Potato, Potato, Chip

A few days ago, Ben was slagging off free newspapers because they’re full of press releases, paid-for articles and a lot of things that can get your anxiety and blood pressure going if you take them for granted. I’ve had a few friends tell me how useful the Metro is but I wouldn’t take it very seriously, reason being all I consume from the Metro is represented by:

• The three sudoku grids depending on my level of irritation every day;
• The occasional cute and fuzzy animal pictures and stories;
• Maybe TV/Cinema schedule if I bothered to watch any.

It worries me that others do take it seriously, perhaps too seriously. All of it, a bit of it, maybe too much of it.I find it (naturally) too short, short enough to be read on a bus, train or tram journey and it annoys the hell out of me. Thank God no one distribues things like The Sun for free because journalistic interpretation of uninteresting news, happenings and soaps mixed with panic (and men in briefs + mystic Meg) is premium content that’ll cost you 30p. 

But then again I get the Guardian every day for 30p too (best thing that happened to me since I became a student) while everyone else has to pay almost £1. If you run into the nearest supermarket at lunch time to get a sandwich you’ll probably discover that none go for under £2 unless you find yourself in Aldi (rare occurrence), add crips, cola, or if you have a Starbucks habit a bit more and pay about £5 for lunch every day. Times five or times thirty, that’s a lot of money just for food, £1 times 30 and free news from the Metro sounds better than £200 a month for news, food and coffee at lunchtime.

Sometimes I think that the Metro is indeed the work of the devil. You know that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world that he didn’t exist; the greatest trick the Metro must have pulled would be to insert some very hypocritical ads that no one seemingly notices or takes into account.

A few weeks ago as the chimp and his readers noticed, Metro came wrapped in a four-page ‘food porn’ ad for McCain Gorgeous Chips.

(via CMM News)

I’m afraid I did recycle my copy and haven’t taken it home with me but it’s a very chick-lit style piece of copy that describes the thoughts of a certain lady on her way back home. Chips or roasts, chips or roasts, stomach churning and singing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, dictating her food decision all the way home to a climax of the clock ticking and the disappointing (both to her and to us) story ending in which she has to share the chips with her boyfriend.

“The ads work because, dammit, you know they’re bad for you but the copy makes you really want it. It really is a case of great advertising, shame about the product.”

Chimp

While it didn’t particularly make me want the chips, it sounded like a lot of the chick lit I voluntarily intoxicated myself with a while ago (Kinsella and Bushnell both take up half a shelf in my book case).

“Without warning the gently nudging fork thrust itself deep into the glistening depth of the chip.”

Organ Grinder 

So I proceeded to the frozen chip area only to be (further) intoxicated with too much choice. Cheap own brand, decent own brand, big decent own brand, special own brand, premium own brand, McCain, Aunt Bessie, frozen mash, frozen croquettes, frozen straight, curly, oven, skins on, holy crap. It’s a potato. Amazingly, the empty shelves were as following: own brand mash, McCain frozen chips 1kg bag for £1. I won’t bother you with prices but where are the ‘Gorgeous’ McCain ones? £2.28 (41.5/100g) for the bag from the ad. 550 grams of potatoes with 23grams of fat. By now, I will have gotten off the bus at 5.30-6 after having read a Metro wrapped in the ad and all I’m thinking is mmm, food, now, push trolley into anyone standing near. Very clever indeed but for £3.28 I bought two Gu puddings (more porn than all the goose fat on those potatoes put together), got home and cooked my own potatoes. It took about 10 minutes longer than buying a bag and shoving it into the oven, 15 if you’re slow and not good with internets or do not possess a recipe book. 

But we do know…

“40% of young adults do not know how to cook a jacket potato. Considering that all you do is wash it and shove it in an oven, one’s Daily Mail Reflex is to assume that youngsters are just too stupid. I think it’s more plausible that nobody’s actually bothered to show them.”

Chimp again

Since we know everyone sees the same thing in a microwave meal and they’re not worried or disgusted, well done McCain.

Mapping Just About Everything

Strange discovery of the day is that window blinds and curtains are the most curious things ever. When I wake up I wouldn’t want to pull the curtains and let the sunshine in for anything in the world, but when I go into the kitchen half asleep to put the kettle on I wouldn’t be able to conceive not taking a peek at what’s going on outside, from every possible angle. I know it’s almost the same view from my bedroom but I don’t want to let the sun in there just yet. That and there is no sun probably because it’s 5 in the morning when I wake up but still in a perfect world that’s how it’d happen.

Even though I look outside the window, I don’t seem to register the actual temperature so inevitably a desktop widget with BBC weather comes in handier than opening a window. This morning the forecast was of painfully dull fog for the next twelve hours so imagine my disappointment at not seeing anything outside any farther than twelve feet and my disappointment at the ‘More detail’ button on the BBC. Grey fog, pale fog, wet fog, dry fog, very thick fog, fluffy fog, fog that looks like cigarette smoke or just fog that will trick you into thinking it’ll go away when it won’t?

