Unlike the UK, which has pretty strict guidelines on advertising junk food to kids, If you ever wondered why so many young Americans are spotty, overweight, and just generally a pain in the arse... Listen up... We are to blame. And no, I'm not talking about us as parents (well, maybe to a certain...
It is important to respond, to act. Ask Gordon Brown about biscuits and he’d better respond with something – anything – or else there will be trouble. Deafening silence rarely suggests success. Advertising doesn’t always expect an instant response; often it is trying to change the way people feel or...
In media, we like to create either/ors. Different media are generally pushed (or pulled of course) into various binary oppositions. As well as push/pull, we have lean forward/ back; interruption/engagement; new/old; and, today’s niggle, passive/active. Unless you are reading this from a print-out (which...
My last couple of posts have been about US health care and drug advertising, a huge cash cow for American agencies, and one that seems to be completely out of control as far as any kind of meaningful regulatory action is concerned. The other sector of the American economy that has obviously been taking...
For many years Madison Avenue pigged out at the trough of tobacco advertising. Back in the Mad Men days, cigarettes, booze and car accounts paid for many a Westchester mansion, country club fees and the odd boat or two. But with the ever tightening restrictions on tobacco and booze advertising things...
I’m supposed to be having a day off. Fat chance. You might have noticed a story put out by our cousins at the IAB that claims online advertising has now overtaken TV to become the ‘biggest single advertising medium in the UK’ (by spend). We find the IAB’s story odd because the internet is not a single...
David Reviews, the influential TV and film aggregation site, has recently started something called The Lunch Break . This is a selection of TV ads put together to watch as if in an ad break. The very good idea behind this is obviously to better replicate the experience that viewers have. People rarely...
Prepare for the whiff of burnt rubber in the air as the government begins its u-turn on product placement in UK TV programmes. There is no doubt that this is a fair decision. Product placement is already on our screens in various forms within acquired programming and as legitimate prop provision. We...
With the news today in the US that the latest Burger King gross out campaign from the frat boys in Boulder is once again relying on the use of celebrities to push stuff that will probably kill you, only serves to make me once again wonder if this stuff really works. The new Burger King effort has has...
Now, here’s a lovely thing that I’ve been meaning to blog about for a while. The brilliant Barclaycard ‘Waterslide’ TV ad propelled its iPhone app spin-off to become the most popular free, branded game in the history of the iTunes App Store. This is a fine example of TV and interactive media cuddling...
