Nokia Music Almighty
These raucous visual feasts are the new adverts from Nokia advertising their Nseries. Using rather extraordinary animated headphones - a mini disco for your ears - the effect is ridiculously appealing. Not only are the tunes they use ludicrously catchy – indeed, there seem to be numerous pleas across the internet for the name of songs used - but the headphones themselves have a mesmerising quality.
The first is actually pretty disturbing if you consider that the headphones, should they actually be worn, would, no doubt, be bawling into one listener’s ears and shooting small laser beams at the other’s. Sure, the wannabe rock-star cherub is quite cute, but there’s something about those gobby, lip-stick spattered mouths that screams ‘I’m going to snog your ears in between bellows’.
Yep, it’s the second ad that wins it for me with its overall childishness. This is largely because it fills me with a wonderful wave of blissful nostalgia – it’s like a sophisticated version of that Super Nintendo game back in the heady days of basic computer animation, the nineties. Remember Pop and Twinbee, the babblingly cute killing machines? Uncanny isn’t it?! - Especially with those little missiles. Do you know what, I might just buy a Nokia phone because of my love for a game I used to play…
WWF Dispirited Superhero
The World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature have put out this amusing viral to publicize Connect2earth.org, a website providing information on how to help the environment. The site essentially acts as a forum for keen green guardians to articulate their ideas for the World Conservation Congress in October.
Featuring lazy, unfit superheroes who can’t be arsed to save the world, agency Escape Partners intend the ad to challenge the easily adopted attitude of idleness when it comes to doing a little to saving the planet. As one superman walks by, he casts indifferent glances to a man falling from a tall building, a mother losing grip of her pram that rolls down steps and (my particular favourite superhero faux pas) a granny getting mowed down by a van.
A smart ad, it tackles an important, but unfortunately overdone subject using definitive terms. Try, or don’t bother. Both have consequences.
To pull your finger out (if you can be arsed), go to www.connect2earth.org.
Home Office’s Know Your Limits
“You wouldn’t start a night like this, so why end it that way?”
Right then, if we’re really expected to answer this question, the main reason for this is that at the start of the night one holds an insipid kind of mindset, more or less believing that looking decent when out is what really matters as she/he labours over lippie or hair gel, whereas by the end of the night, the “more or less” in this feeling has grown to a “hardly” and resulted in the feeling that gross hedonism is the clearly way forward. Who gives a monkeys what they look like? As long as someone’s there, holding back their hair then sod the rip in their jeans. Life’s for living.
Obviously, this isn’t a productive dialogue to have. Why? Because it’s not really a straightforward start vs. end affair and it certainly does not revolve around one’s appearance at those points. I can’t help thinking that this advert just gets it all wrong by using irrelevant reasoning. Number one, drinking alcohol is about a process (namely involving kicking back, finding the world a funnier place and gradually disregarding social constraints that cause unnecessary pressure), it’s not simply a sober = refined Jekyll, drunk = hideous Hyde situation. Of course, it’s helpful if this unwinding is within reason, but let’s think about it a minute - murdering small children when you lose your inhibitions is one thing, even starting a fight is not cool, but spilling something on your top or smudging your make-up?! It’s hardly an all-time sin.
Ok, I understand that people need to be aware of the dangers of binge drinking (and vomit in hair is not a good look for anyone) but talk about the actual dangers then please. Don’t use front-page tabloid Winehouse/Doherty aesthetics and twisted logic about appearance in an attempt to shame people into thinking that’s why they shouldn’t drink. People shouldn’t drink because it’s bad for their health and they act like idiots harming themselves or others. Not because they don’t look so pretty after a few. Amen.
To watch a better advert that the Home Office came up with a while ago, which effectively deals with the danger of drinking too much, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU9hD50Qr4I
Doritos Broadcast Project
This is the winner of the competition from Doritos for which the British public was encouraged to come up with a thirty second advert. Following the contest first run in the
Honda Live Advert
A couple of weeks ago this advert from Honda was broadcast live to an audience of over 2 million boosting normal viewing figures for that ad slot by a substantial 8 percent - impressive for three minutes’ work, eh? Featuring a group of skydivers jumping out of a plane in real time shifting in formation to spell out the word Honda, the actually quite elaborate stunt proved to be edge-of-the-seat stuff. Indeed, it demonstrates that an innovative advertising format can successfully bring the spectators in, but just what kind of staying power does a live advert actually have after the event itself?
The ad is, no doubt, a veritable feat of PR ensuring that excitement escalated around the brand in the run up to the event, but what happens now that the fun’s over? Now that the sky divers have all landed safely and gone home has Honda’s moment of glory faded from our memory? Regarded by some critics as flash-in-the-pan and a waste of money, they, in fact, rise above the disparagement and represent a rather noteworthy flash. After all, ‘difficult is worth doing’. In an era where content is increasingly succumbing to the user’s demand, this advert proves that there is still a buzz about live TV – even if no one swore or got naked (that’s what Big Brother’s for).
