only guy who gets any credit in my eyes is Moktar and I wish him well in his legal studies. Channel 4 stop wasting our money! Times are tough and we can do without this".

C4 does have some public service broadcasting commitments but is commercially funded. Its Director of Sales described it recently as being about "irreverence, the new and fun; self deprecating and challenging the status quo. Inspiring change and being maverick". None of which seem to me to apply to Seven Days from a content point of view (as opposed to the concept/format), although it's early days.

And these values do apply to C4's Paralympic coverage, which sounds much more genuinely innovative and interesting.

Having researched the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and with the Commonwealth Games now on TV, I am far more intrigued in the lives and efforts of athletes than I ever was. 

C4 launched its Paralympic coverage recently with 'Freaks of Nature' and is planning more documentaries including 'Inside Incredible Athletes', profiling seven athletes and a 10-part documentary series, 'Hidden Heroes'.

I feel more interested in watching someone I probably have far less in common with than a Notting Hill resident suffering from 'fashion stress'. Whether this makes me traditional or edgy, I'm not sure.

The pain of election leaflets ...

 

I was woken at 6:15 this morning with my letterbox snapping loudly. Mistaking it for a knock on the door, I went to answer it only to find an election party leaflet asking me to vote for their party today.  

Mildly incensed to be awake so early, I added the leaflet to the ever-growing stack of political leaflets in my recycling bin and returned to bed.

Living in the Lewisham East constituency, this election has proven a battleground between Labour and the Lib Dems. Having predominantly been a Labour constituency since its formation in 1974, the current  Labour MP, Bridget Prentice, is standing down. With no incumbent candidate, this has meant the Lib Dems believe they have a real chance of getting a seat and both parties have been going hammer and tongs to get votes. 

Unfortunately, this has resulted in relentless leafleting (even at anti-social hours). And often they are the same leaflets as the week (or even day) before and end up being binned. 

Arguably, this does create excitement. There is a feeling of the political rumblings of 'change' happening on your doorstep. And from the parties' perspective, they will want to be getting clear, consistent and sustained messages to potential voters over the course of a campaign.

But the effect of repetitious (and somewhat intrusive) leafleting may be opposite to the one desired. For the overwhelmed electorate, feeling saturated by information and pestered by parties may discourage political engagement. 

At the next General Election, my vote would be for fewer, better timed communications, a more creative, considerate and voter-centered approach that encouraged a better conversation between party and electorate. And, hopefully, I'd then get a better sleep. 

Simon

P.S. some votes just in ...

Hand from Above

Hand from Above from Chris O'Shea on Vimeo, as seen by us on Adverblog.

Commissioned by FACT, Liverpool City council for BBC Big Screen Liverpool and the Live Sites Network,  artist/designer Chris O'Shea created this impressive outdoor digital display called 'Hand from Above'. Its implications for outdoor digital advertising must be whetting Kevin Roberts's SISOMO-coated lips.   

The idea is to have us question our daily routine by having a giant, intervening hand stop us in our tracks by being 'tickled, stretched, flicked or removed entirely in real time by a giant deity'. 

Creative Review posted a brief excerpt from an interview with O'Shea plus accompanying diagram on the technicalities of how the display works.

Just as flash mobs stretched from social networking into T-Mobile adverts, perhaps it won't be too long till we see some branded hands from above. 

The next display is in Cardiff at the BBC Big Screen, 22nd-24th October. If anyone is attending, we'd be interested to know how it goes.

Simon

OH JOY

We like to be positive here at the Art of Conversation but every so often we see ads like this. We can’t decide whether it is patronising poppycock or just twee twaddle. And it seems we're not alone in this view.

The Joy campaign started out as a rather good campaign for the new Z4, ‘the only vehicle in its segment to combine classic roadster proportions with a seating position close to the rear axle’. So there.

The agency GSD&M from Austin, Texas was apparently responsible for the original campaign, which featured a BMW Z4 painting circles on an enormous canvas. (A move which saw the ad being banned in Australia on the grounds that it promoted irresponsible driving. On really large canvases, presumably.)

Then some clutz somewhere decided that, if Jack Daniels owns September and Coke owns Happiness, BWM can own ‘Joy’. We’ve got Wagner and Schiller on our side, they might have argued.

So they compiled this piece of ordure, with its cheesy, sub-M People soundtrack, its series of gurning drivers and clichéd car porn visuals and ‘say-banana-show-banana’ vignettes with an uber-irritating voiceover which reads out the strategy ‘at BMW we don’t just make cars we make joy’. Thanks for explaining, I never would have got that.

What I don’t get is what it’s got to do with BMW’s eco eD thing, as we see a 4x4 twirling on an ice cap trying to run down a polar bear.

It comes across as a planning-free zone. As a planner friend of ours said, it’s fluffy and forgettable, does not resolve any need, will not get talked about, remixed or passed on, has no traction conceptually, has no creative distinctiveness ... and it really undersells BMW.

Apart from that, good effort!

(Our normal, positive service will be resumed next week. Or possibly the week after that)