Author: Me

So my car needs a service – there is no fucking way that bunch of dancing fools from Lubemobile are going anywhere near it. That stupid song is crap.

… is getting closer. George Betis, principal of VCD, agreed to be my first victim/guest and was, as usual, just fantastic. I on the other hand proved that my abilty at writing ads was far superior to my probing journalist skills.
However, the meat from this interview resulted in two very big things; a change of direction for this blog and podcast, and a new business idea…stay tuned, or rather stay online…

I was walking back to my studio yesterday past SO&M’s HO on Sussex St. A JC Decauex (?) guy was just finishing putting up a new poster in the back of a phone kiosk. The ad was for Singo’s themselves. Now ads for agencies in trade press is one thing, but this was mainstream outdoor.
The ad was nothing more than a shot from a Qantas ad with a headline that escapes me (I will take a pic and post it later – must get a camera/phone) and the SO&M logo. My first thought, “Qantas is reviewing their business and Singo wants them to see this ad when they walk in the building.” Not so much interesting as curious.

Nice work. Like the honesty theme. I think Ric Herbert (http://www.rmk.com.au/ric/) does a sterling job as the mechanic. And the family version has lots of nice little gags throughout.

Peter Phelps and Tony Martin are two of Australia’s better stage and TV actors. And now star front and centre in TV ads. Peter has replaced ‘Beau’ in the Beaurepair Tyre ads and Tony is staying in character as the broading detective for the launch campaign of Madison magazine.
Neither ad stands out so much as anything special but could the use of medium grade talent be a new trend to save creatives the pain of coming up with an idea? It’s more like sponsorship or personal recomendation than an ad.

I’ve just been looking at a forum for Mac geeks on Whirlpool. There’s a thread where one guy (or girl, can’t tell) wants to know how to edit the TV ads out of the shows he is recording using the EyeTV box so his girlfriend doesn’t have to watch them. Woo. There goes the neghbourhood. Because 50 people gave him 20 different ideas to do it, simply and quickly. Now if that catches on do you think advertisers are going to be so willing to spend big on TV air time. I don’t.

Welcome to Rumble Music, creators of fine music for TVCs, TV and Film and all other musical needs. Ben Vincent (Chief Cheese) has very kindly agreed to produce both the intro and outro music for the Adnauseum podcast. I can’t wait to hear it. Ben can’t wait to make it. IT’s all systems go over here at Adnauseum HQ… To paraphrase Spinaltap; rock n’ roll. ROCK AND ROLL!

Pizza Hut have finally killed off Dougie, the deliver driver character who was created in the early nineties and played by a up and coming actor whose name escapes me. I do remember said actor was in Water Rats and also involved in serious car accident causing GBH to a female passenger. At the time charges were to be laid and Pizza Hut moved Dougie away from being the front man of the ads and introduced ‘trainees’ who were being taught to deliver the Pizza Hut way by Dougie.
The Dougie charcter introduced us to the one liner; ‘How ’bout a tip’. ‘Be good to your mother’.
The replacement is comedian Peter Rowsthorn (Comedy Company, Kath & Kim) doing a to-camera rave about the product. Obviously he had nothing to do with the script because it’s not got a funny thing about it.

Ok, how many awards can advertising creatives want to win? Well it seems their thirst for awards is unlimited. Later this year we’re going to introduce a new award, that they don’t want to win. This will be an award for the worst ad made in 2005. Now ‘worst’ is as hard or harder to judge than ‘best’ because there is just so much crap. Full details will be made available leter this year and judge by the readers and listeners. The award title and trophy will be designed later this year. Stay tuned, if you can stand the pain…

So from the week after next I’m going to start interviewing creatives from all kinds of agencies to talk about advertising. The idea is you’re going to hear them talk passionatley about their craft; what worked, what sucked and why clients buy crap ads. But that’s not all. I’ll be talking to production people about their part of the creative process; where a great idea can turn to crap when there’s not enough cash.
So stand by…there’ll be an RSS feed from this site for you to subscribe to.