If you do things manually and visit BBC Weather for a whole forecast, you’ll have noticed a ‘Weather Beta‘ button and a “Some fog lingering through the day” prediction. The beta doesn’t do anything yet apart from tell you that there will be some content but you can play with the map and see how it goes from cold to bloody cold during the day or at night. Apparently there’ll be video content soon as well although I wouldn’t rank British weather interesting enough for video.

Moving on, Google launched something more interesting for the United States a few weeks ago and if you’re curious to know how ill your state or country is, get a flu jab, Flu Trends is the place to be following. I wonder if people will look at that and think it’s time to visit their relatives in California when it gets too cold, just because there are less germs there. It’s not entirely accurate but they’ve correlated the data from search trends with scientific proof of ill people:

“We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for “flu” is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries from each state and region are added together. We compared our query counts with data from a surveillance system managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and found that some search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening.”

It does happen because it gets cold outside in winter but cold weather only makes peoples spend more time indoors, not trigger a flu or cold – they’re both just viruses. But it is pretty accurate.

So exploring the subject of maps I bumped into a website that’s kept me busy for a few days now, about a week from when I first discovered it: Strange Maps. It’s been the revelation of the week and has kept me busy when I should have been working but if you’re nerdy enough you’ll find a lot of pretty interesting things there – even a floorplan of 221B Baker St. Completely pointless, I know, but curious. 

And since I’ve admitted to liking maps of any kind (not just tube maps), the Google map of the Mumbai attacks was the first place I found out about them a couple of hours after they happened and meanwhile, the Birmingham Pubs map has seen a slow but sure growth.

Thanksgiving

I know we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving or show a lot of gratitude around here in general (we just say ’sorry’ a lot) but the most recurring video for this year’s celebration is William S. Burroughs – A Thanksgiving Prayer. I’d embed it for general viewing but Universal Music Group say ‘no’ to these kinds of interwebs practices.

Before you get too excited about his angry, bitter irony and think ‘how true’ and pass it on to a friend, a quick note: Burroughs was a drug addict. But then again so was Sherlock Holmes. And half of the United States on anti-depressants. Understanable.

And as Vidal Gore said, the gap between what America thinks it is and what it actually is has become too great to be bridged. Or who knows. Maybe there will be something to be thankful for soon enough!

Second Best Thing Out of Denmark After Lego

..has to be this:

via Mocoloco

Hold That Name Change

Call Me Jen

CrossCountry Trains do at least…although funny thing is I can’t register with a different name on a website that asks me for my card details when buying tickets.

Next time I’ll drive..

Not Great, Just Different..and Almost Pretty

Gmail themes, obviously.

Not sure if I can get used to this but I might give it a shot.

Failure to Communicate

I’ve been getting worse and worse with introductions lately. So I’ll let a few quotes slip in:

“I hope to get more work. But I’m very picky. I take my time and I just want to enjoy what I’m doing. In life I can keep a certain distance from people. I’m rather reserved, and people might think that I’m very haughty and impassive. But it’s just a mask of protection.  It’s just as an actor – especially as a woman – you have to be careful. I haven’t proved a lot yet, so I don’t want to be perceived as a bimbo.”

“I meant that hunger for life, that thing that kept me up all night, that made it impossible for me to ever sleep. I’m never comfortable or settled. As much as I love my work, and I love life-sometimes you feel the madness is killing you. But it’s also the thing that keeps you alive.” 

“Vesper is the first girl James Bond really falls in love with, and also the first girl to make him feel betrayed. Vesper is a very complex woman. She has lots of secrets. I think this is what attracts Bond to her: she’s not transparent and he can’t quite figure her out. She’s mysterious right to the end!  [...]

 

I drink Baileys. In fact I love Baileys (yes, sorry Nathan) but I wish I could be blind to their comms strategy over the years. It’s given me the feeling that they wanted too many things at once while trying to remain constant. 

A while ago some lady was touching herself to suggest to this guy she wanted Baileys from the bar as he was being thick.

Before that people were taking sips and having sex in a posh lift at a posh party. Evening gowns were swapped for cocktail dresses. Then there were molecules and people floating in the air, touching them and licking them, like Heineken meets zero gravity or Star Trek.

Then some pretty lady who wanted a drop of Baileys from the bartender but some guy put his glass in the way.

For once, I’ve ignored anythin I knew about advertising and erased it from my memory. Baileys is one of those statement drinks – when someone stranger comes up to you and asks if you want a drink, whatever you order will tell him a bit about who you are. Do you take the pint of Stella? Do you have a Martini? Extra olives? Cosmopolitan? Do you take a vodka? Johnnie Walker? Mojito? Sangria?