Christian Aid Week
Christian Aid’s advert certainly strikes a chord these past weeks what with recent events in Burma and China. Taking the form of a computer game, the ad, publicising this week’s Christian Aid Week (11-17th May), points out that “natural disasters always hit the poorest hardest” while far-off characters are hit by a hurricane. The village is then rebuilt and fortified against the next hit, which they survive demonstrating that with the right equipment these catastrophes can not only be predicted, but also often prevented.
The fitting computer game style, without doubt, says something about the unreal, other-worldly sensation westerners often experience when greeted by coverage of natural disasters that occur abroad. Not only this, but also the elevated viewpoint, putting us well and truly in the position of the button pusher, certainly goes some way to commenting on the significant power that we have to donate to these causes and make a difference.
The only hang-up I have with this advert is the way its detached form in effect borders on economic dispassion. When shocking photos appear daily on the front of numerous newspapers how is a cartoon about little computerised faceless people going to trigger them to sympathetically reach into their pockets? I’m not saying it’s not a clever point about the insignificance this magnitude of victims has in many people’s consciousness, but is Christian Aid’s ad truly hard-hitting enough to get an immediate donation? This week we shall see.
BBC HD Channel
Last night was the very first airing of the new promo advert for the BBC’s new high definition channel. Celebrating the launch of their latest service that will offer an enhanced picture quality, this advert certainly aims to make an impact.
Taking the spectacular form of an Antiques Road Show mock episode, the ad, developed by agency Fallon and produced by Red Bee Media, starts with the revelation that a vase is worth at least £2 million. As the owner’s son faints causing the piece to catapult into the air, everything turns a bit Tomb Raider. Things are smashed as people let go of their prized possessions in shock as the soundtrack builds epically and slow motion ensues. Starring newsreader Fiona Bruce as the action hero who drives head on through a table of ornaments in a vintage car (nice touch), it culminates in a dramatic explosion from which the BBC favourite runs and dives just in time to save the piece.
Further confirming that HD is the future of TV, this is the perfect choice of show to demonstrate the cinematic sexiness that the channel promises to inject into its content, both established and new, though there is, no doubt, a limit to what it can do for the Antiques Road Show - just imagine if HD actually meant turning everything on telly into an action film?! No Jolie-inspired, cleavage-enhancing attire here though, Fiona is, of course, in true BBC style dressed sensibly for the occasion.
‘Badass Wombles of Central Park’ viral from PACT
It’s a long time since we’ve seen the Wombles out and about, isn’t it? Well not many people know this but they have actually been trying to break America for the past few years. When approached by PACT to front their new campaign against the damaging effects of repeated exposure to the American lilt they said that as Brits away from home (Wimbledon, London), who miss the word ‘sorry’ and having whole conversations about the weather, they felt a resonance with the movement and “totally couldn’t turn it down, man”.
The new viral animation from the Producer’s Alliance for Cinema and Television aims to emphasise the serious lack of investment in British TV. By featuring the brash, over-Americanised Wombles hanging out in Central Park using US terminologies, PACT hope to illustrate the effects of US imports on children’s programming. They maintain that new UK shows account for just 1% of all children’s television broadcast in the UK and would like to see more funding from the Government put into producing new British programmes.
Punchy slices, heavily distorted guitar and Friends-esque canned laughter caricaturing the majority of current kid’s shows make for a well-put point that children in the UK could probably do with a refresh course in British culture. Identity is important, innit? However, does rather border on the kind of zealous comment your Grandma might make at the dinner table, which is illustrated fittingly by Great Uncle Bulgaria reeling at the thought of a zombified Yankee race of children and warning the viewer, “Before it’s too late!”
First Choice
Oh Lord. This has got to be one of the most sickly-sweet adverts around. What exactly do First Choice think they are achieving by subjecting their audience to such vomit-inducing material? Do they perhaps think that in some way they’ve produced a stirring campaign to leave viewers dabbing away their tears while grasping for the phone to secure their family’s love with a trip abroad? Surely, they can’t truly believe that they’ve created a moving piece of TV that reflects their intimate understanding of family holidays, can they?!
The advert’s premise centres on the instant when a father realises the value of spending time with his young son - induced by First Choice, naturally, who have enlightened him with their superior kind of holiday. This wannabe ‘heart-rending movie reunion’ is at first perplexing - one wonders why exactly we are watching the slo-mo close-up of a manically smiling man. Then, it is boring - one quickly tires from watching this manically smiling man, even though the music is quite pleasant. And finally, when the child moves in and the camera pans out, the awful realisation kicks in and we are left with a feeling of distinct nausea.
More like a try-hard charity campaign than a travel company promising a fun experience, this ad is definitely not my first choice.
Transport for London 2
The second of TFL’s ads on road awareness (see below) proves to be rather clever indeed. This time the focus is on looking out for cyclists, who, like moon walking bears, can oft be difficult to spot when distracted by ball games and stuff. Go on, try it yourself.
For more information on TFL’s current road safety campaign, go to http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/projectsandschemes/roadsandpublicspaces/7599.aspx
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