Clerks credit

Have you ever wanted to see you see your name in lights? If even very small ones? Kevin Smith might be able to help you out via Myspace.
Kevin Smith is offering you the chance to be in his new movie 'Clerks II', the sequel to his 1994 indie hit.

OK, be in it might be stretching it, but you can be in the credits, and really sitting in the theatre until you've seen thousands of names flow past is what it’s all about.

Smith, who has also made 'Chasing Amy' and 'Dogma’, has become, like a lot of people slightly obsessed with MySpace.

The first 10,000 (count them) MySpace members will get the chance to have their names immortalised onscreen if they add ‘Mooby's Presents: Clerks II’ webpage to their Friends list. The promotion is being done by interactive web agency Deep Focus.

According to Smith: "I've been a total MySpace junkie since March of this year, and have given up countless hours to the ten-at-a-time art of friend-approving. For MySpace to let 'Clerks II' into their Top 8, so to speak, is not only a major coup for the movie -- it's like being able to say that I know (MySpace co-founder and automatic 'friend') Tom (Anderson) personally. Even though, y'know, I don't.”

It's a cheap and nice bit of guerrilla marketing. Harvey Weinstein might be giving Smith the money to make 'Clerks II', but he isn't exactly planning to splash out on the marketing budget.

The original 'Clerks', a story of Randall, Dante Jay and Silent Bob and the Quick Stop convenience store, was a cult hit, which has grown in statue over the years with its 10th anniversary 'Clerks X' DVD release.

The new film delivers more of the same with most of the original cast back for the second outing of dick and fart jokes and mid-life crises.

'Clerks II' is out later this summer and really someone else can have my spot as while I have signed up to Myspace I find that rather like Charlie Brooker in the Guardian that despite being pretty damn geeky at times the whole social networking thing is really not something I personally want to get very involved in. I just don't care, you know, other than taking a professional business and journalistic interest.

Not even our office twenty somethings have signed up. It's for teenagers...and of course bands and movie promoters looking to spread the word.

Lesbians in Advertising

Apparently there are still too few of them. I saw this headline this morning while Googling for stories about the French Connection court case relating to whether is FCUK immoral. It's not, in case you were wondering, a judge said so.
It was the top headline on Google, chiefly because, of course, of Trevor Beattie and his recent kung fu-fighting lesbian kissing models, which we covered extensively on Brand Republic.

While Beattie's ad might have done nothing for French Connection in terms of sales – the retailer issued its third profits warning in the last 18 months last month, with like-for-like sales across UK and Europe falling by 2% since the end of January, it did kick up a storm (127 plus complaints) and seems to have resulted in Beattie McGuinness Bungay losing work. Campaign reported last week that French Connection is in talks with Yellow Door, a specialist retail ad agency, about a brief for an upcoming campaign, signalling the first time the fashion retailer has stepped outside of the long-standing relationship between its chairman, Stephen Marks, and Beattie.

It was a great fun ad, but did it say anything about the brand? Mmm, possibly not and there was the small thing that it resulted in French Connection being accused of “ripping off” a music video by Groovecutters. It emerged that the ad was a shot-for-shot copy of the video for its top 40 hit 'We Close Our Eyes', which was released in January last year.

Back to lesbian advertising, according to Afterellen.com (you remember the sort of funnyish, but not really funny US comedy ‘Ellen’ that ran for ever until Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet) there is an archive of lesbian and gay themed ads -- the Commercial Closet, which holds just over 100 North American television commercials featuring lesbians, compared to more than 300 for men.

Gay men seem to get it better in TV ads. Not sure why that could be. And last year there were just 19 lesbian-themed national commercials that ran in the US.

It lists some of the biggest ads in recent US TV history including a 2000 spot starring Martina Navratilova who was featured along with other female athletes in a Subaru commercial, where she delivers the line, "What do we know? We're just girls".

Subaru even pulled off an endorsement-within-an-endorsement when it agreed to a product placement on The L Word in 2004 and was depicted as the corporate sponsor of a tennis player.

In 2003, however, Melissa Etheridge and Tammy Lynn Michaels appeared in a Cartier ad holding hands and smiling at each other. Apparently they wear locking bracelets that "symbolize everlasting love and attachment". So now you know.

I make it just one in the UK, but it did have some Wushu as well, so surely extra points for that.

