A large queue in the Departure lounge

I like to think that we're pretty high Brow at Mammal. We're really not big on toilet humour or anything that degrades us and our clients to little more than a bunch of giggling school-boys. This said there's a spot for All-Bran that's been given a regular run in Australia featuring former cricket test legend Merv Hughes. Seems the agency responsible felt that his mere presence was enough for the ad to work. That rather quaint 'Down Under' mentality of shoving an Aussie icon in an ad and thinking that'll do. Job done. No decent script or ideas required. Equalling of course a limp and dreary TV campaign that does no-one any favours. Least of all the client footing the bill. This said here's a US version of the same '10 Day Fibre Plan' which doesn't include any top Aussie blokes and though visiting a cliched visual idea and the toilet humour we don't approve of is a darn sight better than the Antipodean version. You can't help but smile as you watch...Tut Tut! Shame on us all.....

Shirts (not hats) off!

Avid readers of this blog will have enjoyed a little piece wot I wrote not long ago regarding shirt sponsorship for English Prem team West Ham United AKA The Mighty Hammers. In the blog I was moaning (who me?! never!) about the prominence of the XL Holidays logo on the shirts taking away from the spirit of the strip and in turn de-valuing the West Ham brand. Good news (well unless of course you just booked a holiday with them...) is that XL Holidays have gone bust and West Ham have now terminated their $20 million sponsorship with them. Taking the logo from the shirts and all the branding from the hallowed ground at Upton Park. I'm assuming that meantime the shirts will, like Barcelona, carry no shirt advertising until a new sponsor can be found. Now THAT'S the West Ham United shirt I want! Pure, simple and proud. And if under new manager Zola we could get a string of wins happening in the Prem, maybe have a decent run in the cup competitions AND convince the club owners to put a cool Mammal logo on the shirts (well we can dream!) then the world would be a happier place.

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….



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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.