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!

Thursday, 7 November 2013

Chrimbo magic for M&S?

At a time when Marks & Sparks is feeling the pinch, a lot will be resting on this new Christmas commercial to steady the boat and inject some life into its flagging sales performance of late. So the retailer's advertising agency RKCR/Y&R has pulled out all the stops in terms of lavish production values and big names.

This commercial pays homage to 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'The Wizard of Oz' , and employs the likes of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Helena Bonham Carter to add a bit of glitz.

So have they managed to pull it off? Well, yes and no. While it's probably a great deal better than any recent M&S offering, it doesn't exactly ooze charm in the same way last year's 'Snowman' Christmas commercial did for John Lewis. It's all very nicely edited and put together, but I can't help feeling that the use of perfect models who clearly can't act, lets this commercial down, and gives it the feel of a commercial rather than an epic film.

But there's a more fundamental question to be asked here. Is the marketing strategy on which this commercial is based, credible? In other words, can we realistically be expected to buy into the end-line 'Believe in magic and sparkle' in the context of Marks & Sparks? Call me an old cynic, but I'm not convinced that anyone in their right mind will ever associate M&S with magic and sparkle.
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