random wafflings

Studying for one of the exams for my professional qualifications next week, so clearly I have been spending a lot of time online :) I've only recently started using Youtube regularly, and it's been entertaining.

As a user of Sky Plus (and it's a big cuddle from me for the inventors!), it's quite hard for marketers to reach me via tv ads as I rarely watch live tv. If I do, it's usually on the BBC so no ads during the shows, and I'll generally pause and do something else and fast forward through ads if I am watching live things anyway. The Series Link button rocks my world-I love recording the whole series of a show at the click of the green button!

There have, however, been a few ads lately that have been able to get my attention. The Skoda Fabia advert with the tagline of 'full of lovely stuff' cheers me greatly by featuring the Sound of Music of the soundtrack, and hundreds of kilos of cake to make a model of the car itself. Irn Bru have caused great consternation and fanned an emo v goth war with their Goth Holiday ad. Mum comes in to give the 4 miserable black-clad youngsters some Irn Bru, prompting them to dash off to Blackpool in their hearse for a rollercoaster romp and a swim. Oddly engaging. The Sony Bravia ad where they went paintmad in a dodgy Glaswegian estate was gorgeous, with a glorious spoof interview from a distressed resident. My current fave is the campaign 'It's in our hands' from the learning and skills council where painted hands create every image of the ad. Sadly I can't find it on Youtube and the site itself is shockingly low on images from the ads, since it's their biggest marketing effort ever.

There is, as ever, some truly awful marketing around. I've joined the Ridiculous Marketing Nonsense group on Flickr to which I am tempted to post a screenprint of a recent email ad sent to me by Baileys (the drink, one of the Diageo brands). Considering the recent flooding, resulting in a number of deaths and thousands of people losing everything they owned and being forced from their homes, I was rather surprised to get a cheery mail from them suggesting Baileys was a great drink for the long, hot summer forecast, quoting Science Daily saying "UK Summer shaping up to be a scorcher" and the Telegraph saying "the Hottest year since 1659".

I wrote to them, enquiring in the politest possible terms what the hell they thought they were doing and suggesting their marketing team have a paycut since they could clearly afford FAR too many drugs. Their rather sheepish reaction?

Dear ..., We apologise for the distress that this email has caused you. The email was designed when the forecast for this summer looked like it would be the hottest on record. Subsequently, in view of the poor weather we have all been experiencing, we decided to change the email. Unfortunately due to a processing error an old version of the email was sent out instead. We understand that this email was inappropriate and in light of recent events, in very poor taste therefore we would like to apologise unreservedly for any offence caused and will ensure that this error is not repeated.Kindest regards,The Baileys Team

I suggest they ship a load of Baileys to the people in need of some gesture of kindness at this horrible time.