Barometer dogs

I'm a big fan of alternative indicators.

About a decade ago, my Scottish economist friend and man of extremes, 'The Highlander', declared his favourite alternative economic indicator to be 'the number of cranes visible on the skyline of any given city'. The more cranes, the better the local economy.

This Monday, I spent the day at Pfizer's swanky Richard Rogers designed UK headquarters in Walton Oaks - which is its own village. Sod any of that being located in a village. Simply create one for yourself and use that fact, together with your sinuous, swirling, glass and steel atrium in main reception as an alternative indicator of your success.

On the way home just before 5pm I was main-lining some Radio 4 comfort listening in the car, and an article on 'dogs' cropped up, heralded by Loudon Wainwright squawking about how they're man's best friend.

Original, Loudon, thanks for that announcement.

But, despite an unusually poor turn from the sire of such a talented musical family, I've started liking dogs more in the past few months as I've been introduced to some really rather splendid critters who've proved beyond reasonable doubt that they're not all slobber, bark and fart...

...so I continued listening.

I was told that, since Tony Blair came to power in 1997, sales of cat food have overtaken those of dog food, with the inevitable conclusion that cats have overtaken dogs as the UK's most popular pet.

The reporter went on to discuss the hackneyed attributes of feline vs. canine; about how one will spurn you while the other will always be waiting for your return; how with one you never know where you stand whereas the other is yours for life.

He expanded out from there to observe (quite correctly, in my parents' view) that Labour, under Blair in particular, have been friends of the Town but not of the Country. Fans of fast and transient living rather spouses of long-baked traditions.

Take-away vs. casserole.

And from the above points he rapidly drew the inference that the decline in popularity of dogs is a direct indication of how we, under this Labour government, have abdicated our sense of long-term responsibility to faithful friends and chosen instead the independent, sleeker and more changeling ways of pretty young felines.

Dogs, he felt, were alternative indicators of a society that has lost its values. Slobber and all.

Polar bears and poor fundraising

This is a disturbing ad. And one that's garnering a lot of publicity today as the residents of Tunbridge Wells reach for their green ink and fashion numerous letters of complaint (365 to the ASA at last count) about animal cruelty and unnecessary violence.

Plane Stupid is a loose affiliation of climactically concerned individuals who want to stop excessive plane travel. They don't think the government is doing enough and so they're taking 'direct action' to stop it. 'Shocking' ads like these are a pretty good way of getting their point across.

You get the picture.

But what annoys me most is the utter lack of thought that's been given to the 'what happens next' bit. The fundraising bit. The pay-off. The proposition. The call to action.

Call it what you will.

So here I am, potentially sharing their concerns about plane travel, and so I find out who they are and go to their website. All very logical stuff. So TV ad has, if you like, worked. I'm happy to be one of those people for whom this works; someone who's not so turned off by the violence that I jam my fingers in my ears, cover my eyes, sing la la la and do nothing (and there'll be plenty of those).

Once I get there I naturally want to find out what they do. The 'about us' bit shows them waving a big banner of protest. Fine, I get that. They do protests. They do 'direct action' as well, which is a bit murkier and smacks of 'Fathers for Justice'.

But what should I, as a concerned individual, be expected to do - and why?

This is where the stupidity resides. Because they ask me to take a leap of faith. In their words:

'So we're asking for your money, which we'll spend on an action next spring, to remind them that we won't take their airport expansion plans lying down'

Now, hang on, you're not even going to tell me what this action is?! I've come this far and all you can be bothered to do in return for asking for my cash is promise 'an action' sometime next year?

What will it be? Another banner? A protest? More polar bear ads? How much do they cost? I've no idea.

Sorry, not good enough. Marketing - and fundraising - 'fail'.

If you're going to create a stir, at least make sure you've got a reasonable opportunity for people to side with you and do something meaningful.

Otherwise you might as well be a bunch of con artists, trying to extort cash from us on the flimsiest of premises. (Now there's an idea.)

Or is the mere fact that it's been 'on telly' enough to legitimise you? Hmm. Maybe that's what you're relying on.

I wish I could have written this in green ink...

Lipstick on pigs

I like this ad, but then it's hard not to: friendly music, beautiful people, dramatic landscape, emotive subject, touch of humour yada yada yada. Oh, and it's made in Argentina, so there's that Latin sense of flair we can allude to should we want to wallow in the backstory.

I found out about it from this site. They send me an email each week and occasionally I deign to take a peek at their proffering. And the reason I don't usually bother is the reason for this blog entry.

See, I reckon it's piss easy to make ads about chewing gum. You've got thousands of metaphors in the bank to draw on; you've got the obvious 'mouth' imagery to resort to; buying a stick of it isn't going to bankrupt you, and to the best of my knowledge, there are very few chewie manufacturers involved in sub-Saharan oil deals, military coups, drug denial, or who test their products on fluffy white bunnies.

Oh, hang on, maybe I'm being a bit unfair. Because someone in the last couple of years did make a chewing gum ad that courted controversy - remember the one about the Afro chap with a loud-haler? Apparently there were complaints to the ASA because he was being a bit racially stereotypical or somesuch nonsense. (I would link to the ad here but I can't remember the brand name, and YouTube don't seem to think that the search terms 'chewing gum ad afro loud-haler' are specific enough to conjure it up.)

Anyway, back to the point in question. The job of advertising can be described in as many ways as there are marketers alive, but the definition I'm going to use today is along the lines of: dramatising a brand's particular feature in a way that increases its audience's propensity to, at some stage, buy it.

So, well done, Topline, you've suggested that if you chew this gum it will make you so kissable that heaven and earth won't be able to pry you from your lover. And we've kind of enjoyed seeing this happen because it appeals to lots of emotions and senses - and that's why you've been awarded an average of 4.73 out of 5 by the voting public.

That, by the way, is a very high score.

Try achieving that with an ad about flu. Or cheap insurance (with the notable Meerkat exception). Or, in my case, ads about weird and wonderful diseases and drugs (usually ridden with side-effects, and costing a billion times more than a stick of chewing gum).

My point is that when you ask the public whether they like an ad, or reckon it's any 'good', they'll almost always go with the ads that involve humour, sex, big images, romance, aspirational and beautiful couple and so on. So if the product feature that you're dramatising is a 'nice taste' or 'fresher breath' then you've got a lot of potential stories and metaphors at your creative fingertips.

I doubt very much whether Top 5 Ad Forum will ever include a press ad about cures for pig diahorrea, growth hormone injections or replacement hips.

All subject matters are not created equal.

A challenge for us in the pharma marketing industry, maybe, but also an indictment on the easy job that 'Top 5' has.

And that's why I don't bother visiting the site that much: it's all pretty predictable.