Filed under: Comment
It’s Monday … it’s the start of the week … so rather than sit in the bath an slit your wrists, watch this behind-the-scenes clip from the BBC’s ‘Have I Got News For You’ and remember there’s always someone whose having a worse day than you 🙂
Filed under: Comment
He’s only wearing the disaster in public!
[PS: He also looks scarily like Snoop Dog. Well, when I say ‘scarily’, I’m talking about the physical similarity, not his potential for intimidation – lets face it, apart from when he’s wearing ‘that shirt’, Neil makes Mother Teresa look like a callous, heatless bitch]
Filed under: Comment
Photo: Tac
So I think there’s pretty much universal agreement that Microsoft’s new ad with Seinfeld and Gates is underwhelming to say the least …
Infact the only people who seem to like it are …
1/ Microsoft Senior Management
2/ Crispin’s
3/ The Boss of Landor NYC
And while I would expect the senior people at Microsoft and Crispin to say that [lets be honest, even if they hate it they’re not going to say anything negative because their jobs depend on it] it’s the guy from Landor who has really pissed me off.
According to this guy, the ad has done exactly what it was meant to achieve …
“Generate a level of buzz that normally cost billions of dollars to achieve”.
OH
MY
GOD
Apart from the fact this commercial cost MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to make … the belief that the World laughing AT YOU is still ‘positive’ is so stupid that it almost defies belief.
Yeah, I bet Gary Glitter is over-the-moon the World knows him as a peado – I bet his long term career prospects are looking real rosy!
How can someone say this? Especially someone who is supposedly a communication expert?
OK, so it’s obvious the sad bastard is doing all he can to get a chunk of Microsoft’s $US5 billion annual marketing budget, but does he realise how he is appearing to the Wider World.
Oh hang on, he doesn’t care – because he thinks all publicity is good publicity.
I can picture his pitch to Bill Gates right now …
“Hey Bill, that television ad was waaaaay funny but it still cost you guys a mighty chunk of change. I’ve got an idea that will get the World buzzing for absolutely nothing.
Yes nothing.
Zero. Free. Not a dime.
Interested?
Of course you are.
OK people, this is what we do.
We get a video camera and tape Bill murdering some cute intern – big tits, tiny ass – by bashing her repeatedly over the head with some Microsoft Office packaging.
Then we load it up FOR FREE on this thing called YouTube … before sitting back and bathing in the billions of dollars of free corporate publicity.
How good is that eh?
Billions buzzing about Bill and Microsoft for nothing. Well, nothing and my billion dollar fee.
I think you’ll all agree that’s quite a genius idea and is a perfect example of the innovative branding solutions Landor can come up for you.
Have we got a deal?”
A Landor Exec Walks Home
It’s this sort of attitude that makes a mockery of our industry … except he’s not really part of our industry is he, he’s a branding consultant … which means he somehow gets paid a fuckload more cash than the average ad agency for doing a fuckload less.
The World’s gone mad, seriously bonkers.
OK, so picking on some bloke from a corporate branding consultancy is abit unfair because the poor bastard hasn’t got a clue about the real World – but he started when he made with his stupid comments so I feel completely justified in pissing at his feet.
Oh, and before someone says Sunshine could be described as being something similar to Landor, I would like to say by that reckoning, HHCL was similar to GREY and we all know that in reality the only similarity was the number of letters in their name.
Sadly there are some companies who are seduced by agency ‘ego stroking’ … but as much as some people may think Microsoft are stupid, the fact is they’re not – they’re very smart – which is why Landor won’t ever [fingers crossed] see a dime of Bill Gates billions.
The thing is, whilst this ad is not good – and it’s really not – it’s not going to kill Microsoft.
Lets face it, they’ve been running crappy ads for decades and it’s not affected them. OK, so that’s because they have amazing distribution power, but we can’t forget they also make a few pretty decent products as well.
The fact is Microsoft defied big corporate company convention by walking away from a multinational agency and into the arms of a hungry, creative and pragmatic hotshop … so whilst Crispin’s may of screwed up with this initial commercial, their history shows they’ll more than likely make some magic pretty soon which is a good thing for everyone – especially me – because it means idiots like the guy at Landor will have to rethink their new business strategy from one of ‘corporate crawling’ into actually doing something interesting and powerful.
Filed under: Comment
Unless the building really is protected by a bunch of guys with Kodak Brownie cameras, I think it might of been useful to change the icon on the sign to that of a Video Camera.
Mind you, maybe they’re just trying to lull Singapore’s most stupid burglars into a false sense of security. In that case, it’s strategic genius … which means McCaan’s must of been behind it, obviously.
Filed under: Comment
… and thank god for them or life would be horrendously boring.