There's lots more on lesbian advertising, should you have the time or the inclination.

Nobody move or Tinky Winky gets it

I fear for the life of Tinky Winky. Iran has bought the BBC money spinner that is 'Teletubbies'.
The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting is currently dubbing the whole thing into Farsi. Apparently it's taking a long time.

Will handbag-toting, gay icon Tinky Winky take a trip to a football stadium? Maybe not, but of course, homosexual acts are a capital crime in Iran and those found guilty are given a choice of death by hanging, stoning, halved by a sword, or dropped from the highest perch.

You have to love the choice.

The deal obviously comes as Iran faces pressure over its nuclear programme. Now, I think about it, the Teletubby house is underground and a bit cold war bunker like. Are the Iranians sending us a message?

Boys own

The front cover of Nuts this week has the coverline 'Grace strips off' followed by 'When breasts escape', but that isn't pornographic, is it?
Labour MP Claire Curtis-Thomas wants to push legislation through Parliament that could banish lads' Zoo, Nuts and FHM to the top shelf in newsagents.

The Periodical Publisher's Association, and the industry's, defence is that these magazines are not top-shelf magazines.

Curtis-Thomas argues some of these magazines, which are currently overseen by a voluntary deal, are degrading to and objectify women.


 
Curtis-Thomas wants a new regulatory body to oversee the sale of sexually explicit magazines, which are not "top shelf". Nuts and Zoo are certainly sexually explicit.

The PPA argues that lads magazines "do not contain pornographic material".

So no problem with this week's Zoo: headlined "World Cup Babes", and subtitled "Kit-Off Special. 15 Pages of End to End Lady Action" or Grace, heaven forbid, getting her kit off as she eeks out her five minutes of post ‘Big Brother’ fame.

So what is pornographic? There is nothing in Zoo, Nuts and FHM apart from a few jokes and endless pages of women with clothes, with a few clothes and without them.

If Nuts and Zoo didn't have semi naked girls on the front cover they would be out of business.

As magazines go, they make a lot of cash, but really they are just extended magazine versions of The Sun's Page 3 and nothing much to be particularly proud of.

One recent issue of Zoo magazine included descriptions of sexual acts in the Dictionary of Porn, which the MP described as being "so graphic and repulsive I am prevented from quoting it on the floor of the House of Commons".

Everyone knows that Nuts and Zoo are read by schoolboys and teenagers. You see them on the bus gathered in groups of two or three. It's possibly no surprise the magazines are sold alongside the Beano and other kids magazines and the publishers know this. Even Viz, the paragon of bad taste, carries a warning to newsagents that it is not for sale to children.

So there is a question as to whether there should be unrestricted access to such magazines by kids.

Maybe a trip to the top shelf or just below it should be forced on publishers. Zoo and Nuts make Playboy look tame by comparison., and it seems to lack end to end action these days. Maybe after a move up the newsagents’ walls, they would produce something less approaching hardcore.

No one is advocating censorship, but Curtis-Thomas is right in talking about safeguards. It isn't censorship.

Surely, there must be a market for a mass market men's magazine that doesn't rely on acres of naked flesh? Seriously there must be, although finding that sellable formula is proving tricky, just look at the fate of Jack.

No dead bodies

Could the Financial Times finally be sold off? Possibly, as news of talks with Dow Jones emerge.
Reports have surfaced of a potential tie-up between The Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones and the Financial Times-owning Pearson.

The two papers each try to straddle the globe, with each doing better in its home markets.

A combination of the two (in printing and the back office) could save as much as £170m, with the FT withdrawing in much of America (other than New York) and the WSJ doing the same in Europe.

They might be rivals, but on a day-to-day level each is so dominant in its home market as to make the other something of an irrelevance.

The FT has never cracked America beyond its East Coast beachhead where it remains a second read.

Likewise, the WSJ journal is no feature in London and lags behind the FT in Europe.

The two already work together in Russia and the news will only add to talk that Pearson plans to sell the FT, despite opposition from Pearson chief executive Marjorie Scardino, who said it would happen "over my dead body".

It would still be a wrench for many to see the “pink paper” sold to an American company, but if not Dow Jones then another American media gaint..

Rupert Murdoch, News Corp chairman, is known for a long time to have coveted the FT. The paper already works with the Murdoch-owned The Australian down under.

