Thought I’d hit the print adverts for a change, and a Tube advert at that. I rarely take the Tube, being a bus boy at heart. But after a long hearty walk at the weekend I had to take it home, and so ended up in the carriage with this particular[…]

HOLIDAYS ARE COMING!
Which means “HOLIDAYS ARE COMING” is coming.
I firmly expect to still be seeing this advert when all the oil has run out and trucks no longer exist, when our Robot overlords wake us up from out human battery state for[…]

Quality Food: Honestly Priced. It might be true (it might not be) but is it a zingy Chrimbo slogan? But then Waitrose in my years of watching TV, have never advertised on the box before. Part of the John Lewis Partnership (never knowingly undersold, […]

This years FT Advent Calendar (see long running, never quite complete calendars passim on drinks and Christmas films). So this year the idea was mooted that we talk a bit about Christmas adverts: ADVERT CALENDAR: DO YOU SEE? And if you do see, and yo[…]

Tarmac? What kind of a brand is that, its just the pavement, right? Wrong my friends. Tarmac is a brand and an awe-inspiring dominant one at that. I love brands whose names are synonymous with their main product, it shows an awesome degree of brand d[…]

One of the great – though cynical – goals of marketing is to encourage consumers to waste stuff. Not in the enviro-friendly sense of extra packaging – the brands put that shit on their products when it was fashionable and they&#8217[…]

Two new Tube Stations? Well one new station and one new name. Shepherd’s Bush, on the Hammersmith and City line is to be renamed Shepherd’s Bush Market, one assumes for the sensible reason that the Piccadilly line Shepherd’s Bush st[…]

Top Of The Pops is a brand. Marketing says so, the BBC say so. Question is, how important a brand is it? Vacuum cleaners would exist without Hoover and (these days) Dyson, but the existence of iconic brands within a marketplace helps raise the profil[…]

Just started reading Dominic Sandbrook’s White Heat – as with the previous volume (a third is planned on the 1970s, hurrah), the anecdotes and local colour are easily as interesting as the analysis.
– Mary Whitehouse: ‘she esp[…]

Good ole whassisname. Libyan President. It changes a bit. Well here is how much it changes, from The Straight Dope. Why did I need to know? I guess because of the Opera which Asian Dub Foundation and the ENO have been kicking around like a football […]