There's been a lot of fuss over here in the last few weeks about Peter Arnell's redesign of the Pepsi logo. Apart from the fact that this whole exercise will cost millions if you include the expense of changing the packaging, signage, trucks, etc, etc, the logo looks only marginally different from the one it replaces.
Compounding the felony is a 27 page document Arnell put out justifying this exercise in stupidity. As AdAge's Rupal Parekh, describes it... "Littered with marketing jargon, images of yin-yangs, mobius strips and Da Vinci's Vitruvian man, you'll maybe wonder whether Michael Phelps wasn't the only one hitting that bong." Great stuff. Arnell is well known as an uber-poseur, who even claimed that his horrible 3-D TV spot in the Super Bowl was as historic a moment as Thomas Edison's invention of motion pictures!
It's hard to understand this guy's Rasputin-like effect on big time clients. If any one else had made a mistake half as bad as the Celine Dion/Chrysler sponsorship fiasco of a couple of years ago, they would never work again. And yet he's been re-hired for millions by Chrysler as "Chief Innovation Officer!" Whatever that means... All while soaking up tax payers bail-out money.
No wonder ad people are down at the bottom of the respect barrel along with second hand car salespeople and politicians.
Let's not forget all those bankers in the USA, without whose help this crash would only have been a domestic disaster; the UK bankers who rushed in to buy the rotten loans; those wonderful derivative and hedge fund managers who lost billions and yet are still claiming bonuses; those wonderful Labour policticians: Blair, Brown, the utter incompetent Hoon and Byers, the revolting Jowell, the one that looks lilke an unfrocked Elizabeth Ist, the small ginger haired one, the fat shagger, the queen of body odour Harriet Harman, and so many more. And what about having a hand for the "known unknowns" and let's give it up for Cheney, Wolfowitz, and let's not forget Strobe Talbot, once a journalist, who then joined Bush's regime, who personally told me in Jakarta that he didn't think Russia had anything to do with the attempted assassination of John Paul II.
Afterthought:
If you have to bullshit, bullshit big. What is the one thing in common with all those named?
That they STILL get very good salaries, pensions, fees, bonuses, expenses, shares (in Blair's case, all of the above) and STILL are in positions where they continue to milk the system.
If only advertising could have provided me with just a fraction of such riches....
George Parker
Blogging for:
Member since: 03 Jun 2008
Last login: 17 Nov 2009
Total Posts: 831