There's the New York Times Company as well, which made an approach to Pearson offering to buy the paper several years ago.

The New York Times, with its ownership of the International Herald Tribune, would make another fine partner. The two would also be able to save cash via combining printing and back offices.

Sorrywest

It was only a matter of time after linking up with NTL that Telewest took on some of the characteristics of its one-time rival: namely shoddy service.
Telewest left 100,000 customers without any pictures for the whole of England's World Cup clash yesterday.

Admittedly they were in Bristol, Bath and the Cotswolds, but other customers suffered as well.

Apparently there was panic on the streets of various the west of England towns as people jumped in their cars to find a place to watch the match.

Telewest problem's in London meant that the interactive red button service failed to work for the entire game.

No surprise that the Telewest "help line" disappeared and was... er... of no help whatsoever.

Sadly, the red button failure meant no Radio 5 Live commentary and instead meant that I had to put up with John Motson's tedious commentary, coupled with leaden sidekick Mark Lawrenson whose interest in the game seems to be absent.

Oh the pain. All the two of them seem to do is read out the names of the players, which gave us one moment during yesterday's match when the two came out with a high pitched "Ashley Cole" one after the other, I'm not sure if they were alluding to anything.

Talking of Ashley Cole, what a great result. You've away in Germany playing in the tournament of your life and your lawyers work out a nice extra week's spending money for you.

Admittedly, £100,000 doesn't mean a great deal to a premiership footballer, but it's better than a kick in the shins.

The case was probably the first libel case where the internet really showed how well it can screw you over.

Google was asked during the case, which wrongly alleged Cole was involved in a gay orgy with a mobile phone, to disclose why the word 'gay' is being linked to the player's name when his name is typed into the internet search engine.

Bravia hole

What a shocker. Nothing for Sony Bravia at Cannes after being tipped for the big prize, which was surprisingly taken by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO for Guinness.

Fallon London's "balls" spot for Sony Bravia had been talked of as a possible winner of the Film Grand Prix on Saturday at the 2006 Cannes Lions, but in the end not even a consolation Gold, Silver or Bronze. Nothing at all.

Shame, I really liked that, it was a visual feast with a great score. It was one of those ads that you could quite easily watch time after time and not tire of it.

I know opinion was divided (failing to win at the British Television Advertising Awards or the US One Show and Clios), that some were indifferent to its charms, clearly more so than first imagined.

The Guinness spot on the over hand, while a nice ad, wasn't a Grand Prix winner. It was the safe and easy choice. An ad that came from a long line of outstanding work, but wasn't outstanding itself.

Still shouldn't grumble. A good win for the UK market with Golds for the Wieden&Kennedy's Honda 'Choir' ad and Lowe's ice skating priests for Stella Artois and silver for AMV work for Wrigley’s.

Some people, it seems, really don't like their balls.

Lost TV

I must be defective. I can't get excited about watching TV on the internet.
Channel 4 has said today that its going to broadcast everything on the internet. 'Richard & Judy' and Noel Edmunds' 'Deal or No Deal'. That's two good reasons to say away from your PC.

I like the idea of watching the odd clips, ads and virals, we've all been doing that for years, but who is going to regularly watch hours of programming even if it is 'Desperate Housewives' and 'Lost'?

I want to watch them on a big screen, not burning my balls with my lap top or slouched at my desktop.

Who knows, maybe when the service is up and running people will be flocking to their PCs to watch programming, but I can't help thinking that like programming for mobile devices (other than short clips), it's all something of a dead-end.

It's small and can't you sit back in a jellified state on your couch taking in your huge flat screen TV (okay, I don't have a huge flat screen, but I want one). That could just be me.

posted by Gordon @ 11:20 AM 3 comments links to this post 

Abi Titmuss gets LBC show

My only question is this: does she know people can't see her on the radio? I'm not sure that she does.Don't ask me why, I don't know, but LBC have taken it upon themselves to give former nurse and lad's mag pin-up, 'Celebrity Love Island' contestant and latterly Lee Sharp's ex-girlfriend a two-hour show.

LBC has had some top-notch guests before. OK, they've had Tony Blair, which makes it a sort of leader to amoeba.

It's a one-off, but it might catch on. LBC describes her as the "outspoken ex-nurse". I didn't know that speaking was part of her remit.

