Why the Diana inquest shames us all

We have all had to accept restictions on free speech. Nowhere more obviously than in marketingville and adland, where we must observe all manner of limitations on how we promote brands, as well as having to provide consumers with information that may well put them off.

Ads used to have to be ‘honest, decent and true’. Now that’s not enough.

For instance there are incremental restrictions on advertising HFSS products to children. HFSS is not a class A drug. It’s all foods that are high in fats, salt and sugar – including confectionery and snacks.

So Cadbury and McDonald’s aren't allowed to ask children to sample their tasty wares. But those same children are now exposed to a tasty and salacious diet of scurrilous gossip emanating from the High Court.

It's apparently perfectly OK for kids to read in newspapers and hear in news bulletins about Princess Diana's lovers, phobias and unusual dress habits. The Diana brand is undergoing systematic character assassination under the pretext of an 'inquest' (don't we know how she died?) organised on the say-so of a rich retailer. Not being a trained lawyer it is hard to see the relevance to the inquest of tittle tattle from a bizarre collection of policemen, butlers, therapists, 'friends' and even – amazingly – divorce lawyers.

We live in a strange time when you can give unsubstantiated evidence in a court – which is immediately broadcast around the world to destroy a brand’s reputation, when you can’t suggest to a child that she buys a bag of crisps.

Bumper New Year Competition – What next for the giants of adland?

 So Gordon Brown has chosen Stephen Carter as his Principal Special Adviser. That depending on your historical focus is consigliere, Alastair Campbell, Rasputin or Cardinal Wolsey. Quite a compliment for our industry and its powers – as well as recognition for Stephen personally.But he is certainly not the first of adland’s finest to grace a bigger stage. One thinks of Adam Crozier, who has led the FA and now Royal Mail.  Then there’s Rupert Howell, MD of Brand and Commercial Operations at ITV, three Lords a leaping in Barons Saatchi, Bell and Chadlington, and three knights that changed our world (but stayed put) in Sir Martin, Sir Frank and Sir John.  My challenge to you, gentle reader, is to nominate candidates for the next round of advancement. Gay Haines and Gary Stolkin can’t enter, because there are undoubtedly many names on their lilac notepaper already. To start you off, here are some early thoughts:

• Robin Wight to Archbishop of Canterbury (much needed flair after the sombre Dr Rowan)
• Garry Lace to replace Sir Ian Blair at the Met (he’s already conducted a few investigations)
• Lee Daly to succeed Sir Alex – he went to the right club last year, but in the wrong job
• Cilla from AMV as St Peter (well she wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance in the other place)
• Johnny Hornby to sort out the railways (with a name like that he should be able to handle a train set)

Get Tim Martin to do the Army recruitment ads

Another bumper weekend for crazy stories from adland and marketingville. Who’s Tim Martin? He’s the breathtakingly cool Chairman of JD Wetherspoon. And they are the pub chain who are turfing out punters after two drinks if they have brought children with them. It’s a really interesting attempt at social engineering, and somewhat at odds with the customer-service ethic. “We don’t want children there bored while adults drink”, a spokesman explained. A man so dedicated to telling it as it is (why on earth should a Wetherspoon patron think they are entitled to stay for more than a couple of Becks?) would be the perfect choice to develop a much more realistic campaign for the Army. What’s Army recruitment advertising? Those are the ads, according to researcher David Gee (as financed by the Joseph Rowntree Trust) which omit reference to a distinct possibility of strict discipline, injury, death and having to kill the enemy. With recruitment and retention not going awfully well what with Iraq, Afghanistan etc, a more realistic slant to the ads should do the trick, and empty the recruiting centres completely. And we know what Mr Gee says makes sense, because it’s well known that young men are totally non-violent, don’t buy video games and never read about war in the media. There does come a moment when we need to defend both our business and common sense. 

Is the holiday shut-down crazy?

How smart is it for an industry that earns its revenue from selling time to shut up shop for the best part of a fortnight at the end of every year? It’s not that either marketing or advertising are in such glorious shape that the industry can really afford it. From the agency standpoint the revenue loss is largely cushioned by the assumption in the fee agreement that weeks 51 and 52 in 2007 and week 1 in 2008 are business as usual. But sharp-eyed procurement folk will already have that anomaly in their sights for the end of 2008. Most agencies have plenty of people. It shouldn’t be beyond the wit of man to devise some kind of shift system to keep the creative furnaces alight during the festive season. London, after all, is a global co-ordination centre. Even if Britain decides to close down, there are plenty of countries who work on, and need our output. The chattering classes have been swift to castigate Network Rail for failing to complete their holiday engineering programme on time (‘fire the managers; dock the bosses’ bonuses’). But at least they were doing something while we caroused and slumbered.