AD-GLIB: May 2013

Welcome to Ad-glib written by a geezer who's written more ads than you've had hot dinners.

If you have nothing better to do than surf the web for trivial stuff, bravo! You have just landed on a particularly trivial site that takes a serious look at the world of less than serious ephemera - otherwise known as advertising.

Some of us have been employed by this industry to sit at desks and create this stuff. Not only have we been tasked with creating it; we've also been employed to justify it by penning long, rambling copy rationales and tone of voice guidelines. And when we're done, the agency planners are wheeled in with their demographics charts and mind-numbing statistics with the purpose of anaesthetising clients into submission.

You would't believe the ends to which this industry goes to produce creative work - some of which sadly ends up as puerile junk.

But occasionally, of course, the odd gem gets through. Hurrah!

This site has been set up to take a look at the industry's highs and lows; work that'll make you smile, cry or simply switch off.

If there's an ad you'd like included in this review send it to: alexbrianpearl@yahoo.com

Enjoy!

Tuesday, 7 May 2013

Abuse of Women in Saudi Arabia

This strikingly powerful ad has been created by Ogilvy & Mather Saudi Arabia for King Khalid's Foundation. In a society that rarely addresses women's rights, let alone the abuse of women, this is bound to cause something of a stir.

Anne Frank Trust

This sweet little film has been created by TCA, the agency previously famed for bringing Bob Monkhouse back to life for Prostate Cancer. The Anne Frank Trust's mission in life is to tackle racism, hate crime and intolerance by drawing on the inspiration of Anne Frank. Needless to say, much of its work focuses on schools, where pupils can become Ambassadors for the charity. Its latest campaign for which this film has been made is dubbed Thirteen in 13, and urges kids who are or will be 13 in 2013 to write an open letter to David Cameron outlining how they'd make Britain a better place. The 13 best letters will be published in The Times and David Cameron has already agreed to respond via The Times to the winning letter.