Campaign blows wad on top ten ads features
The Campaign website - the title that focuses on advertising at the sprawling Brand Republic empire - has gone top ten ads of 2010 crazy, with a veritable smorgasbord of best, worst, most surreal and celebrity-themed listy link-bait stuff.
Since it's presumably staffed by people who presumably have their ears to the ground in the world of ads, rather than venting spleen on a blog, and features a hefty industry-based community it's interesting to see what those in the industry think of last year's offerings.
Nike's vaguely hysterical Write the Future spot for the World Cup absolutely reeks of cash but I couldn't get particularly excited about it (though I did like the smaller Rooney spot, which had much more charm and wit). Whoever's writing the ad copy for Campaign virtually spunks over it in two different lists. Ho hum.
Big hitters such as M&S, John Lewis, John Smiths and Virgin seem to go down very well in Campaignland, while the lower ends of the market - the Go Compares, Icelands and ComparetheMarkets of this world - get nary a look in.
I don't really agree with many of the choices of the supposed best ads as they mainly seem to comprise cash-heavy, celeb-heavy tie-in ads - Christmas and the World Cup most obviously - that are heavy on spectacle and clearly cost an absolute bomb.
The John Lewis ad is again described as an advert that made adults cry; a claim that seems, to me, to be totally without foundation that has passed in to some sort of folklore.
Where things do get interesting is the worst celebrities list, which doesn't flinch at sticking the boot in, heavily. Jedward, the Redknapps, John Cleese, Barbra Windsor, Peter Mandelson's ghastly Third Man spot and the genuinely baffling Derek Jacobi Xmas Sony ads feature in the list, among quite a few that are new to me.
Among the ones I haven't seen before is this one featuring charmless footy-and-lager goon Tim Lovejoy wooing a Mediterranean beauty with some pasta. It's a bit creepy and very rubbish, because Lovejoy shows himself to be perhaps the worst actor to ever grace a loft apartment.
Finally, AdTurds has a spot of advice for whoever compiled the top ten surreal adverts - without including this slice of fried gold by ad/film/doco genius Tony Kaye, made for Dunlop in 1993.
If this isn't surreal - and bear in mind it's advertising tyres - we don't know what is.
Campaign's advert top-ten-athon
Campaign's top ten worst celeb ads of 2010
Mandelson Third Man advert
Like some cadaverous, preening old Baron in a ramshackle old mansion, probably with BDSM chambers and portrait-filled attics, Lord Mandelson sits in front of the fire reading a fairy tale from his own diaries about how fucking shit-hot amazing he was.
He appears somewhere between Noel Coward, Dorian Grey and Bela Lugosi, sallow of skin and sunken of cheek. He's now beyond any kind of self-awareness, or shame if you like. The timing of the memoir; the revelations within; the self-justification of his last moment in the political sun, at the expense of his frends, colleagues and party.
Mandelson gives every impression that he couldn't care less, and pokes fun at himself a little. It is, perhaps, this artlessness concerning himself that has led Mandelson to agree to this hideous advert that shows his to be vain, disloyal, smug, preening, untrustworthy and lacking in judgement.
But Mandy is the sort of man who thrives on criticism and insults. It's easy to imagine he feeds on it, like a grotesque monster in a B-movie made stronger by repeated laser beam hits.
I don't expect that Mandelson cares what anyone thinks for a second, or that he sees the advert as anything other than a means to an end. But is the publicity worth it if you appear to confirm everyone's worst fears about your character for the sake of a few sales?
That portrait must be getting more grubby by the day.