SPINNING AROUND: SEVENTY SEVEN THINKING OUT LOUD

RYANAIR SPOOF MADE ME SMILE ...

By all accounts, Michael O'Leary is apparently contemplating "charing a pound to spend a penny" installing pay-as-you-pee toilets on his flights (favourite line from his "spokesman" ... "maybe he was just taking the piss" ... seriously, the Ryanair PR said that to The Times). Brilliant.

Anyway, in the wake of said announcement, came across this on Gizmodo that made me chuckle gently to myself ...

HOW YOU FEELING?

I've been meaning to post about Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar's We Feel Fine for AGES and thought that I had best get on with it during a quiet moment.

Basically, there are a bunch of tools on the We Feel Fine website that analyse and then show the mood of the world at any given time.

But one stands out as being particularly lovely in its realisation: a cute little tool that takes photos and associated text and displays the two together in montage form.

It's better seen than explained, so I urge you to take a look at the gallery of montages: a series of images and words that have been saved by users of the site.

What a lovely, lovely thing. I reckon.

SONY ZOETROPE HITS SCREENS ...

Last week, I wondered where the Sony Zoetrope ad had vanished ... and lo, it has appeared ...

On balance, I'd say it feels a bit like "any other ad", to be honest. Where Balls and Paint felt like spectaculars, like performances really, this feels like ... well, it could have been made by anyone really.

It sort of gets the point across and it has the engagement and interest that a Sony ad should have. But it just doesn't feel or look particularly interesting, on the whole. It's all a bit "ho hum".

It will no doubt get lots of blog posts (like this one), from those across ad land who feel the need to comment on Sony's latest Fallon-created outing.

But I suspect that, if others are like me, this will be the last that is widely written on as a "happening" (disappointing or otherwise) in ad land: it'd be like writing about just another Tesco ad.

Shame, really.

Via CR.

AUDI SKIS THE STREETS

Good stuff, this ... An ad for the Audi S4 which uses the age old "watch this cool thing, watch that cool thing, see this cool thing ... Aha! They are all a bit like our product" technique. Age-old, perhaps, but where the cool thing is cool (and this is), it kinda works ...

HATS OFF ... LOVING THE DANIELS & MCGEE STUNT

Hats off to the good people of Closer magazine and to whoever is doing the publicity for Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee - who knows, perhaps they do their own.

These shots - of the couple spoofing Posh 'n' Becks' iconic Armani ad - hit Closer and the nation's papers today. A quick search on Google News, that well-known barometer of all things pop culture, has thrown up a bunch of scores for the story.

Oh, and I just saw it on both five News and C4 News, which pretty much spans culture high and low in anyone's book.

What is utterly lovely about it is that it's a great example of taking a risk ... and it paying off in really large style.

There's a bunch of people out there mildly impressed with how good Debbie is looking and putting any distaste about having to see Paul in those pants by thinking that the fella's done rather well for himself.

The only person who might be a bit pissed is Mr. Armani. The arch fashion publicity-seeker might draw the line at embracing his latest celebrity ambassadors.

I, however, was impressed. Lovely, lovely work

PRICELESS VALENTINE'S STUNT LACKS PR PUNCH

They say that if you're going to do Valentine's in PR either do creative and low cost, so that if it doesn't make, you didn't lose much ... or sink your heart into it and make it work.

A particularly priceless brand took the risk and it sort of worked ...

Sort of because the PR around this has been bad. Really bad. I couldn't find a damn thing about it anywhere. Even if they had done their PR after the stunt, I'd have expected SOMETHING. Not a sausage

Their PR agency should be shot ... Okay, it's an ad. But it's an ad with a great heritage that people like and it's a good stunt. Strong idea, well executed.

Tell me that you got a cracking exclusive somewhere that I just can't find ... or a belter on broadcast and I will take it all back. But until someone tells me otherwise, I will just be a bit disappointed.

via Scamp with much thanks and appreciation

AND NOW IT'S OVER TO GREECE ...

Nice chap from Bold Ogilvy in Greece got in touch to ask nicely whether we would give one of their recent campaigns a bit of a plug. It's not something that we often do, but in this case, I was quite impressed.

Hats off to the fine work for their client, Cosmote. And hello from Greece ... I suspect that Michael was our only reader from Athens so "hello" to any others that his getting in touch might bring this way!

So I like the ad. BUT ... the observation I would make for anyone watching this ad ... and it is an instructive one: do you have the foggiest idea what Cosmote is or does?

No?

Nor me. I thought that they might do DVD rental. I think that they do mobile phones now that I have taken a look (the fact that I am uncertain is a problem with their website, not this ad, however).

Now, I am not sure that all that matters particularly because I am sort of assuming that Cosmote is a huge brand in Greece, so this lifestyle "big ad" works for them there.

But it did bring home to me how important to these ads are a pretty good prior understanding of the brands and how they work - as well as the products that they offer.

Think about Balls if you hadn't heard of Sony, or Gorilla if you had no idea what Cadburys did. Funny to see that lesson writ large for once. Salutory, I believe, is the word.

BTW, anyone know what's happened to the Sony ad with the zeotrope? They seem to have been editing it for an awfully long time ...? Or maybe it didn't work? Anyone?

THAT ATHEIST BUS ... GOD'S REVENGE?

This made me chuckle a lot ... Someone has created an "atheist bus ad copy generator" so that you can create your very own of the infamous campaign.

There's a bunch of quite amusing lines that various folks have come up with on the theme of godliness (or a lack of godliness, as the case may be).

But of those that I have seen, this was the one that made me smile widest. It's an old gag, for sure, but sometimes, those are the best, are they not?

Be fascinated to know what the atheists that funded the campaign think of it ... for my money, it's turned what was a cracking PR campaign already - with bags of media pick-up - into a viral campaign that gives people the chance to get involved.

Lovely stuff.

COMPUTERTAN ... THIS IS GOOD

Well, I thought that it was good. Really quite clever. Hats off to the clever folks who came up with it. I spotted the poster ads at Oxford Circus on the way into work and was intrigued enough to click. Then came across this clip. Sweet work.

THE BEST BRAND LAUNCH IN THE WORLD ... EVER!

This is extraordinary ... the world's newspaper front pages on inauguration day.

Dale Fishburn (via Neil Hedges - and in the world of Fishburn Hedges Group, a suggestion for a blog post doesn't come with a better pedigree) pinged this through with the observation that "THIS is what I call global penetration for a new brand ...". Thanks Dale!

HITTING KOALAS WINS THE SUPERBOWL

... At least that seems to be the verdict in the office ...

The Superbowl ad-fest has passed once again. My favourite (and the one that got the warmest reception in this office) is for CareerBuilder.com. The koala being the highlight moment ...

Also a delight was this spot for Coke, which seems to have discovered the "Disney Side of Life" ...

Also worth a watch is this rather lovely spot for Audi, which engages in a spot of German auto-bashing as Jason Statham races through the ages to find the motor of his dreams ...

It also makes the Audi product placement in the Transporter pay off in rather large style as the blogs are firing-up with comment on the spot (25,000 returns for a search for "audi jason statham transporter superbowl"). Nice work!