Before you say anything, I'm sure she's very bright, but she makes her money smiling inanely at the camera and taking her clothes off. Talking doesn't come into it.

"It's quite scary because there's only going to be a seven-second delay between what I say and what will come out of the radio but I'm really excited. I just hope that the listeners will enjoy chatting with me as much as I'll enjoy speaking to them."

When asked how he would advise Titmuss, talkshow host Paul Ross wasted no time in plumbing the depths.

"Abi doesn’t need any advice from me, she’s a bright spark and top bird. We’ve interviewed her many times on the weekend breakfast show and take it from me, she always gives great tongue."

Boom boom!

Weirdly at the end of the press release LBC says:

"Tony Blair’s office declined to comment on the recent signing of Abi Titmuss."

And why would it? If only to say Number 10 regretted Blair's appearance on a show that stoops to this.

Nike under fire

Personally, I love the Wayne Rooney Cross of St George Nike poster in all its visceral glory, but others it seems are less impressed.
You must have seen it by now, Rooney white as a snowman, arms outstretched, painted in a bloody red cross. It's angry and striking, something primeval about it.

But already numerous complaints have come in about the Wieden & Kennedy-created ad.

Spoilsport peacenik Labour MP Stephen Pound has called the ad "truly horrible".

"This is such a horrible image and is so horribly war-like that it can only be described as Nike being crass, offensive and insensitive as they try to hitch poor old Rooney to their commercial bandwagon."

Some of that might be true, but sometime just accept that a striking image is what it is: a great ad.

 
In a World Cup that that has produced a sea of sameness in terms of advertising, the Rooney ad is one that stands out..

Anyway Pounds, parliamentary private secretary to Hazel Blears, is known as some thing of a rent-a-quote, but according to The Times today that belittles his talent in this area: he is at least Lease-a-Quote.

Bizarrely, Pounds go on to say that Rooney should be wearing Adidas (what’s he talking about, Umbro supplies the England kit). Not sure what that's about, but Pounds also does the obvious and links it to the crucifixion. Oh yawn.

Pound is, of course, not the only one. Various religious figures have thrown their change into the mix.

Reverend Rod Thomas of the Church of England evangelical reform group calls it disturbing and again calls up its similarity to the crucifixion. They're might be a case for that, but Rooney is head up and mouth open shouting. It's all defiance and no submission and the point is that is how he celebrates scoring. Maybe Pounds should watch the odd game.

Top of the what?

So farewell 'Top of the Pops'. I can't remember when I watched it last. It clashed, at least I think it did, with the 'NME Chartshow' on MTV2, which has the added benefit of not being presented by Fearne Cotton.
Fearne Cotton is annoying in that production-line, BBC yoof presenter kind of way. Isn't she always banging on about fancying various members of Razorlight [insert other skinny indie band here].

She's a bit like Kate Thornton, although probably less talented. Wait... that isn't actually possibly.

I digress, was anyone actually watching 'Top of the Pops' at the end? It was hard to keep track of it as it moved from Thursday to Fridays to finally to the graveyard that is Sunday evening.

'Top of the Pops' has been irrelevant for a long time with its focus on the charts, which only require artists sell, oh a handful of singles, to get to number one.

The general consensus seems to be that the rise of music TV killed it off. That's probably so, but it is I think because of the rise of so many music TV channels that there is still a place for an appointment-to-view music show on terrestrial TV.

There's just one proviso. It has to be good. Channel 4 has done gone work with the Album Chart show.

The BBC needs to do something of the same. posted by Gordon @ 11:35 AM 9 comments links to this post

Ad man does marriage propossal

A New York copywriter wants to get married, what does he do? He gets writing, of course.
Creative director and copywriter Grant Smith at BBDO NYC has posted his intentions. Actually quite a few of them. Luckily for him, Leigh Fuchs, a senior producer at Berlin Cameron United accepted. It's a nice story, we like it.



 

Those parents, whatever happens don't tell them that you proposed and she turned them down. They will give you a very look. Actually not so funny.

And really Grant it's only a small thing, but Dickensonian? You might be a copywriter, but who says that. Dickensian, but other wise nice job and good luck. posted by Gordon @ 8:26 AM 4 comments links to this post

Dirty Des goes to New York

Richard Desmond has gone to New York and he's having a go at everybody. He's even calling Sir Martin Sorrell short.
Desmond is surely one of those men who never just has a bee in his bonnet, but an entire hive.