Everything says something. Stella is the “wife beater” with high alcohol levels. Martini with extra olives says you’re trying hard to lose that weight and starve yourself. Olives in alcohol don’t make up for meals (if you don’t know why, you’re not a woman or you’ll just never understand). Cosmopolitan says you’re in a new phase of your life because you weren’t very satisfied with the last one. Sangria says ’safe’. Perhaps idyllic.

What if you ordered a Baileys now? According to some ads from the past, you’d be a bit easy. That upsets me. Every little detail in previous ads said that. The curls in one lady’s hair, the hair colour of the other, the colour of her dress. No, no, no, no. Whoever worked on it should go out this Friday or ask more women out. Practice makes perfect and you enhance your sex life while actually discovering something relevant about your brand. The ladies who look like the ads have portrayed them do not drink Baileys. Sad discovery. Women love drinks that get them drunk but don’t make them look like slags. Another sad discovery perhaps. It’s like buying cheap chocolate and hiding it – serves a purpose but you wouldn’t want people to notice that you don’t want to spend more on an indulgence.

Baileys also isn’t Maltesers or the other way around:

Today I had a very fascinating discovery with a guy about women and what they drink. If some lady is going to order something expensive (like Baileys) she’s either unapproachable or faking it. The latter, he said, you could find out very fast. Second drink is almost never a Baileys. By that time you switch from rationality to emotion – as someone said, rationality leads to conclusions and emotion leads to action. You’re slipping into the less rational side of drinking. Too much Baileys suggests you take ages to put up and that drives people away.

Dear whoever makes ads for Baileys and Diageo,

I like Baileys. I love Baileys. I hate your ads.

Before you turn it into the new Lambrini, please note: You do not have a sensual drink for posh girls with a bit of a naughty side. If Baileys is that then what’s Absolut in fancy packaging? See, lips, droplets and opening your mouth means you’re waiting for something delicious and if you also think porn you’re a bit screwed. Soundtrack reminds me of 50s and 60s dancehalls

Male wisdom says you should void any beautiful girl who wears ugly glasses. She thinks she’s in a romantic comedy for teens. And any girl with a bad haircut. She spends enormous amounts of time and money on her hair and if it is still fucked, she’s incurable. Avoid any girl who cries when she’s drunk. Her self-pity will destroy you. 

The woman who drinks Baileys because she genuinely likes it might end up alone when she goes out on the town. But that’s alright for her – it acts as a filter. 

I think of her as a kind of Sphinx. She has many different sides to her character – she’s a bright spirit, she’s very intelligent, she’s cheeky and funny but she’s also vulnerable. There’s an instant chemistry between them. They understand each other without ever possessing each other.“

I’d love to see the woman who drinks Baileys as someone passively superior. You know it’s there and her superiority is effortless. She doesn’t have to try this hard. There will always be something missing because she’s a perfectionist who knows perfection doesn’t exist but figuring her out is like putting pieces of a puzzle together, it gets easier once you get a few but the surprise obviously comes when you’ve put the whole of it together- the pieces with the most important graphical details are missing.

And I think itt’s a shame because you have a drink that can do that and you’re not doing it.

Boo to you.

 

I wish I still worked in the creative department sometimes, I’d come up with more than just a direction that’s not great but isn’t as bad as what I’m seeing. Thank God Baileys tastes good because it sure isn’t an emotional attachment..or brand personality. It doesn’t have one.

Manchester Unimpressed With H&M and Comme des Garcons

12th of November and the H&M on Market St is putting stickers on their display about the Comme des Garcons collection coming on the 13th in ’selected stores’. Oooh, aaah.

13th of November and I rush in to see what the fuss is about and discover the fuss was. It came and went. The collection, women’s one at least didn’t seem to attract that many fans. Apparently there was one blouse that sold really well according to a shop assistant dealing with this collection alone. Shirts went for about £29, cardigans for about £70-£100. Price range of Zara and FCUK. On the other hand, the US launch was more of a hit. 250 people queuing? Crikey! Manchester was clearly unimpressed with all of this. I don’t know why but I was expecting this. The Topshop student night discount scheme had a queue of about 220-ish (approximate number) with students oh so keen on a 20% discount at 11 in the evening. I’m sad Topshop delayed its US launch, I really can’t wait to see how they fare in the States.

 

Apparently it was more successful in other places but still a sort of hit and miss thing: “Comme on down” @ Guardian

Where Advertising Stands

This article from WARC has been open in a tab for three days or so and it’s just begging for a post. 

59% of people in this poll believe advertising is entertaining! And one in seven believe there should me more control over what’s advertised. 

It would make sense as it was ordered by the Advertising Association and if it’s true then it’s encouraging in a way. Even if we’re talking about less than 59%. What they didn’t mention is how many people think there are too many rules and regulations – I’d like to see that.

Bring on the trumpets!