New Thermos poster online

Just a quick post to say that I've added a new poster to the Thermos campaign. It's nothing special but it's a darn sight better than the extra-long fudge sundae I'd originally drawn.


The rest of the campaign can be found here or browse through the book section of the site for more.

Lies...all lies!

I generally get a lot of stick from people about wanting to be in the advertising industry. Bombarded from every available outlet people are somewhat jaded by marketing and can't wait to tell me so.

"Advertising doesn't work on me!" they say while they wait for their latest iTunes download to transfer to their brand new iPod hooked up to their oh-so-alternative iMac. Yeah, fight the machine guys. "It's all lies" is another all too common phrase they utter. "Hang on a minute." I say "Adverts aren't allowed to lie, there are strict rules in place to stop this." And with the exception of cosmetic adverts where hair products are advertised by people wearing fake hair and the effects of mascara are shown using false lashes I thought I was right.

For shame. I turned on the TV the other day to be greeted by the new HSBC advert. A happy chinaman fishing with his obedient pet cormorant...wait, didn't I see this on some documentary? I don't remember it being quite so clean and wholesome as it's portrayed here. In fact...




Not that I've got anything against HSBC or their ads - I actually like the "World's Local Bank" campaign. It's just this one left me feeling a bit dirty knowing that the reality is very different from what is portrayed in the ad. How about in the next ad the guy goes to Romania and dances with a cheerful dancing bear or to Mexico and bets on a cock fight where they're dressed as Luchadors?

To be fair this campaign was always going to be difficult. Not through any fault of the client or agency but because it's showing 30 second snippets of other cultures. Take any culture, be it Eastern, Middle-Eastern, Western or even your own and there'll be some aspect you don't agree with or view as barbaric. I'm sure looking at the clip above you might think the guy is cruel but firstly: He's not doing it for fun, he's doing it to make a living, support his family and survive. Secondly: two words - Battery Chickens.

The soapbox is now vacant.

You know those projects you wish you'd never started?

It's no wonder you only get a new Wallace & Gromit movie every 5 years. I used to love doing claymation at college. In fact it was one of the few things I actually did. Aside from laughing at all the Catering College chavs stood outside trying to look tough in a pair of chequered trousers. But this project seemed to be never ending.

It originated from a single scribble from one of my Uni sketch pads from about 2 years ago. As I was sorting through and chucking anything of little or no value I stumbled across it and went "Hmmmm?". It took about a week for the idea to germinate into something useful and a further couple of days to get the lyrics down. It then took a week to pluck up the courage to venture into Toys 'R' Us and buy a big box of Playdoh. I said it was for my nephew but it was clear from their faces they knew I was lying. To be fair it only took me two days to storyboard, make the models and shoot it (and if you're wondering I just used a stills camera and then flash to animate it). But it's taken me months to get the soundtrack done. Mainly because, originally, I was going to get a child to sing the words but eventually gave up and recorded it myself - there's only so many nurseries you can get chased out of before you start to feel unwanted.

In the end I'm pleased with the result. Having a child sing, while all the rage in ads 6 months ago, might have made it too twee. My dad did offer up his recording studio to use but I liked the homemade sound of my own £5 microphone and felt it fitted well with the unrefined feel of the ad.

Anyway, here it is - my ad for Playdoh:

Well, it's certainly appropriate

A colleague of mine is semi-involved with the Liberal Democrat party and happened across an interesting phenomenon on their website. If there is an error on the site the usual 404-error message is replaced with this:

We're sorry, but something went wrong.

Is this an admission that their original mission statement has not been met? An apology for the state of parliament in general? Or just an attempt to seem hip and whimsical to webusers who are obviously themselves hip and whimsical too - how else would they know about this new fangled technology?

Now if only this had been from the labour website....sigh!