11 IS 'One Louder' Slash!

Ford or Holden? City or United? Dockers or Eagles? Personally I couldn’t give a valid opinion or any of these BUT ask Fender or Gibson? and my piggy little eyes light up and I’ll start to babble. When it comes to guitars and the brands us guitarists love then it’s an argument likely to be as hotly debated as the rightly ownership of the Falkland Islands between an Argentinean and a Brit… Personally I am a Fender man. I won’t go into boring spodish detail but to my ear and eye their design is perfection. The more brute-like Gibson’s have their rightful place in the pantheon of rock guitars but they just don’t have the flexibility of a Fender. I mean if it was good enough for Jimi Hendrix then it’s good enough for me. Which is what any ad for Fender should be telling prospective buyers. Either way here a spot for Mastercard….



B

What's wrong with Canyonaro?

The Qashqai people were nomadic tribes people who arrived in Iran in the 11/12th centuries. Obviously some bod at Nissan chanced upon this piece of trivia on Wikipedia (errrr same as me actually...)and decided that their new compact SUV was suitably 'nomdish' to warrant being called The Qashqai (try spelling it even when you're LOOKING at the word is difficult!)I'm sure Nissan were hoping that the Qashqai's would be rolling off the production line easier than the name rolls off the tongue...Anyway, despite their best efforts to put off potential buyers off with this baffling moniker this TVC redresses the balance by actually being pretty darn cool....

Attention to detail

There’s no shortage of awards for cities and towns to grab these days and councils are always on front foot trying to spend some of the tax payers cash on a little home-town self-praise. So when the vast city of Birmingham in Britain wanted to spruk some self-promotion it distributed 720,000 flyers (nothing wrong with flyers - we do ‘em and done right they work a treat) to tell it’s own residents, and no doubt rival councils, what a great job they'd done with recycling targets. Sadly, the photo featured on the flyers for this proud achievement was of Birmingham, Alabama, USA. Proof reading? Pah! Who needs it…!

Australian Retail Heavyweights "Battle of the Brands'

Nowhere is the power or the strength of an exclusive brand portfolio more apparentthan on the Australian high street as the country's department store heavyweights battle it out the secure a winning brand portfolio. The feeding frenzy over exclusivity of the brands ranged is far from over. Two heavy hitters Myer and David Jones are fighting it out - brand by brand. Rumour has it that Speedo, Jets, Gorman,See by Chloe and Philosophy by Alberta Ferretti, and children's brand Fred Bare have all left Myer for Jones town! viva le brand!

Mass Appeal = A Nice Little Earner

When the BBC’s ‘Top Gear’ first appeared on TV in 1977 it was a serious little car information programme that actually talked about things like ‘car safety’ and other earnest motoring issues. A far cry from the ‘Lads Mag’ version with Clarkson and co we see today which is hugely popular and now getting franchised around the world. And this of course mean big bucks for the presenters. Co-Presenter Richard Hammond (known as The Hampster and for nearly killing himself in rocket powered dragster) recently completed four day filming to appear in ad’s for UK supermarket giant Morrisons. Four days work for $1.6m. Clearly Morrisons know mass appeal when they see it.

No I didn't order a 'Code Red'!

You don't have to be in ad's to appreciate this. Two mins spent with Jack is always time well spent...

Plenty more where this came from.

There’s no shortage of ‘average’ ad’s on TV. The ones that just pass you by. And of course all too rarely the better ones that actually make a connection. Then there’s the total stinkers. The ones that make you wish you’d been a fly on the wall at the meeting between the agency and the client when the following little beauty got the big thumbs up…..

Pigs might fly. Well climb anyway....

It would appear that I have something of an animal obsession this week as this blog is slightly 'animal related' as well. Well we are called mammal so it goes with the territory. Pfizer as you may know are one the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers on the planet. They make those little blue pills called ‘Viagra’ which are apparently quite popular. They also make a range of ‘animal health’ products from which this wondrous photo from Italian agency D’Adda comes. The message might be somewhat vague but the image manages that delicate balancing act of being both eye-catching and tender. And of course any ad that gets makes an emotion going is onto something. Next time the cat gets a gummy eye I might not demand the vet prescribes a Pfizer product but I might least be aware of the name.