Hit the Button

Some ads make great use of celebrity endorsements, some are a little cliche'd, some are just celebrities with logo's on. It takes a very special kind of celebrity ad to make you want to rip your own face off.

The new Head and Shoulders ad featuring Jenson Button is worse than that.

Funny thing is, I like Button. As an avid follower of Formula 1 (at least until Murdoch gets his mitts on it), I have a huge respect for his skills and abilities, as well as his loyalty in sticking with the Honda team even though it was slower than a royal wedding procession (topical!) hitching a lift on a tortoise (internet topical!).

However this ad is just awful. A strange idea that doesn't seem to ever gel into anything coherent. From the half arsed ryhming that gives up midway through the ad, to the cheese factor that stinks out any of the moment that might be considered comedy.

There is plenty of creative potential to the thought of other things being on his mind, but it comes across as a safe, riskless, joyless, passionless piece of work that not only embarrasses Jenson but embarrasses the brand. Maybe it works better in other languages (I believe it's not a UK ad), maybe their sense of humour fits this better...

This is a perfect example of where agencies and clients need to watch the ad like a real person. Stop thinking in your roles and imagine this came on while you were watching TV, would you go and buy it?

Review of the Year - Part 3

2007 has been a good year for traditional advertising. The anticipated collapse never happened, digital advertising appeared to be suffering from a mild hangover, and despite a flurry of brands with 'big ads', and too many 'chain reaction' ads; it wasn't half bad.

But, there is always rubbish:

Disappointment of the Year

After a decent build up campaign, and a huge huge budget, I was expecting something more than a giant domino themed version of Cog. It's a decent watch, but lacks the Guiness charm, and feels like a weak attempt at aping W+K; rather ironically, the creatives moved to W+K almost immediately after this ad launched...



The "What Were They Thinking" Award for Bandwagon Jumping

Oh. Dear. Someone read about UGC and appeared to miss the bit about quality control.

[sourcing ad... ]


Worst Ads of 2007

Still badly written. Still badly acted. Still failing to get a good message about the company across. Had a great discussion about this campaign with Graham at Cheetham Bell JWT ; might talk about that soon.



Yes, we can see what they were going for, but they just got it very wrong. We do not like, empathise or positively associate with Mickey at all.



Oh the stereotyping, woe the lacklustre use of a decent tag.

And from there,,,

Having mentioned TV's worst ads in my last post, I'd like to post about an ad I saw on there that I somehow missed on TV in my post-wedding haze of busyness; and also one I saw last night.



Everybody knows a bloke like Mickey. No. No I don't. Oddly enough, contrived characters of stereotypical vain anality hardly exist in the real world. I thought it would be hard for Head and Shoulders ads to get any worse. But good grief this is poor.

Secondly, a new Ocean Finance ad (you know where this is heading... thats right, financial metaphors!) which shows financial services as lanes in a swimming pool. It looks low budget, its badly shot, its badly written, badly voiced over, as patronising as David Cameron claiming to understand a gun crime teenager in Hackney, and FAR too long. I mean fuck, it just drones on and on and on and on and on and on and on... and then it cuts to an Ocean. HAHAH! I see what they did there, genius.

No. Just yet another bloody awful financial ad on UK tv.