Wake me up on November 5th. No, not for Guy Fawkes!

Consider yourself lucky you are not living in the US for the next week. Why? Because it's the final week of the Presidential campaign, which feels like it has been running forever. Lets get a couple of things straight. I am an Obama supporter. Eight more years of right wing, neo-con, religious bulls*h*i*t would be a disaster for this country. Having said that, most Democrats in this country would be well to the right of most Conservatives in the UK. The laughable thing is the way McCain and "Lets shoot wolves from planes" Palin are now describing Obama as a Socialist. A word they throw in the same hopper as Liberal and Communist.

But, moving on to the point of this rant... Getting elected in this country is all about money (Yeah, I know that applies over there) But, not to the extent it does here. 'Cos you need tons of money for advertising, primarily on TV. I'm talking millions and millions here. Even people running for state and city office, spend millions on TV. And they do it for month after month. The grand finale will be on Wednesday, when Obama runs THIRTY MINUTE commercials on all the major networks, including the Spanish language ones.

Like I say, politicos world wide are corrupt (US senator Ted Stevens and many others) It's just that it takes s*h*i*t loads of money to get elected here compared to over there. The good thing is, in a week, it will be over... But then, within weeks it will start again for 2012... Mark my words. It never ends.

Tough Times at WPP... For some!

You have to laugh when you read all that crap about WPP's hiring freeze. I'm sure, as is usual with "The Diminished One," this will be a rule that affects everyone in his basement empire, except himself. I remember years ago when I was negotiating with JWT, I asked for First Class air travel, as well as a Roller and a satellite phone!!! (Well, if you don't ask, you don't get.)

They told me to get knotted as everyone in the company traveled business class, including Sir Martin. Next week, I read in the New York Times that while he was doing his deal to buy Y&R, he traveled on Concorde six times in two weeks... Funny, I never knew they had Economy Class on Concorde! Didn't even get the bloody James Bond phone, either.

Obama's ads now on a video game near you!

Here in the US, race car drivers were a bit surprised over the weekend to spot trackside billboards with the Presidential contender's face on them and the message "Early Voting Has Begun. VoteForChange.com." OK, this wasn't on an actual track, these were virtual billboards, on imaginary roads, driven by Xbox 360 players in an online version of the popular racing video game "Burnout Paradise."

Game maker Electronic Arts confirmed Monday that the Obama campaign ads were the real deal. "Like most TV, radio and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates," an EA spokeshack told the tech blog GigaOm. "Like political spots on the television networks, these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams."

As you can imagine, most gamers were less than thrilled about this...

"The McCain campaign will respond by buying ads at Pong consoles nationwide," joked one. "You can't even PAY for a video game without being pummeled with ads," complained another.

At least, gamers only have three weeks of this bullshit to look forward to. Political ads on TV have been almost non-stop for the last two years.

The world according to Big Dumb Agencies... Everything is great!

If the situation over there is anything like it is over here, you have to think it's time to start battening down the hatches. This weeks AdAge has a very good, extensive piece on Draft/FCB two years after the merger, which is a great illustration of how most senior managers at BDA's just don't get it and fail to realize we are poised to fall off the cliff.

Excellent read, particularly as it quotes me... It features my advice to Hughie, Dewey & Louie to "shut the f*u*c*k up." I tell them to stop making asinine videos and claiming they have created the agency of the future. Then all we hear about are mass layoffs.

Howard Draft goes on record as saying " After two years, all the heavy lifting is done!" Implying they are now going to set the world on fire. The problem is, the world is already on fire, and it has nothing to do with anything Draft/FCB has done.

The end is nigh... But I am near!!!

Just in case you guys over there, haven't been paying attention... The economy in the US is in a giant melt down... OK, I know, the same is happening over there, and even when you nationalize the odd bank or two, hey, what's wrong with that. Over here, doing that smacks of socialism and pinko faggot government bailouts. But, what the hell, they do it and call it "Free-Market-Capitalism." At the end of the day, it means the little guys save the big guys... But, as the used to say in my Mancunian birth place... "It's the rich wot gets the gravy... It's the poor wot gets the blame." How F*u*c*k*i*n*g true is that? So, what has this to do with our treasured business of advertising... Everything... Think about it... I shall be over there in late November and we can discuss this weighty subject. Stay tuned for dates and venues etc. In the meantime save your pennies for buying me lots of well deserved pints... Cheers/George

Wonderbra does stupid!

I had to laugh when I read in today's BrandRepublic about the "Curvy Wonderbra model quitting after being told to lose weight!" Apparently some douchenozzle at Wonderbra suggested she sign up with a model agency after she had already appeared in the well known billboard, which was done by my mates at Iris, hosts of the world's greatest ad conference "Under the Influence." The one where I got semi-legless earlier this year, and expect to do the same next year... If they invite me back.

As is usual with "Model Agencies," if you ain't Twiggy, you won't do. Which shows how stupid they are considering the whole point of the campaign was about women who in the words of the ads are "D-G. Because we're more than a handful."

Besides which, you can't very well use the usual anorexic models to show a bra for the "Fuller Figure, as they used to say in the old corset ads.

Why in this screwed up business does nothing ever change? Come to think about it, you can ask the same about the fashion industry.