John Lampard, known for dissecting the {SubSet} culture since 1997, has recently posted an interview with me at his blog, disassociated.com. The interview follows a format of five questions he’s using to profile Australian bloggers.
Here’s the five questions John asked me.
1. What prompted you to become a TV ad reviewer of all things?!
2. How much time a week would you spend doing research, and watching TV, for the blog?
3. In your opinion what makes for an effective TV ad?
4. What sort of things do you think ad makers should avoid doing when producing commercials?
5. So are TV ads underrated creative genius, or merely a distraction TV viewers must tolerate?
I’ve just sent out an update for Duncan’s TV Ad Land. It’s a monthly post of what should have been four weekly posts. Never mind.
Duncans TV Site Development
Posts now have words rather than numbers in the permalinks. It took a few days to get this right. I discovered that I really do need to have a date in the title to avoid mucking up RSS feeds.
All RSS subscriptions now are channeled through my Feedburner account, which gives users capacity to email, add to del.icio.us and submit to Digg. At last count there are 133 RSS subscribers.
I’ve added a favicon to the site - which means that in most browsers there’s a little television beside the title of each page.
I’ve started adding Technorati tags - though they’re invisible in the posts.
I’ve added a page of links to advertising agencies, under ‘About This Site’. More to come on production, edting, post production and sound/music companies.
You’ll notice that more recently every third ad has been connected with the FIFA World Cup. I’ve placed an asterisk beside those spots. The top search engine on Duncan’s TV works perfectly if you want to find these spots.
April
Mercedes Sound of Summer
Adidas Hello Tomorrow
Nicorette No Gary No (AU)
Subaru Impreza Numbers (AU)
Budweiser Stadium Wave
May
Duncan Yo Yos - Throw Duncan
Global Warming - Tick, Train
Inghams Chicken - Swearing Mum (AU)
Carlsberg - Old Lions *
Ford Courier -� Barbecue (AU)
Virgin Mobile Russell (AU)
Finnish Finishing Sauce (AU & NZ)
Starburst - Party (AU & NZ)
Assistance Dogs - Pick up the Phone (AU)
TLC - Life Lessons
Toyota Prado - Ice Sculptures (AU)
Quit Smoking - Gangrene Amputation (AU)
Amoisonic Mobile - Phone Reincarnation
Red Meat - Evolution with Sam Neill (AU)
Adidas Adicolor Pink
Lamb Fragrance (AU)
Adidas Adicolor Green
Jaguar - Gorgeous
Bud Light - Secret Fridge
Nike Football - Joga Bonito *
Sydney Anglicans - Challenging the Da Vinci Code (AU)
Honda Fit
Virgin Mobile Exciting Ad with Russell (AU)
Squeezy Marmite - Man with broken Arm & Mother with Baby sick of Marmite-flavoured milk
Adidas +50 TUNIT Modular Man *
Suncorp Bank/Insurance sponsors Skin Cancer research with Aint No Sunshine (AU)
BNZ - Piggy Banks (NZ)
Adidas -� Football Recruitment *
Peugeot 207 - Ladybird and Firefly
March of the Penguins and too spoofs
Coca Cola Argentina Football stop motion ads *
Libra Tampon - The Comparison (AU)
Burger King - Kiwis Love Eggs (NZ)
Sure Deodorant - Wild Animals *
Apple - Get a Mac with John Hodgson and Justin Long
IKEA - Moo Cow Milker
ESPN World Cup Soccer - C�te d’Ivoire, Tartan Army, Sick Days, Anthem *
Pineapple Lumps - Sweet As (NZ)
Absolut - Cut the Crap (AU)
BBC - FIFA World Cup Imagination *
Boots Sun Shop - Summer Rush
June
American Express - Kate Winslet
Nike - Juggle Chain *
Geico Gecko - New Voiceover
National Bank Student Life (AU)
Christ Jesus - What A Ripper combination (AU)
Subaru Impreza Accelerated (AU)
Carlton Draught - Worth It and Deep Cleansing Formula (AU)
Dictators Wearing Fur
Adidas Oliver Kahn Bridge
Please excuse the lack of recent posts. I’ve set up my own domain, duncans.tv to host Duncan’s TV Adland and Music Videos. Transferring material from Blogspot.com to Wordpress was a breeze with the right plugin. However there’s a bit of time involved in resetting the images (adding class=”alignright” to the code and putting in alternative text) and setting the categories for each post. On top of that I’ve been resetting the indexes.
I’ve put posts from the Adland and Music Video blogs into the one site, separating them with categories. There are 283 posts in total. I’ve got 102 left to adjust.
I’ve just had a Skype call from Carlos Mora, the guy who raps in Spanish in the Pepsi Samba TV ad with the dancing legs. I’d had an email from Eden, the Song Zu composer responsible for the music, alerting me to the release of the music ‘Asereko’ as a single this week. So I wrote it up at Duncan’s TV Adland.
Carlos grew up in Glebe, Sydney, gaining experience as a choir boy and a punk drummer before going to Cuba to learn the congas. He gave me the lyrics to the new single, some background on his musical influences (Afro Cuban rap and Latin jazz), and a link to his band’s web site.
