Private View

Why do I always get the filth to review?

I got the first Wonderbra ad, the first nipple sighting - now I get the

first erection and the continuation of the bra wars.

But, in a departure from the habits of a lifetime, I’m going to resist

the temptation of knob jokes and dribbling lewd asides. Through our

’hostage’ commercial, enough people seem to have been offended - for

which I genuinely and unreservedly apologise. Some of the reaction in

its sanctimoniousness is, itself, questionable, but I shall not risk

prolonging the potential for yet more outrage by any injudicious

remarks. So I shall be po-faced and leave the innuendo to you.

As it happens, my opinion on the Impulse ad - until recently one our

clients - was given to me in the best and only legitimate way by hoots

of coarse, ribald laughter from two of the target market, my eldest

daughters, watching television. ’Don’t you do the Impulse ads? They’ve

got this great new ad. There’s this art class, see, and this ...’ ’I

know, I know. Shut up!’ I said through gritted teeth. When I first heard

about the script I thought it would be coy and prurient but it escapes

that with charming lightness in direction. And I will innocently inform

you that the track, Pressure Drop, is from the film, The Harder They

Come.

The Gossard poster is significantly better than its tacky predecessor,

’who says a woman can’t get enjoyment from something soft?’, to which

the only proper answer is ’nobody’. Me, I still prefer the rollicking,

knockabout breastfest that is Wonderbra, but then, I’m a mere onlooker.

Perhaps Gossard is positioning itself as the thinking bosom’s bra.

When your target market is radical youth and the best-known user of your

product is the leading contender in the Conservative Party leadership

race, you have not got what he might call convergence. Hush Puppies gets

round it by ignoring this inheritance, dropping the hush and adopting

youthful Americana as its testimonial. Go for it, tough it out. If Tommy

Hilfiger can embrace Yale and the South Bronx simultaneously - why can’t

Hush Puppies link Smith Square and Camden Lock?

As I’ve never seen why the affable enough Des Lynam is so much more

popular than any other TV ’personality’, a commercial where the brief

for Right Guard is read to him is unlikely to move me. And as I don’t

understand the point of Virgin Cola as a product, I find I difficult to

have an opinion on its advertising.

Virgin’s strength is as a service company whose appeal is bringing new

and exciting angles to things people have done before, like fly the

Atlantic, arrange a Pep, buy records or cosmetics. But what’s the new

angle on Cola that the Virgin name brings? Its advertising, almost

self-consciously eccentric, illustrating the strange world of Virgin

Cola in foreign languages, seems to be trying hard to supply advertising

significance to a meaningless product.

Labbatt Ice claims to be technically the coolest beer around and tells

us so in a series of commercials shot in early 60s information film

style.

I like them; what’s necessary in this category is attaching sufficient

intrigue and character to the beer to give a drinker something to sign

on to and that’s what this should do. It’s based on the fact that

because the lager is frozen to - 4 degrees during brewing - hence its

coolness - you need to make sure you’re warm while drinking it. This is,

of course, total nonsense.

But then this is, of course, only advertising.

Whitbread

Project: Labatt Ice

Client: Tracy Darwen, marketing manager

Brief: Labatt Ice is the coolest beer in the world

Agency: Lowe Howard-Spink

Writer: Charles Inge

Art director: Charles Inge

Director: Traktor

Production company: Partizan Midi Minuit

Exposure: Terrestrial and satellite TV

Gillette UK

Project: Right Guard

Client: David Bashaw, Northern European marketing manager

Brief: Re-establish the double protection positioning of Right Guard

Agency: Saatchi and Saatchi

Writer: Howard Wilmott

Art director: Duncan Marshall

Director: John Lloyd

Production company: Limelight

Exposure: National TV and selected cable and satellite channels

Virgin Cola Company

Project: Virgin Cola

Client: James Kydd, marketing director

Brief: Create an unreal global campaign for Virgin Cola

Agency: Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe

Writer: Richard Beesening

Art director: Andy Blood

Director: Jhoan Camitz

Production company: Outsider

Exposure: National and satellite TV

Gossard

Project: Gossard Glossies

Client: Sue Shidler, senior brand manager

Brief: Soft sensuality

Agency: Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO

Writer: Malcolm Duffy

Art director: Paul Briginshaw

Photographer: Barry Lategan

Exposure: National posters

Hush Puppies UK

Project: Hush Puppies Classic range

Client: David Rist, managing director

Brief: Contemporise the brand

Agency: Delaney Fletcher Bozell

Writer: Peter Kew

Art director: Ronnie Brown

Photographer: Jake Chessum

Typographer: Ronnie Brown

Exposure: Style magazines

Elida Faberge

Project: Impulse

Client: Graziela Caleat, European innovation manager

Brief: Bring Impulse up to date

Agency: Ogilvy and Mather

Writer: Justin Hooper

Art director: Christian Cotterill

Director: Jeff Stark

Production company: Stark Films

Exposure: National TV