A few months ago, I had a row with someone on a creative awards
jury. She wanted to give a gong to a campaign because whenever she’d
seen the idea before, ’it hadn’t been executed with quite the same
style’.
Oh dear. Creative in direct marketing has improved ever since people
accepted that, as well as using tried and tested techniques, it might be
useful to have an idea in there too. But heaven forbid that creative
directors think they can apply ideas in the same way as techniques -
picking the ones that have worked and trotting them out again and
again.
One agency that has done more than any other to raise standards is
FCA!
When I judged some awards a couple of days ago, its Aids Awareness Day
and Siemens work shone like yellow peppers amid the spuds, sprouts and
swedes submitted by the other shops. The latest Siemens work is not
quite as fresh but it has the great virtue of clarity. (Believe me, a
few months as a civilian doesn’t half hammer home how succinct an ad
should be, and how wilfully complex too many of them are.) Sure enough,
there are big, bold benefits and competitive claims here in the press
ads, direct marketing, point-of-purchase, sales promotion and TV
commercials. Every element wants you to know why the Siemens S10 mobile
phone is better than a Nokia, Motorola or Ericsson.
Why you should want to buy a packet of Twiglets is another matter. The
brief was to reposition and aim the snack at young adults, and perhaps
the thinking went like this: young adults equals sex; young adults and
sex, in media terms, equals Loaded/Cosmopolitan; young adults and sex
and Loaded/Cosmopolitan and Twiglets equals massive increase in sales of
the latter. I can’t help thinking that coming up with the right idea is
a bit more difficult than this. But maybe this time it’s me who’s
wilfully complicating things.
And finally, that Lazarus of ideas - the aforementioned one I fell out
over - has risen in the form of the new Shell Select campaign. You know
it, you’ve done it, we all have: mysterious letters under plain brown
covers, messages like blackmail notes cut from newsprint and, yes, ’your
mission should you choose to accept it’. It all spins off some
light-hearted TV commercials featuring a couple of bungling private eyes
on duty outside their local Shell Select store.
We may all grow to like them, just as we’ve warmed to the old idea that
informs the mailpacks. Will the TV work? I dunno. The mail will do
reasonably well - that idea usually does.
I just hope no-one is daft enough to think it worthy of an award in a
few months.
Steve Harrison is a lapsed copywriter
Jacob’s Bakery
Client: Mike Butters, marketing manager
Brief: Communicate the taste, shape and texture of Twiglets, and put the
brand on the agenda of a new, young adult audience
Agency: Willox Homes & Law
Copywriter: Nick Coombs
Art directors: Chris Sindon and Janek Janikowski
Shell Select
Client: Lurene Joseph, brand and communications manager
Brief: Position Select at Shell as the best convenience retailer in the
UK
Agency: J. Walter Thompson
Copywriter: Andrew Singleton
Art director: Jono Wardle
Siemens
Client: David Ball, UK general manager
Brief: Launch the S10 as the latest technological innovation from
Siemens
Agency: FCA!
Copywriter: Shaun McIlrath
Art director: Ian Harding