As well as gratuitously laying into Sorrell (the two had a bit of a bust-up in February with legal papers flying back and forth as WPP sought £5.7m payment for work done on the launch of OK! in the US with Desmond counter-suing) with the rude but obvious, Desmond has been picking his targets as they come into range.

American Media (tabloid publisher of The Star, et cetera) chief David Pecker? Oh he's "shifty".

In an interview with Advertising Age, Desmond accused Time Warner of "putting out a lot of shit" about OK! in its defence of rival magazine People magazine.

Desmond is feeling a little sensitive that sales of OK! in the US are going to be a little below expectation. So what about that?

"You can tell all those wankers to fuck off because these are the figures."

As for the advertisers OK! is attracting, they should thank their lucky stars.

"The people who are advertising with us, which there aren't many, are getting the bargain of a fucking lifetime." posted by Gordon @ 9:59 AM 2 comments links to this post

Dutch drop 'em

Ambush marketing it might be, but asking Dutch fans to drop their (branded) trousers is farcical.
Thousands of Dutch fans turned up for their team's game against the Ivory Coast wearing lederhosen provided by Bavaria beer. They've become a must-wear in the world of Dutch fashion. OK, those last two words aren't a natural fit, but I doubt the lederhosen were either.

Fifa was not amused, the Dutch brewer is not an official sponsor of the World Cup like Budweiser so naturally asked fans... to take off their trousers.

Some fans ended up wearing their boxer shorts to watch Holland beat the Ivory Coast 2-1. I know it’s pretty hot at the moment, but really the idea of watching football in your skinnies is lunacy.

Fans had to dump their trousers in the bin.

Fifa said that the supporters could get them back afterwards, but few people got them back and remained trouserless.

What a bunch of bureaucrats. Fans suffer so that Fifa fat cats can protect their lucrative sponsorship deal.

It is only going to get worse with the power of the sponsor growing and growing. Fans are an inconvenience. Fifa gave sponsors 14% of all tickets, with national football associations like the FA only getting 8%.

Just listen to Nigel Currie, chairman of the European Sponsorship Association -- he comes across like a bit a local warlord.

"My view is that if there is a deliberate attempt to ambush an event, it should be stamped on."

Stamped on? That's a red card offence isn't it? Get off the pitch Currie.

One fan told The Guardian just how bad it is: "It's ridiculous, I queued for 25 minutes to get in. When I reached the front, an official told me: 'You're not getting in like that'. I took my trousers off. I managed to chuck them over the fence to some friends. But another official spotted them and took them away.

"I watched the game in my pants. Fortunately I had quite a long T-shirt."

There are other reports that England fans had to hand over Nike clothing at last Thursday's Trinidad and Tobago because Adidas is the official sponsor. How far does it go? posted by Gordon @ 10:15 AM 1 comments links to this post

Powergen shuts Indian call centres

Good to see Powergen closing its Indian call centre, bringing 450 call centre jobs back to the UK.
Having spent what seems like days on the phone to Indian call centres mostly for techie problems relating to Dell and Netgear, I'd do pretty much anything to avoid the experience.

Indian call centre staff are nice and try to be helpful, but it’s never a satisfying experience.

Calls seem to last longer and be that bit more painful than they already are. I think it is actually worth asking these days where a company locates its call centres. If they are in India and you think you might be calling, consider going elsewhere.

I spent half an hour online the line last week to Netgear (they make wireless routers among other things) and I just hung up in the end.

It was a bad line, I had trouble getting everything that was being said and it was on an 0870 number. Talk about Con India.

Despite having shifted its call centres to the sub-continent five years ago, Powergen's managing director Nick Horler said that while offshore call centres "may have their place for certain industries", Powergen can best "achieve industry-leading customer service by operating solely in the UK. When customers contact us they need to be confident that their query will be fully resolved quickly".

Other companies have already switched back to the UK, but many more hang on, believing that the costs they save on low Indian wages makes it worthwhile.

But like Apple earlier this week with its China work camps, this stuff always comes back to bite you on the ass. posted by Gordon @ 9:19 AM 1 comments links to this post