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We’ve not only taken the craft out of art. We’ve taken the craft out of craft!

‘Every artist is a craftsman, but not every craftsman is an artist’ was the credo we used to live by when I served my apprenticeship, back in the dark days of Magic Markers and Layout Pads. And it’s an observation you’ll know to be true if you’ve ever asked a house painter to advise you on interior décor, or... No Comments

Retail Revival Demands Ideas – Not Just Money!

The Mary Portas plan to revive the ‘outdated’ high street is very much in the news at the moment, and most would agree with the spirit, if not the detail, of her proposals. Certainly our own Bishop’s Stortford high street has an increasing number of voids, and the ominous incursion of its first pound store – a cut price one... No Comments

Now even baked bean tins have celebrity designers!

Imagine picking up a can of baked beans and finding a note on the tin from the label designer describing his creative rationale and artistic influences, together with a potted biography of his professional career. Well, it hasn’t quite come to that yet, but judging by a paperback book I picked up this week, the day can’t be far away... No Comments

Consumer Profiling – The New Censorship

I'm a male of near retiring age, and I will never be invited to buy a skateboard, attend a Foo Fighters concert or shop for a pair of high heeled shoes. And I’m as mad as hell about it! Not, you understand that I'm in the throes of an identity crisis or suffering from gender confusion. Just that the latest... No Comments

Revealed – The real ‘hidden persuaders’

Subliminal advertising – the practise of flashing up an image or message too fast for the eye to see, but nonetheless registering with the unconscious – was officially banned by the profession in the late 1950s. But subliminal advertising is still alive and well in the UK, and everywhere else, in a form so innocent that few would suspect... No Comments

Tweet, Woof, Miaow – Welcome to Social Petworking!

If you thought a dog's networking site was his local lamppost, think again. It seems that pets are more popular than celebrities on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube according to Pet Plan, the pet insurers, who have conducted a survey into the 'social petworking' phenomenon. Apparently it all started with Beast, the pet dog of Mark Zuckerburg, super-geek and founder of... No Comments

Simpsons in promotion of one of Stortford’s oldest firms

Boardmans, one of Bishop’s Stortford’s longest established firms, is raising its profile in an advertising campaign to be launched by Royston Simpson Creative, which will publicise the firm’s move from its former North Street premises to a new showroom and retail warehouse at Twyford Business Centre, along with its improved offer to its customers. “Most business people and home office... No Comments

Che Guevara Meets Today’s Pretty Poster Boys

I blame that poster of Che Guevara – revolutionary hero of a million student bedrooms and sweaty tee-shirts – for encouraging arts undergraduates to pose as self-appointed reformers of society. Of course, every generation believes it’s going to change the world and reinvent it in its own image. But at least in my day we did it with a little... No Comments

What to do About ‘Cookies?’ – Try Confused.com!

Ever imagined what life would be like as an amnesiac? Waking up each morning and wondering who you are and what you’re doing there? It’d be even worse for your spouse or significant other, who’d have to spend all day retelling you your life history – only to begin again the following day! Somewhat incapacitating, I think you’ll agree. And... No Comments

“So, Mr Bond, first I am going to give you this Omega watch, then I am going to kill you!”

Back in Hollywood’s golden era, when a producer was pitching a film idea to a box office star, he would talk about it being a great ‘vehicle’ for his or her talents, a formula that probably led to the eventual demise of the star system: the integrity of the script was often compromised to the star’s whims, and their... No Comments

The ‘ah’ factor – advertising’s secret ingredient

Sitting in on a marketing meeting and being bombarded by phrases like ‘demographic breakdown’, ‘behavioural targeting’ and ‘affirmative disclosure’, you might be forgiven for thinking that advertising is a hard science on a par with nuclear physics. But the newly released Dulux dog commercial – which incidentally marks the 50th anniversary of this advertising icon – indicates otherwise. Us admen... No Comments

Come Back Bill Stickers – All is Forgiven!

Bill Stickers (who is occasionally threatened with prosecution) has been around a long time – probably since the invention of paper – and his work, the humble poster or 'publick notice', is one of the oldest and most enduring forms of publicity. I was reminded of this at www.outdoorhalloffame.co.uk which invites visitors to vote on the best outdoor ads of... No Comments

Social networking untangled: New guide FREE from Simpsons

If you were ever in doubt about the power of social networking, the headline news of the past few weeks should have convinced you otherwise: the uprisings across the whole of North Africa and the Middle East were coordinated by Facebook users, and the successful coup in Egypt was directly attributable to it. If it can be that influential... No Comments

Wake up and Smell the Coffee – It’s Nescafe!

‘Product placement’ sounds a fairly innocuous term, doesn’t it? Certainly the first legal example of product placement to appear on British TV this week – a Nescafe coffee machine on ITV’s This Morning, seemed pretty tame, and my initial thoughts were that Nestle are getting rather poor value for the £100,000 they reputedly paid for the privilege. Still, since the... No Comments

So you Think you Know What Social media is all About?

‘Social media’ is the new marketing mantra. Mention it in local business circles and all will nod judiciously, endorsing it enthusiastically and giving the impression they are seasoned practitioners of this wondrous new medium. Dig a little deeper though, and you’ll find that many of them are less familiar with Facebook than they are with face saving. After all,... No Comments

Name That AD – Prize Competition

Last week a client asked me to write a headline that captured the essence of his company. I was to position it as modern and progressive (yet adhering to traditional values), innovative, environmentally friendly, client-focussed, well-established, having integrity and offering excellent value for money. Oh, and could I make it short and snappy? Well, I’m a firm believer in making... No Comments

BT roll out new broadband speeds: dead slow and stop…

BT’s ongoing ad campaign cum soap opera about the adventures of Adam and Jane is not just a fairy story, it’s an outright lie, decided the Advertising Standards Authority when it banned the most recent episode in the series, which made exaggerated claims about BT’s broadband speeds. You can say that again, we said. The TV commercial showed Adam being... No Comments

Traditional advertising is dead. Long live traditional advertising

It seems to be the fashion these days – at business breakfast meetings and the like – for some self-appointed marketing guru to stand up and announce that traditional advertising is dead, and that new media is the gold paved path to fame and fortune, the road map to which is handily outlined in his new self-help, self-published book,... No Comments

It’s Time to Talk Tough With Litter Louts

‘Keep Britain Tidy’ is one of those public service slogans you once saw everywhere, and is long overdue for revival. Not that it’s enough to appeal to people’s sense of civic responsibility anymore. CCTV and the threat of a hefty fine might prove effective, or you could, like the town council in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, try shaming would-be offenders by posting signs... No Comments

Forget the frankincense and myrrh. Just bring your gold!

Tesco can take over the planet without any help from me, so I was a bit disconcerted to learn that they’d taken my tongue-in-cheek observations at face value and acted on them. I read in today’s paper that a church has exchanged its pews for aisles of food after becoming a supermarket. Westbourne Methodist Church in Bournemouth, Dorset, has... No Comments

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