News breaks this week that Air New Zealand is withdrawing its safety video after thousands signed an online petition claiming it was “culturally insensitive”.  What could possibly offend in a set of bikini clad Sports Illustrated models telling you to keep your safety belt fastened !? It’s still available at You Tube for you to…

If you haven’t spent half an hour in the company of brilliant and charming, Controller of Commercial Digital Products at ITV, Jon Block, then I suggest you do so at once.   He’s got a list of user needs from the second screen while watching TV which is well worth contemplating.   How we exploit…

At our conference this week we heard case studies of two connected partnerships which truly use TV to its full advantage.   Both Iceland’s sponsorship of I’m a celebrity and WKD’s association with TOWIE make the most of ITV and every kind of second screen.   They also both had a massive impact on the…

The ex-chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks tells a story that when he was appointed he discovered that he shared a love of Arsenal with the Archbishop of Canterbury. They decided to have their first official meeting in the box at the next game.  Where Arsenal lost, and lost badly.  The papers picked up on the story,…

This week saw the anniversary of the D Day landings.  The invasion of Normandy that changed the course of the Second World War.   Coverage in The Guardian said  “Seventy Normandy summers ago, as the ships and planes and gliders disgorged 156,000 on to beaches and into the smoke, flames and barrage of mortar fire,…

Too much loyalty can be a double edged sword.  Whether you’re a pop icon, a business leader, a sports team or a brand.   My favourite pop star is famous for his uncompromising live gigs where he reinterprets his old classics so that they’re unrecognisable to casual fans, refuses to interact with the audience for…

Last week Campaign journalist Louise Ridley asked me to comment on a piece of research which said that advertising lacked alpha females. The sample size was only 35 but the IPA’s statistics confirm that female advertising leadership stands at 26% … Not bad compared to some industries, great compared to the representation of women in…

Many briefs have this ambition, whether explicit or implicit.  A brief that seeks to drive loyalty, drive frequency or drive penetration wants some kind of behaviour habit change. Yet behaviour change is a tough nut to crack. Latest theories about how advertising works fashionably claim that it reinforces existing habits rather than makes a change. …

This is one of the themes of international bestselling novel ‘The Truth about the Harry Quebert affair”.  No need for a spoiler alert, I’m not going to give anything away here.  The twists and turns of the plot include the protagonist getting this advice from his eponymous mentor.   I won’t comment on the book…

“You talkin to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin …you talkin to me?”   So said Travis Bickle, anticipating a lack of respect from someone targeting him, in the iconic 1976 movie Taxi Driver.   It turns out many mums feel the same way.  Certainly the mums surveyed in Mumsnet and Saatchi’s…

In reviewing Eels latest release, in the Sunday Times, Mark Edwards writes of its creative lead E: “In Everett, Eels fans have found someone who makes all the mistakes they do, but is willing to admit it…. Never more so that on his latest album, which lays out recent missteps and mercilessly examines them in…

This was the subject of my final panel last week at glorious Adweek Europe.   Adweek Europe.  Not much else was talked of in my (admittedly fairly narrow) professional circle last week.  The consensus was that the organisers excelled themselves in creating a true festival of advertising and media.   The idea of an economy…