It’s good being part of the ’spicy tossed leaf salad’ multicultural Australia as opposed to the ‘melting pot’ assimilation version.
Today is ‘Clean Up Australia Day‘, a day in which volunteers tidy up their environment, from the beaches, rivers and creeks, parks, public bush lands, shops and malls, school grounds and outdoor transport areas.
The campaign was started by Ian Kiernan, an Australian builder and solo yachtsman. As he sailed around the world in 1987 he was shocked at the extent of pollution and rubbish he saw in areas such as the Sargasso Sea in the Caribbean. When he returned to Sydney he enlisted friends and developed a campaign to enlist 40,000 volunteers to clean up Sydney Harbour. In 1990, the following year, almost 300,000 volunteers enrolled for Clean Up Australia Day. Clean Up the World was launched in 1993, involving approximately 30 million volunteers in 80 countries.
I’ve written up the television campaigns from the last two years at Duncan’s TV Ad Land. The first ads aim at motivating people to use reusable bags for shopping. The last two years have focused on motivating volunteers for the clean-up effort, raising awareness in the 20 - 35 year age bracket.
Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great for such projects. But having just written all this up I’m now interested in preparing for Clean Up Australia Day 2007.
And at Duncan’s TV Music Videos I posted a review of the Sigur Ros ‘Glosoli’ music video featuring children running over the edge of a cliff to fly towards the sun.
Australia’s all abuzz with the slight controversy over Tourism Australia’s latest marketing campaign, “Where The Bloody Hell Are You?”. A television commercial features ten scenes in which Australians explain to potential overseas tourists that we’re all set up for them to come. Thinking we’re a great country to visit is not enough. These people need to book their flights and get on down under.
The controversy, of course, is the use of the Strine vernacular phrase “Where the Bloody Hell Are You?” John Howard’s gone on record saying that this phrase is an acceptable part of Aussie lingo. There are other words that we shouldn’t be saying.
And then there’s the controversy over which scenes have been included in the TV spot. In today’s Gold Coast Bulletin there’s an element of pique at the omission of our beautiful destination in the promotion. The closest we got was the Great Barrier Reef which is 24 hours drive away.
I’ve written up the television commercial at Duncan’s TV Adland, including where to see the spot online.
If you’re in Australia, look out on your TV this Sunday. Tooheys New is launching a new ad that has the potential to rival the Carlton Draught Big Ad. At www.fortheloveofbeer.com.au you can see it now, in Vividas format. For more details see my post at Duncan’s TV Adland. This is the answer to the mystery billboard I posted on earlier this week.
Hahn Premium Light - Gondola
The spot features a gondola in Venice in which a guy spoils his girlfriend’s romantic sensibilities by landing a fish into her lap.
Whatucando.org
A disturbing video challenging people to put energy into doing something about suffering as an alternative to watching the next sitcom television show.
Tabasco - Tan Lines
An ad from the 2005 Super Bowl in which a sunbathing woman’s suffers skin burn, not from the sun but by putting Tabasco sauce in with her prawns dip.
Apple - Intel Factory
Moby provides the ambient soundtrack for a clip inspired by the Postal Service music video, “Such Great Heights” Emerald Nuts - Unicorn
A fibbing father is caught out by a white unicorn, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
AOL - Discuss
AOL UK launch a balanced discussion of the pros and cons of the internet.
HP - Pictures of You
Francois Vogel directs an effects-enhanced video promoting HP’s digital photography technology, to the sounds of The Cure.
Honda - Choir
The Honda Civic’s driving sounds are provided by a 60 piece choir. Another classic from the team that made ‘Cog’
Volkswagen - Angel’s Day Off
An angel takes a day off in Rio de Janeiro, secure in the knowledge that his charge is driving a VW Polo.
Clarks - Shoe Repairer
An old Russian shoe repairer in Melbourne is not happy about the durability of Clarks school shoes.
Hansaplast - Maman
A cheeky precocious French-speaking boy takes on life’s challenges with the explanation that his mother said he could. The ending provides a playful connection with birth control.
Sharp Aquos - More to see
People in this advert live their lives with their eyes closed. Finally someone opens her eyes to discover the visual delights on an art gallery wall. A promotion for LCD technology.
Pepsi - Elephant Tower
A young Indian boy discovers his power of persuasion over elephants. Not all ends happily.
Ford Fusion - Particles
An iPod-playing man unleashes particles of sound. The ignition key in a new Ford Fusion has a ripple effect on its city surroundings.
Antena - Steering Wheel
A Romanian television station promotes its entertainment value through quirky practical joke stunts. Steering Wheel and other spots.
Cravendale Cows
Three spots in three years tell us that Cravendale milk is so good the cows want it back.
Diet Pepsi - Dancing Cans
Soft drink cans and bottles complain about the partying habits of the Diet Pepsi dancers on the top shelf.
Toyota - Knives
A Sydney man tests his reflexes by ducking and diving through a storm of knives inspired by the shower of frogs in the film, