When the Americans started going into space, they realised their
astronauts needed a way of recording data while inside the space
capsule.
The problem was that conventional pens needed gravity to make the ink
flow to the tip.
The answer was obvious. If you pressurised the ink tube with the correct
gas it would force the ink to the tip. So the Americans spent millions
of dollars experimenting with different gasses. After several years they
managed to perfect the zero gravity ball-point. The Russians used a
pencil.
Now you could say that the reason the Americans made it so complicated
was that there was more money to be made that way. In which case, lots
of ad people must be making tons of money.
Take the Johnnie Walker campaign, for instance. This was well shot but
if I hadn’t read the article about it in Campaign, I wouldn’t have known
what it was about. A tight-rope walker walks across a tight-rope, a
Hollywood actor walks into the lion’s den, a fireman walks to a fire.
The campaign line is ’keep walking’. A simple pun on the name, you’d
think. You’d be wrong.
The agency spokesperson told Campaign: ’(The consumers) found the
imagery associated with scotch ... had become empty cliches.’ Fair
enough, let’s have some new empty cliches. A fine example of the zero
gravity pen in use.
Another is the new Impulse campaign. It has old-fashioned animation
pretending to be a bad public service announcement. Call it ’retro’,
call it ’irony’ - I know what I’d call it.
Then the line: ’Impulse freshuality can cause calamity.’ I thought this
was the usual ’let’s tell girls that men will go crazy when they get the
merest whiff of them wearing this perfume’. I was wrong. Campaign’s
article on it says: ’Informs consumers that the main reason to use
Impulse is to keep feeling fresh all day.’ And that the advertising
should: ’Highlight the refreshing spray experience you can only get from
all-over application.’ That was definitely written with a zero gravity
ball-point pen.
As was the Amazon campaign. Beautifully shot, but what’s it about?
Campaign’s article on this reads: ’The idea behind the slogan is that
the benefits of Amazon are so simple that you can relate them to any
three everyday objects.’ Couldn’t be simpler, could it? In one ad,
Amazon is as simple as a bath tap, a razor, and a starfish.
Er, sorry? In another ad, Amazon is as simple as a dictionary, an alarm
clock, and a wall-mounted mirror. I think Amazon ads are as simple as
something, but they haven’t got it in the photo.
The problem with the next three campaigns is that I haven’t got a
Campaign article to tell me what they’re about. I’ll have to make it
up.
The first-e campaign is for an internet bank. I think it tells you that
they don’t have any of the problems of a conventional bank, and they say
it in a simple and understandable way. But I’m probably wrong, it was
probably: ’An exciting new execution based on a fundamental consumer
insight into the relationship between something or other.’
I didn’t read Campaign’s article on Gordon’s Gin press ads either, but
they look to me like someone is actually trying to make something
simple.
The idea of the original and a not quite look-alike is good. The USP
about getting the best ingredients before your competitors is also a
good idea.
They just haven’t quite been invisibly welded together. But at least
they are a lot closer to a pencil than a zero gravity ball-point
pen.
Finally, the Southern Comfort commercial. I had no Campaign article to
tell me what was actually going on. Something was red, something else
was green and Southern Comfort was amber. Presumably there’s a clue in
the traffic lights. I’m sure it’s all very simple. As simple as Amazon
books or Johnnie Walker, or Impulse.
But what do I know about simplicity? I’m still stuck in the days when
creatives wanted a pencil - not a zero gravity ball-point pen.
UDV
Project: Gordon’s Gin
Client: Simon Soothill, brand manager
Brief: n/a
Agency: Leo Burnett
Writer: Nick Bell
Art director: Mark Tutssel
Photographer: Simon Norfolk
Typographer: Trevor Slabber
Exposure: National press
BROWN FORMAN
Project: Southern Comfort
Client: Maureen Brekka, vice-president global marketing director
Brief: Dramatise the warming Southern Comfort effect
Agency: D’Arcy
Writer and art director: Dimitri
Director: Darryl Goodrich
Production company: Experience
Exposure: National TV and cinema
UDV
Project: Johnnie Walker
Client: Alice Avis, global brand director
Brief: Reinstate Johnnie Walker as a global icon by inspiring personal
progress
Agency: Bartle Bogle Hegarty
Writer: James Sinclair
Art director: Ed Morris
Director: Laurence Dunmore
Production company: RSA Films
Exposure: Global TV
ELIDA FABERGE
Project: Impulse
Client: Gabrielle Bell, brand manager
Brief: Spray Impulse all over and you will feel irresistibly fresh
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather
Writer: John McLaughlin
Art director: Mark Orbine
Director: Mic Graves
Production company: aka Pizazz
Exposure: Cinema
BANQUE D’ESCOMPTE
Project: first-e
Client: Richard Thackray, general manger
Brief: Create a brand and personality for first-e, the internet bank,
which will work across all media
Agency: J. Walter Thompson
Writer: John Donnelly
Art director: Ken Grimshaw
Director: Richard Kenworthy
Production company: aka Pizazz
Exposure: National TV and press
AMAZON
Project: Amazon
Client: David Osborne, head of marketing communications
Brief: Differentiate Amazon from other internet brands by establishing
it as a warm, human and service-centric company
Agency: HHCL & Partners
Project team: Chas Bayfield, Jim Bolton, Crispin Jamieson, Richard
Spalding, Natalie Hogan, Sid McGrath
Director: Suse Uhlenbrock
Production company: Partizan UK
Exposure: National TV and press
