Eau Dear

Didn't take long did it? No sooner had the Irish football team been beaten to a place in next year's World Cup finals than one sparky entrepreneur spots the opportunity to exploit anti-French sentiments on the Emerald Isle. Marvellous. Maybe Evian could respond accusing the Irish footballers of bottling it?

Whiskey on the Box

Jack Daniel's has a tradition for long-copy, long-standing and long-admired print ads, all focused on the roots of it's founder's personality, the quiet Tennessee lifestyle, and the consequent care and quality in production standards. How, though, to make a 30's national TV campaign feel modern when your heritage is nostalgic and takes its time to explain?:

Easy, just look at the label:

Playing with Your Food

I adore this work by JWT Kuwait for the International Vegetarian Union. Simple, beautifully shot and with a clever but clear message: vegetables are as vital as your internal organs. I wonder, however, if that's the takeout they want - is the crux of the matter that a variety of vegetables is extremely healthy, or that the absence of meat in a diet is not nutritionally a problem?

Weetabix Weak

There are both 90“ and 30" versions of this new Weetabix Tv spot. The latter loses a lot of the amusing incidental detail (e.g. the ripping up of the ticket) which are the most entertaining parts. Creatively, it feels unoriginal – the Carling Black Label ‘Bouncing bomb’ ad kicked off this genre of ad in 1989. A jockey outrunning his horse is not engaging enough in itself (which is probably why the horse talks) to sustain the ad. Interesting change of tack, though: what have the done with the Weetabix week?

Two Fingers to KitKat

This feels like an attempt to target KitKat by associating the Twix brand with the ‘have a break’ moment. The tie-in is with the classic British cuppa (offered for free with each Twix) and the claim is that “It’s a big job but they’re so good together, it’s worth it.”

The TV copy is amusingly incongruous, with a sodden dinnerlady singing along to a Whitesnake music track. The most succinct expression of this idea, however, is in the iconography: the two Twix fingers set up like a pause button and branded in gold and red. It’s a surprise Twix haven't made more of it (it was also used in their last TV ad, though without brand colours, in February, and on their website.)

Cocoa Loco

The Cadbury Glass and a Half Full campaign takes an interesting twist. The TV ad is certainly upbeat and joyful, and it’s also eye-catching (there’s a big floating head, plenty of colour, rhythm and action.)

It develops nicely from previous work, yet communicates new news. Building on Gorilla and Trucks, in which the music plays a crucial part, Cadbury have released a single on iTunes with a full-length video on behalf of ‘Glass and a Half Full Records.’ It’s written and performed by a Ghanaian artist, so it ties the Fair Trade news to an element of Dairy Milk brand equity – and proceeds go to development charity CARE. The video has been cut to a 30’ TV spot.

The print and outdoor work accompanying the ‘Zingolo’ Dairy Milk music track and video feels slightly patronising, with staccato English and dancing smiley cartoon cocoa beans. A commitment to Fair Trade is admirable, but where the TV copy looks and feels like today’s Africa, the print relies on African stereotypes and this slightly undermines the respect Fair Trade is supposed to show towards African Cocoa growers.

Gradvertising

The Leo Burnett 2010 Graduate Recruitment Program is open! Exciting news for the current grads - it's nice being the new guys, but now that we've been here a year, we're keen to help bring in the next generation... It also means we see our own faces on the Grad section of the agency website, alongside some choice quotes (it really isn't possible to write about yourself and sound cool.)

So we've been involved in setting up the scheme, which has a jealousy-inducing amount of variety in terms of time working with all the different departments and activities within the Leo Burnett Group. We've had plenty of contact with them all, but this has now been formalised into a genuinely integrated training program.

Our role, however, is most likely as go-betweens. We're the ones in the agency who were most recently applicants. With that in mind, I thought I'd throw together a few links, some or all of which might help a hopeful applicant:

Campaign magazine, and Brand Republic

Adgrads - "Getting you into advertising"

The LB Trainee Planners' blog

Reviews of creative work

Loads of interesting creative

A blog looking at interesting digital work

A blog by the Strategy team at OMD from a presentation to the IPA 1 group last year

Another blog from our IPA sessions, this time from John Wilshere at PHD

Excellent sideways glance at current affairs

One way of answering some of the interesting questions on grad application forms...

If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong...