The Festering Season, 2012
Posted: Tue 18 December, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Festering Season, Introspective, Shopping, Thoughts 1 Comment »For whatever reason, 2012’s Festering Season hasn’t really had as much of an impact on me as usual.
Maybe I’m mellowing. Maybe I’ve just given up on it as an unwinnable fight. I don’t know.
I still get annoyed by the bullshit commerciality of the entire enterprise – things like
- seeing Christmas cards in the shops before Hallowe’en
- Hearing Christmas Carols in November
- Mince Pies with a ‘best before’ in November
- All the insane consumer-driven shopfests in December – particularly in supermarkets
But for whatever reason, I can’t really find it in me at the moment to rant about it. Maybe I’m feeling pretty chilled at the moment, maybe it’s just (as I said before) because it’s pretty much an unwinnable fight. Maybe I’m just a bit tired of being ranty.
Whatever the reason, it just hasn’t annoyed me as much as usual.
BT Hallowe’en Advert
Posted: Wed 28 November, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism Leave a comment »Amusingly, BT are still showing their Hallowe’en based advert – even a month past the date.
So I wonder, what does this fact tell us about BT ?
- That their attention to detail is shocking
- That they can’t plan properly – otherwise the ad would’ve been in October, and never again
- That they’re getting their money’s worth out of even the worst bag of crap
- All of the above.
Critical Reading
Posted: Fri 16 November, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Creativity, Cynicism, Education, Food, Literacy, Pedantry, Thoughts 6 Comments »As has been observed many times over the years, I can be a really picky/pedantic bastard – particularly when it comes to spelling, punctuation, and literacy in general. And it’s true, I am all of those things.
Today I’ve been proof-reading a menu for the work Christmas Do (of which more at some other point) – and with some of the errors, had to check the original menu.
So – would you still go to a place whose menu has spelling errors? I realise that the typing and publication of the menu won’t have come direct from the chef, and will have been farmed out to someone on reception (or similar) – but really, if chefs / owners are so obsessed about control, wouldn’t that also extend to the menu, and how it represents the establishment ?
In this case, some of the spelling errors are pretty basic – Mascarpone , for example, is mis-spelled. In others, it’s the actual cooking techniques themselves, such as “Ballantine” instead of “Ballotine”. And I just find that a bit worrying – for if there’s that lack of attention to details in the menu, I can’t help but think there might be the same lack of attention when it comes to the food.
Signs of the Season
Posted: Sun 11 November, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Festering Season Leave a comment »TV Adverts for perfume, gadgets, books, furniture sales and so on.
It must be the run-up to the Festering Season.
Product Placement
Posted: Mon 29 October, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Cinema, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I went to see the new Bond film, Skyfall. There’s been a lot of kerfuffle about the product placement in the film, Bond drinks Heineken, etc. etc. – so among other things I wanted to see if it actually made one jot of difference to the film.
And of course it doesn’t. The Heineken bottle, for example, is only visible for about ten seconds – and even then you don’t get to see the brand name. Sure, you can recognise the label, but the actual brand isn’t there. Which I thought was interesting.
There’s actually a lot of product placement – but I don’t get the current kerfuffle about it, to be honest. Bond films have *always* been a bonanza of product placement. Why scream about the product placement of a bottle of beer, in comparison to – for example – Aston Martin’s deal? Oh no, sorry, that’s ‘classic’, so somehow it doesn’t count. Bond is a label queen, always has been, always will be.
Take a second, think of all the names/brands that you mentally link to Bond…
- Aston Martin
- Lotus
- Walther PPK
- Martini (I know it’s the name of the cocktail, but all the same)
- Bollinger champagne
And that’s just ten seconds thought.
To me it’s interesting, seeing the things that people *perceive* as product placement, versus what’s there as either ‘classic’ stuff, or simply not realised.
In Skyfall, sure, the Sony Vaio brand is all over the place, and not particularly subtle. But there’s all the old favourites too. Audi cars are used in most scenes, and there’s a couple of references to VW Beetles which I’m quite certain aren’t coincidental.
Personally, I find product placement to be less intrusive than normal advertising. Well, at least when it’s done properly – I can think of a few really bad examples of super-obvious tie-ins that were just painful (I, Robot’s obsession with Converse and Audi, for example, and the Cisco overdose on Transformers films) – but for the most part it’s something my brain can gloss over.
Indeed – and again, from a personal perspective – I found that the pre-film adverts, also 90% Bond-related were far more intrusive, and led me to the point of being pissed off with Bond before the film had even started.
Product-placement and tie-ins I can live with. Related advertising is far worse.
Odd Name Choice
Posted: Sun 14 October, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Business, Commuting, Cynicism, Driving, Thoughts Leave a comment »Travelling on the M1 today, I saw a truck for a company called “Fly By Nite” (a courier company)
Now in my mind, “Fly by Night” (regardless of the spelling) is synonymous with something really dodgy – usually smuggling, and the like.
So it seems like an odd choice for a name, but maybe I’m wrong.
Would you use a company where the name was (in your perception) dodgy?
Advertising Irritation
Posted: Wed 10 October, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cinema, Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »A few days back, I whiffed on about awful adverts in the cinema, ones that have a different effect on people than was perhaps expected
This piece of crap – for Coke Zero, as part of the Skyfall marketing behemoth – is a perfect example.
You can just tell that the ad agency- and probably the client- thought it conveyed a sense of humour, something new and fun to be talked about. But in the cinema, it gets no reaction, no laughter, nothing. (Although there is the occasional “Fuck sake”, or similar)