In an article a few weeks ago, a 24-year-old blubbed about how grown-ups
were being beastly to his ‘generation’.
‘Please, Sir, they’re from the 60s (gulp, gulp) and they’re not doing
ads for us Sir (wobbly lower lip, eyes brimming) and we’re not going to
buy their products...Sir.’ Voice trails off as an embarrassing puddle
begins to appear on floor.
Well, stap me. ‘Youth reject advertising shock.’ Well, Mateyboy, youth
have always turned their backs on advertising and they’ve always loved
it. My 15-year-old daughter accuses me of being a manipulative bastard
and then goes off whistling ‘If you like a lot of chocolate...’
And if you want a generation above all others that rejected advertising,
it was precisely the 60s generation.
(And another thing, while I have you: let’s have no more rock magazine
drivel from thirtysomethings with aggressive haircuts, black clothes and
redbrick degrees about how silly the 60s were. If you’d grown up with
50s dreariness of cabbage, mud green paint and brown lino, you would
have thrown off your clothes and scampered headlong into the psychedelic
kaleidoscope.)
And anyway, our seven clean-limbed and clear-eyed graduate trainees
claim happily for themselves and their friends to be consumer sponges.
Not for them the ‘nice to see this idea coming round again’ reaction of
the weary advertising veteran to the Blaupunkt car stereo ad featuring
crash-test dummies coming to life to a heavy metal track. They liked it
and they’re right when they say it’s witty and relevant. ‘It makes its
point and it makes us laugh,’ they said, and, as its fragrant account
director claims, it researched brilliantly. Always an argument that
impresses me.
The graduates and I were in confused accord with both the Inland Revenue
and General Accident work. The liveliest moment on the General Accident
commercial is a sudden burst of logos and numbers, like an outbreak of
acne on your screen. It’s preceded by carelessly shot images suggesting
insurance with a voiceover talking about pensions. The income tax
poster...well, you work it out.
After all these years, has tiredness crept into lager ads? It’s as if
we’re all waiting for the next ground-breaking idea. The Foster’s
campaign isn’t it, but our critical grads saw them as sufficiently
different and funny to put them among the best around. The Australian
double act are engaging and intriguing, the art direction gives all the
Foster’s branding cues but ‘Tickle it you wrigglers’? Presumably there’s
going to be a big poster campaign to go with this and that may bring the
line to life, but will it become part of the national argot, as
doubtless the client has been promised? (We’ve all done that
presentation.)
The Air Miles campaign prompts a lot of unanswerable questions, such as:
who are they advertising to and why? Personally, I think it’s a
reconnaissance mission by Bartle Bogle Hegarty on the British Airways
business, and why not? They’re charming little ads and the significance
of the Ostrich was kindly explained to me by the Oxbridge intake.
(Ostriches don’t fly, geddit?) And there was me happy thinking it was
the whim of a capricious creative team.
Finally, on the Economist, here it is verbatim from one of the grads:
‘The direction, backing music and voiceover are magnetic, building to
the point where viewer and voiceover coincide: ‘Hey, it’s Henry
Kissinger.’ A gem.’
All I’d add is for those clients currently bothering their agencies
about getting synergy between print and TV, this is the way to do it.
The Economist has one of the strongest graphic looks ever, but it
recognises that true synergy comes from transferring attitude, not
visuals. Our under-23s - and I - love the ad.
Andrew Cracknell is the chairman and executive creative director of
Ammirati Puris Lintas
The Economist
Project: The Economist
Client: Andrew McGregor, director of marketing
Brief: If you don’t read the Economist, you will get caught out
Agency: Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO
Writer: David Abbott
Art director: Ron Brown
Director: Peter Levelle
Production company: Beechurst Film Productions
Exposure: ITV and Channel 4, London only
General Accident
Project: Pension Assured Fund
Client: Ian Bullock, retail marketing manager
Brief: Launch new pension fund
Agency: Publicis
Writer: Paul Campion
Art director: Stephen Glenn
Director: Laurence Dunmore
Production company: Great Guns
Exposure: National, Cable, Sky TV
Inland Revenue
Project: Inland Revenue self-assessment
Client: Helena Rafalowska, head of publicity
Brief: Build awareness of the self-assessment tax scheme
Agency: Leagas Shafron Davis
Writers: Trevor Webb (penalties), Aiden Hawkes, Rob Jebb (Hawaii)
Art directors: Steve Campbell (penalties), Aiden Hawkes, Rob Jebb
(Hawaii)
Typographers: Steve Wallington, Steve Thompson
Illustrator: Snowden Fine
Exposure: National posters
Bosch
Project: Blaupunkt
Client: Stefan Bochsteiner, corporate affairs manager
Brief: Position Blaupunkt as cool and desirable
Agency: BMP4
Writer: David McCullough
Art director: Tony Bradbourne
Director: Paul Street
Production company: The Streetlight Partnership
Exposure: National cinema
Foster’s
Project: Foster’s
Client: Peter Harding, marketing controller
Brief: Position Foster’s as the Australian antidote to angst
Agency: M&C Saatchi
Writer: Keith Bickel
Art director: Carlos
Director: John Marles
Production company: RSA Films
Exposure: National TV
Air Miles
Project: Air Miles
Client: Judith Thorne, marketing director
Brief: Look at what 80 air miles will give you
Writer: Pete Bradley
Art director: Marc Hatfield
Animator: Miles Flanagan
Director: Toby Tremlett
Model-maker: Steve Wilsher
Production company: Partizan Midi Minuit
Exposure: National TV
