Dear marketer, I think you ought to treat your agency better. Not for their sake, but for your own and your company’s. As a freelancer I work at a lot of London agencies. And I see the effects your decisions have on the great campaigns they create for you. So often, excellent ideas (and they’re […]
Does the word advertising sound old fashioned to you? Sometimes it does to me. And I know other people in the so-called “advertising industry” who are uncomfortable about using the word to describe what they do. In these days of integration, we’re all doing a bit of advertising, some DM and an increasing amount of […]
I’m keen to get up to Trafalgar Square to see Yinka Shonibare’s wonderful new sculpture Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle. When I was a kid, my grand-dad gave me a ship in a bottle, and ever since then I’ve been fascinated with the things. To my mind, Shonibare’s sculpture is like a good piece of […]
I almost forgot. There’s a national election here in the UK this Thursday. That’s how busy I’ve been. Most of the ads I’ve seen have been online. That’s made me wonder: did the “posters” actually appear on the hoardings? Or were they just scams? After all, there’s been a lot of DIY advertising, usually satirical. […]
The other day, I was talking with some fellow copywriters and art directors about a hilarious, surreal TV ad from about 10 years ago. A huge blob chases a man through urban streets while a sinister voice over taunts him: “Belly’s gonna get you!” We all agreed the ad was great. Then someone asked a […]
Why did Tiger Woods agree to appear in this commercial? In my view, he hasn’t done himself any favours. I guess Nike ordered him to be in it. After all, don’t they own him? I like some of the remarks made by the reviewers following the ad – particularly Adweek’s Barbara Lippert’s about “The Church […]
Are you an unbeliever? Do you sneer at the suggestion that banner advertising is of any use to marketers? It seems to me there are a lot of unbelievers about. They remind me of people you used to meet in pre-internet times. People who claimed they never responded to ads – on TV, in the […]
Twitter, Facebook, mobile marketing – how the media landscape has changed since I started my advertising career as a junior copywriter at Saatchis’ London, 25 years ago. Back then, if you wanted a job in the creative department, you needed to be good at coming up with ideas – lots of them and good ones. […]
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