Mercury Music Prize

Gutted that Amy Winehouse didn’t win.

And here’s one from years ago

I remember when this Australian ad came out in 1992-ish. It genuinely shocked us at the time and had us all wondering how it was done. I show it here for old time’s sake and to illustrate that if you set out to shock, it’s best to do it in a measured way – without recruiting a cast of hammy actors and trying to get the car to somersault 50 times.

That’s my final word on road safety ads – off now to B&Q to buy a lawnmower!

Road safety ad similar to current Irish one – infinitely better execution

Road safety: Shock tactics don’t change habits: 2

Following on from below, see this from The Irish Times:

Despite graphic TV campaigns, deadly road behaviour hasn’t changed, says Patrick Logue

It has been said that education is the progressive discovery of one’s own ignorance. Unfortunately for motorists, the progress seems to be slow, as evidenced by the continued death toll on the State’s roads.

Ignorance of the dangers posed by bad driving still exists despite countless road safety campaigns, ranging from the placing of car wrecks on the side of the road in Co Louth to television images of a young child being cut down by the out-of-control car of a drink driver to strategies, charters and proposals.

Still, the pictures of mangled wrecks keep emerging and the numbers keep rising. In the first three months of the year, 96 people have been killed on the roads, 21 more than in the same period last year. It’s estimated that every day 3,000 people die in road crashes across the world. Motorists are not getting the message.

Documentary director Adrian McCarthy witnessed, first-hand, the horror of road crashes during the making of his award-winning production, Crash. But he is doubtful if the programme, watched by 400,000 when shown on RTÉ last year, has lead to a change in behaviour by drivers.

“You think things have taken a turn for the better, but when I see what has gone on recently on the roads obviously they have not.

“Television campaigns are good and I think they’re necessary to raise awareness. But with some of the stronger ones people watch them once or twice but then just flick the channel.”

McCarthy believes that viewers become immune to shocking images of road crashes.

Road safety: Shock tactics don’t change habits: 1

See this from Australia:

Executing effective road safety advertising: are big production budgets necessary?

Robert J. Donovan a,*, Geoffrey Jalleh b, Nadine Henley c

a Graduate School of Management, Uni6ersity of Western Australia, Nedlands, WA 6907, Australia   b Health Promotion E6aluation Unit, Department of Public Health, Uni6ersity of Western Australia, Nedlands, WA 6907, Australia    c Faculty of Business, Edith Cowan Uni6ersity, Joondalup, WA, Australia

Received 9 May 1998; received in revised form 14 September 1998; accepted 30 November 1998

Abstract Twelve (12) road safety television commercials (TVCs) ranging in production costs from $A15 000 to $A250 000 (current prices) were evaluated using standard advertising pre-test procedures. The twelve ads covered four road safety behaviours (speeding; drink driving; fatigue; and inattention), and included a variety of executional types within and across behaviours. One ad in each of the four behaviours was an expensive TAC ad ($A200 000 or more). The testing procedure assessed respondents’ self-reported impact of the ad on their future intentions to comply with the road safety behavior advocated in the ad. Just under 1000 appropriately screened motor vehicle drivers license holders were recruited via street intercept methods and randomly allocated to one of the twelve ad exposure conditions. The results showed that while the two best performing ads were highly dramatic TAC ads showing graphic crash scenes, these were also the most expensive ads to produce, and, being 60 and 90 s, the most expensive to air. In several cases, 30 s low cost talking heads testimonials performed equally as well as their far more expensive counterparts.

We conclude that big production budgets may not be necessary to create effective road safety advertising. © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

New Anti Speed Ad Ireland

Just saw the much hyped ad. Excuse my language, but what a load of tosh. Not only that, a load of tosh that we’ve seen too often before – bad acting, mediocre stunts, corny soundtrack, and maudlin melodramatic reactions from the ensemble. If it’s supposed to shock, it might be an idea to try something shockingly new rather than re-hash this codswallop. This just doesn’t work, full stop. It’s a bit like the drink-drive ad the same crowd produced some years back – shock, horror, pathos, kitchen sink et al. And what happened – people switched channels as soon as it came on and the drink drive figures went up. This is a million quid down the toilet in my opinion. (I’ll come back to this with a more sage and reasoned argument – and statistics – once I’ve calmed down.)

Turn me over, I’m done.

Having recently exposed my bald head to an unusual amount of Donegal sun, I was touched by this tongue in cheek Hawaiian Tropic ad as spotted on adgoodness.

Agency: Grey, Stockholm.
Creative Director: Martin Stadhammar
Art director: Daniel Backman
Copywriter: Marcus Nyström

It’s an ad. A big ad. A very big ad.

This is a hoot. Found it over on www.duncans.tv. He writes: The ad was filmed in a valley near Queenstown, New Zealand, and produced in Australia by Plaza Films. Visual effects was mastered by Animal Logic, the company that worked on the Matrix movies. This was all arranged by advertising agency George Patterson Partners Melbourne. Director was Paul Middleditch. James McGrath was Creative Director, Ant Keogh the senior writer. Peter Masterton’s the producer. Andrew Lesnie is Director of Photography. Music is directed by Cezary Skubiszewski, with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Melbourne Chorale.

Amnesty International Ads: Pass them on

Credits:

Advertiser: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Product or Service: ANTI-TORTURE CAMPAIGN
Entrant Company, City: BBDO DENMARK, Copenhagen
Country: DENMARK
Advertising Agency, City: BBDO DENMARK, Copenhagen
Country: DENMARK
Creative Director: Carsten Schiott/Mads Ohrt
Copywriter: Jesper Hansen
Art Director: Olga Bastian/Jesper Isholm
Photographer: Martin Soeby
Typographer: Olga Bastian
Account Supervisor: Jesper Hansen/Anette Milner
Advertiser’s Supervisor: Eva Hesse

Start your day the Oirish way

Here’s another clip for the day that was in it yesterday – the first Lucky Charms commercial. Thanks to American Copywriter for this. Click the link below for a US angle on wordsmithery.

Who said the Germans don’t have a sense of humour?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Terrific piece of work from Jung von Matt in Hamburg.

Some of the books on my new desk

If you like the planning aspect of advertising, check out Russell Davies – click on the link in my blogroll below. He easily knows more than all these books put together. He seems like a very nice person too - but then all planners are, aren’t they. He also has his fingers in so many pies that I think there must be ten of him. At least.