First up, the fact that comments on a YouTube video are often funnier than the video itself. Take this piece of succinct genius from the comments on the latest Diet Coke ad (which truly is awful)
Revengeonseattle (48 minutes ago)
The people who made this ad made the world worse.
Now, I’m not sure what problem this person has with Seattle, or indeed how their revenge has been taken on the place, but what is for sure is that s/he has one excellent point.Terrible ad, and the world is now actually worse because of it. The sheer grandioseness of the statement made me laugh anyway. And then I found myself in a bit of a black mood because, well, no-one likes watching stuff that is actually making the world worse.
Until I read that the next England game is available live online, and you can pay to stream it direct to your desktop. Which sorta made me smile in a ooo-I-wonder-if-this-is-the-future sort of a way. And then I read Rio Ferdinand’s comments on it:
“I read that online advertising has taken over from TV, so that tells you something about where it’s going in terms of the digital world,” he told BBC Sport.
“So I’m sure it’ll be the way forward and in the future it’ll probably be the reality. I think it’s a good way to gauge how many people are interested.”
And the fact that Rio has been researching the world of online advertising really made me smile. His next UK Gangsta flick will hopefully be launched exclusively through his MySpace page.
Which took me, in a strange and roundabout-via-twitter way, to The Ideas Brothers and their “A novel written by a planner” post, which made me laugh so much I want to say “That was funny Ideas Brothers. Here, have a LOL”.
‘The Wedding Murder Code’ is so titled because according to research, books with ‘Wedding’, ‘Murder’ or ‘Code’ in the title are more likely to be bestsellers.
Anyway, it nicely sums up a certain view of the function planning plays, and probably explains why it’s copywriters who write novels, and planners who write the quasi-science I-wish-I-was-Malcolm-Gladwell books with neon covers.
And, ending in a nice circular way, one of the comments to the post reads
Anonymous | May 21st 2009 at 9.57pm
why is it that all planners are fucking morons?
Anonymous, I really don’t know, but it’s certainly funnier to create a whole fake book about it than just call us names, however moronic we may be. Still, your comment made me laugh as well. So well done. Here, you can have a LOL too.
1 response so far ↓
1 Stuart Parkinson // Dec 25, 2009 at 2:11 am
Hello,
Your post just showed up in a Google alert to me (albeit a bit late), it told me that you had noticed one of my YouTube comments. I am revengeonseattle. Flattered at your comments - apologies for making your day slightly darker….!
To clear things up, I’ve got nothing against Seattle, it’s a reference to a song, but I still have a huge problem with this advert.
I recently watched a programme on ITV in the UK on ads of the decade (http://www.itv.com/presscentre/adofthedecade/wk52adofthedecade/default.html) . Every one of them made the world a better place, that is why they are seen as good, that is why people liked them, that is why they worked.
Only when everyone involved on both sides of the table climbs out of their own asses will we have a hope in making ‘advertising’ that people actually want to consume.
It seems like an easy equation to understand, but one which is all too often derailed because people think that other people care about what they’ve got to say about yogurt or shampoo. As per, it all boils down to ego.
Anyway. Love the blog, will be following from now on.
Merry Christmas
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