Displaying 73 - 108 of 416 results
Jamie Casino - Casino's Law It's hard to overstate the importance of the Superbowl to Americans. Ostensibly a sports final, it's actually a televisual event which unites the country annually - and the commercial breaks are just as important as the...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
The golden age of the pop video brought us a buffet of treats, didn’t it? Who could forget Simon Le Bon lashed to a windmill sail in ‘Wild Boys’? Or Paula Abdul flirty dancing with a cartoon cat in ‘Opposites Attract’....
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Persil - Dual Action Mums Agency: TMW | Executive Producer: Kate Myles Who does the washing? Women do! Of course they do! This is the 1950s after all. No, hang on, it's 2015 - and women still do the washing, but they're cool women now. Not only are...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Think back about fifteen years or so, and you'll probably see yourself slowly (very slowly) browsing the internet on your dial-up connection, looking at websites and thinking 'I've gotta get myself one of those'. If you're a designer or art director,...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Why do they bother? Politicians, I mean - and specifically their ideas concerning technology. Because each and every time they open their mouths on the subject, they make utter fools of themselves. A shining example of this idiocy appeared last...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
eHarmony - Popcorn There's some furious competition between TV dating sites right now, and that means a plethora of TV ads. One campaign simply shows happy daters on happy dates, but eHarmony have gone more leftfield, using a bizarre scenario to...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Something extraordinary has happened to me. Not a new brand of tea bag I rather like, but something properly extraordinary. As you'll know, almost a week ago, armed men stormed the offices of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo; shooting and killing...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Warner Brothers - 'American Sniper' All too often, ads for movies contain too much information and far too much of the movie itself. In short, they're a bit desperate. But this is much more like it. Lean, intriguing but giving little of the story...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Ah! There you are. I trust the festivities were kind to you? But now, here's 2015 in all its fresh-faced glory. Swollen with potential and pitfalls, what will this new year bring? Frankly, I have no idea - but I do know there are a few troublesome...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Iceland, Peter Andre: When this low-market frozen food retailer had the strapline 'That's why Mums go to Iceland', they attracted enormous condemnation from those who pointed out, quite rightly, it was very sexist. They need worry no longer, for now...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
I'm not a hipster. That particular role is denied to me thanks to my great age, and my inability to grow a thick bushy beard. But that doesn't mean I can't have a little taste of the hipster world. So last weekend, I headed for the achingly...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Compare The Market: Meerkats On Safari Try as I might, I still can't bring myself to dislike the meerkats. The campaign has been running so long, it should have run out of steam, but when Alexander tells Oleg (you see, I even know their names) he's...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Have you read the Forrester report? If not, do you know what the Forrester report is? Don't worry, neither did I until someone asked me what I made of it, prompting me to run away and look it up. In some quarters, however, this report is hot stuff....
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Supermarket wars have been with us for as long as there have been supermarkets. But the intensity of the competition has never been so keenly felt as it is today. Tesco has had a thoroughly miserable year, which cost them one Chief Executive, a mass...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Much like text messages and instant noodles, there was a time when audio logos seemed terribly brave and inventive. Received wisdom tells us Intel were the first to deploy such a thing, when they decreed their name could not be shown or spoken...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
If we ever had drive-in movies in the UK, they kept it pretty quiet. The whole concept of taking your car into a cinema is very much an American one, and even here it’s dying. In fact, there are only 340 such theatres left in the whole of the...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Let’s keep things simple. I’ve seen an ad campaign I really like. It’s funny, witty, smart, highly noticeable and very memorable. I know, I know - if you’ve read my articles for Creativepool, you’ll be aware I rarely...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
When Creativepool went looking for a fine fellow to write a column called ‘The Week In Advertising’, it made very good sense to search for a writer with a calm perspective and a measured, balanced approach. Well, they were all busy, so...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
10. Travelators You know travelators, those flattened escalators that serve as moving pavements. Well, it’s not unusual to find static print ads along their route, but I’m suggesting the actual moving steps would be ideal ambient media....
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Nicky Morgan is the UK Secretary of State for Education. This week she gave a speech as part of the ‘Your Life’ campaign, designed to promote mathematics and science subjects to young people. These are part of the STEM subjects (Science,...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Dapper Laughs isn't funny. He isn't not funny because he plays fast and loose with accepted standards of decency and respect towards women (although he does); nor because he uses infantile language in his 'routines' and 'pranks' (although he does...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
A copywriting pal of mine has drawn my attention to a collection of quotes about, well, copywriting. I'm always delighted when these things crop up, because I feel sure blog posts on design and art direction outnumber pieces on copy by about a...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
If you're in the habit of staying in and watching ITV on a Saturday and Sunday night, you'll probably be familiar with Stevi Ritchie. If not, then I just need to tell you he's this year's comedy offering on the X-Factor. You know, the one who can't...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
"It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @sciencemuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R." That's what it said, the first tweet from Her Majesty The Queen. Causing a great deal of fuss, it arrived on...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
1. "I've changed the copy, so I'm sending it back for you to make it read properly." Ah! So you couldn't resist meddling with the perfectly good copy I sent to you - and now you want me to put it right. Right? 2. "I know it's not in the brief, but...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
I don't know about you, but I don't play video games. I'd argue that they're a bit childish, but I like plenty of childish things: Bagpuss, Thunderbirds, The Muppets - I think they're all terrific, so that's not the problem. No, I think it's a...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Remember what a pain using a website used to be? Leaving aside the time it took for a page to load, which was often sufficiently long to allow a quick city break, it wasn't unusual to find the navigation wrongly linked, or the image files so large...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
MySpace is an astonishing use of new technology, which links people to one another, and allows them to share news, views, photos and comments. It is extraordinarily popular, particularly with younger people, and is growing every day. This makes it...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Good Morning Britain 6:00am - 8:30am Suzanna Reid talks to Alan Yentob about his new beard. Meanwhile Simon Schama and Andi Peters drop into the International Symposium On Medieval Folk History in Bruges for more spins of the Wheel of...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
We can't really go on like this. The alarming evolution of 'trolling' from pestering people online to the loss of life, has been eye-watering in its speed. The last week has seen a situation develop whereby a family whose daughter is missing, was...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
This is how it happened - or at least how I became involved. Scrolling through Twitter yesterday, I noticed a message which expressed alarm at real zombies being at large in real Scotland. It was followed by this link:...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Many, many years ago - when I was a mere lad (so that really is a long time back), many products had 'boards'. I don't mean the manufacturers had directors - although they did. Nor do I mean they came complete with a large piece of wood - excepting...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Nick Kamen was famous for a while. He was a pop star in the eighties and had a hit with a thing called 'Each Time You Break My Heart'. It wasn't terribly good. But his music wasn't the reason he was famous. No, the reason he was famous was for taking...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
I must be getting old. I'm still in my forties, but something fundamental has changed in the creative business; something I don't recognise and don't much like. I was a punk, when that was a thing, and I was certainly a truculent teenager, but for...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Here we go again. Yet another campaign for The National Lottery (TNL), and it stinks. This has been going on for years, of course. If you can stand to, cast your mind back to any TNL marketing, branding or advertising and tell me whether you can...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Perhaps it's hard-wired into the very nature of the internet (after all, almost anyone can publish one) but it's increasingly difficult to find a really good website. As so much focus rests on social interaction and 'sharing', it seems as though the...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw