Opinions - Sublime / Ridiculous. How advertising is getting better and worse.

Published 09/05/2012

When looking for the best and worst in the creative field, at least TV advertising saves time and effort. Simply pick a show, ensure it's on a commercial channel and wait for the break.

In those few, short minutes you're more or less guaranteed to spot a minimum of one atrocity and hopefully, something quite delightful too.

And so it was last night. At a loss for anything half decent to watch (the channels seem to have abandoned bank holidays to a holding position of sheer mediocrity), I defaulted to '10 Things I Hate About 1999' with Robert Webb. It was actually slightly more amusing than it sounds, but what really stood out was the second commercial break. Embedded in the standard mix of forgettable plugs for anti-ageing gloop and heavily discounted couches, were two pieces of work which managed to capture all that is imaginative, crafted and classy as well as everything that is crass, glib and trite in telly advertising.

So, first off, let's go for the sublime. Twinings Tea has a patchy record in TV campaigns. They've never screened anything offensively terrible, but they've never managed much brand consistency either. I've always felt the premium beverage brand has struggled to find an adequate way to capture their proposition on screen. Obviously their market position is a few rungs above PG Tips. Twinings give the superior cuppa, not quite Fortnum & Mason but definitely looking down on the Tetley tea folk. Last year, there was a quaint campaign starring the ubiquitous Stephen Fry and his attempts to refine the coffee swilling Americans with his English tea shop. Sweetly comforting but not exactly a branding masterstroke. Sorry Stephen.

But now, at last, Twinings have nailed it. With the help of New York animation shop Psyop and a haunting Fleetwood Mac cover from Lissie, we can enjoy a beautifully simple execution which is a genuine pleasure to watch. The proposition, 'Gets You Back To You', is slightly woolly (most teas would claim similar), but that hardly matters.

Inevitably, TV advertising is now making heavy use of digital animation - but all too often we're watching the technology rather than the art. This Twinings spot gives us the reverse. The paint strokes are beautifully natural, calming and attractive, while the movement ebbs and flows to open into a tide of colour. Pleasingly, this ad is less a sales pitch and more a little, relaxing oasis amongst the noise. Just as a good cup of tea should be. See for yourself:

http://youtu.be/lvQp4G_x7ig

Unfortunately, right alongside this gem, was the ridiculous new work for the Daily Express (the 'World's Greatest Newspaper' if you're happy to believe such an unsubstantiated claim). In a lifestyle montage, so frequently the last resort of a brand lacking ideas, we hear from a sweep of Brit stereotypes, telling us, unconvincingly, how they are making various changes. From there, an illogical link is made to the highly questionable notion that changing one's daily paper is tantamount to a revolution in one's life - or even the entire world. Much like their puffed up strapline, no proof or evidence is given in support. There is no genuine proposition, merely an empty claim. It's a terrible execution of a barely formed concept and it largely wastes everybody's time and money.

Interestingly, there is no sign of this clip on YouTube or even the Express website - suggesting the paper and its agency haven't the faintest idea how to broadcast their message on line, or they are so aware of the ad's shortcomings they're happy to isolate it on Channel Five. Given it's deathly nature, the latter would make sense.

If anybody has a link to this work, I'll be pleased to post it here.

From style, care, simplicity and imagination to cliche, dirge, hubris and emptiness - that's the great British ad break. Indeed, that's great British advertising.