The Tyranny Of The Screen?

Screens are everywhere now. In our homes, obviously, on our phones, tablets, laptops, in pubs and bars, in buses, in petrol stations, shops, pretty much anywhere that you can put a screen, someone is putting a screen there.

Now it seems outdoor advertising spaces are slowly being replaced by screens. These two went up last week just down the road on Shoreditch High Street. The one on the left came out of nowhere, there wasn't an ad space there before, the one on the right replaced a large portrait space that's been there as long as I can remember.

I wrote a while ago on the need for advertisers and agencies to approach advertising with more respect for our surroundings and culture here. I think we have to extra careful with outdoor. Much advertising sits in with things we have actively chosen to consume, TV, radio, websites etc. and goes a long way towards paying for that content to be made.

But outdoor advertising intrudes into our everyday lives, our everyday surroundings. And that is part of its power; a simple message can be put in front of large numbers of people, even if those people aren't always conscious of it. So I think we have to be even more careful with outdoor. It's the ultimate uninvited guest in our lives, as I talked about in this article here:

"But I do think there is a responsibility when using outdoor not to despoil our environment with poorly designed, poorly photographed, shouty, ugly or stupid posters. These things are twenty feet wide and bigger for God's sake. We have a responsibility to make our work add to the world around us, not abuse it..."

Outdoor advertising had been unloved for a long time. I'm sure there is a feeling among some that it has been left behind by the advance of new platforms, digital and interactive advertising. I don't agree with that, I think that, done well, outdoor advertising can be extremely powerful. The problem is, so little outdoor is currently done well. It is definitely possible to still do great outdoor, as Apple recently proved with their work for iPhone.

I think in general it is falling foul of advertising and marketing peoples' seeming inability to simplify messages. Advertising is getting more complicated and convoluted, and that doesn't favour a medium with a famously short attention span. Remember the old '8 words' rule for posters that you were probably taught at some point? How many contemporary outdoor ads manage that currently?

I don't think the answer is to replace outdoor spaces with screens. I know it might give the media owners something new to say, or to sell. I understand that it gives them the ability to serve more than one ad in each space, and time executions around day parts.

But you know, above all of that, they are just so goddam ugly and intrusive. They invade our space much more than the simple, passive, printed spaces. Yes, those traditional spaces required skill and craft to make them effective. Maybe those skills are in short supply? Maybe they're still there but stifled within agency systems and the complicated approach to marketing? But, when it is done very well, outdoor advertising can almost reach the level of artistry.

Whereas these screens are more like visual litter, beaming out their ugly, gaudy messages at us 24 hours a day. Surely we can do without more screens surrounding us?

What do you think?

Are We Witnessing The Return Of The Business Bellend?

I've read here and there about a regression back towards the horrific greed is good days of the 80's; the increasing gap between rich and poor, a new wave of yuppies, selfish, chest-beating bellends barking at each other about BUSINESS! whilst eating sushi or playing tennis, their whole happiness based around the relative movement of a few numbers on a spreadsheet or whether or not someone thinks of them as a formidable business person. Looking at some commercials that have launched recently (see below) I'm starting to worry it might be true. I find it hard to believe that there are still people out there in the world who act like this, but I guess there must be. We've seen this kind of character or lifestyle depicted in movies – American Psycho, Wall Street, Fight Club or Wolf Of Wall Street etc. as part of the telling of a dystopian story or dark, troubled character, but now it seems marketers are seriously expecting us to see it as aspirational. The idea that there are some advertising people who see this as something good to put in commercials is weird enough. But that a brand like Virgin Atlantic would want to align itself with this kind of business bellendery is completely perplexing. "Fly with us if you're a complete moron" appears to be the message. Is this a reflection of the regression of society a whole, or is it more likely a reflection the cultures of modern ad agencies and marketing departments? What do you think, dear reader?



Commercial for One Blackfriars (link to the story only, unfortunately the ad has been pulled).

Equally Brilliant New Ad For Gordon's Gin

Yesterday's post seemed to cause a little confusion amongst some readers. There was a suggestion that the new Foxy Bingo ad we showed was in fact a commercial for Gordon's Gin. Foxy Bingo's own PR team even called us up to point this out. This was all really quite strange, so to clear things up, here is the new ad for Gordon's Gin. I think we can safely say that this is equally as good as the one for Foxy bingo from yesterday. Bottom's Up!

What Do You Think Of This Brilliant New Commercial For Foxy Bingo?

I thought I'd start the year with something positive rather than critical, so here we go. I'm not a big bingo fan myself, let alone online bingo. But this new ad for Foxy Bingo is well put together and has a great soundtrack. House! What do you think?

Should Business Have A Conscience?

I've had the conversation with a few different people about businesses paying their rightful tax.

This subject is interesting to me because we're small business and we meet our tax commitments without attempting to reduce that commitment through loopholes or other means, whereas, as we continually hear, many large companies use obtuse structures and tactics to significantly reduce what they need to pay.

I don't think that's right. I think companies operate within society, and only succeed because society works, and so the company owe the society in which they operate and make profit, and should pay their share back into it, to help keep it working.

But some people, in defence of the actions of those companies, say to me that it's up to the government to close the loopholes and, as long as the company isn't actually breaking the law, they should take advantage of any opportunity.

And that is a fair challenge I think. But I'm not sure I agree.

To stop companies doing that kind of thing requires specific laws to be set to rule out the practices which make it possible. That's time consuming and by its nature is reactionary. By the time the laws have been passed, more than likely the clever people who help companies lower their tax burden will have found clever new ways to do so that don't fall foul of the new legislation.

So I wonder whether companies should act like a part of our society by choice. Shouldn't they operate with a conscience?

Conscience is loosely defined as a moral sense of right and wrong, viewed as acting as a guide to one’s behaviour.

As individuals, we are expected to behave morally and with a conscience. So why not business?

The argument against seems to be that business only has a responsibility to it's shareholders and to making profit. But is that right? A business isn't a person, but it is created by people and run by people. Should it not be expected to have the same responsibilities as a person?

At the moment it seems that people can start companies, and run them, but once it up and running, the company is an entity that is not judged by the same values that a person would be.

What do you think, dear reader, should business have a conscience – or is that just idealistic, hippy nonsense?