Crimes against music: Volkswagen Commercial advert
The following comes with the caveat that VW produced the greatest ad ever a few years ago in the shape of Night Driving
This isn't an especially bad advert as it goes if you watch it without the sounds off, but it is advertising something resolutely dull.
What elevates it to egregiousness is its use of God Only Knows, which is possibly the most beautiful song ever written on what's possibly the best album ever written with some of the most sublime string and wind arrangements ever and the most stunningly perfect vocal ever recorded.
A blissed-out, ethereal, ingenuous love song written in the heady of days of mid 60s Californ-i-ay that not only speaks of one of the most evocative times in the world's history but is recognised as one of the most stunning pieces of work ever created by human hands.
Somehow, then, I find it a tad hard to believe that Brian Wilson had in mind the Volkswagen Caddy when he was crafting this love song to love itself – so a pox on the houses of those people who decided to defile it with images of a sodding commercial vehicle from industrial Germany.
People may love their old camper vans, a vehicle most probably seen around the beaches of west coast America in the 60s, but that's about as far as those emotional connections with cars go. They do not love modern day Caddy Maxis, Caravelles or Crafter Dropsides.
The emotional connection between man and vehicle is harder to define; harder to predict and harder to create. Scarcity, design, character, nostalgia, luck and context are all here. The old camper van had it, the old Beetle, the old Mini, the Porsche 944, the Alfasud, the Ursaab, the Citroen DS, early Land Rovers, the Dodge Charger, the Pontiac Trans-Am, the Jag E-Type, the Ferrari Dino and dozens of others.
Few modern-day equivalents do, for most of the reasons outlined above. It's the difference between loving a first edition of The Great Gatsby and loving a copy of Katie Price's new hagiography given away free with this month's copy of Heat Magazine.
To suggest otherwise is just wrong-headed but to chuck a load of cash at this ad in an attempt to lend some reflected sheen is not just lazy, it's virtually sacrilegious. What next? Waterloo Sunset playing over some loving shots of Toilet Duck being sprayed around a dirty lav? Johnny Cash singing Hurt in Halifax's hellish radio station? Eno's Ending (An Ascent) playing while Gio Compario bums a pig in the new Go Compare ads?
Whoever matched this ad to this song should spend 12 solid months driving around Romford in a modern VW van, hauling bags of animal feed in and out of it, listening solely to Talk Sport and staring at the latest dog-eared copy of The Sun with its dead-eyed celebs - until their soul locks itself into a small, dark room and thinks long and hard about what it did on the day it matched the most eye-wettingly beautiful noise ever created to one of the most boring devices in modern life, in an effort to encourage SME fleet managers on the M4 corridor to choose a a Volkswagen Crafter CR35 LWB 2.5 BlueTDI Luton instead of a Citroen Relay 35 2.2Hdi Luton Tailift.
Shots’ ten best vids of 2010
Shots is a bit like the Face magazine to Marketing Week's Financial Times of the advertising industry, though it's not exclusively on ads. Assorted virals, music vids and trailers also feature in what is mainly a look at cool stuff and creativity within the industry.
It's a bit wanky (they've got their own embeddable vid players for crying out loud - these people are serious multimedia nodes) but it does appeal to the part of me that admires adverts and the like as unique, intense art forms that can be absolutely superb. Shots compiled a top ten, well, things of 2010 - some of which are adverts.
No Go Compare, Halifax or Iceland here - though some old favourites and old enemies do rear their heads at some point.
Old Spice: The Man Your Man Should Smell Like
AdTurds approves. Brilliant campaign, executed superbly.
OK Go: This Too Shall Pass
The latest iteration of Honda's Cog advert. Impressive, but they didn't exactly get there first.
Puma: Hard Chorus
Mmmmm. Juxtaposition. Well done.
Philips: DarkRoom
Stunning, but what the hell is going on? Little Blade Runner riff, more than a tad on the edge. Cool. But is that enough?
John Lewis: Always A Woman
No, no, no, no, no.
Nike: Write The Future
Soccergasm #1.
Dulux: Let's Colour
I like stuff like this. Don't care what anyone says.
Adidas: Cantina
A stilted, awkward cashgasm that's not original in the least.
Nokia: Dot
Lovely little piece that combines nice visuals with showing off the product. Wonderful.
Levi's: Ready To Work
Mmmmmmmmmmm. Not sure. Nice idea, now convinced by the execution. Next up: Phileas Fogg tries to turn Consett into something other than a shithole, using mignons morceaux.
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
Campaign's top ten TV and cinema ads of 2010
Campaign's top ten surreal ads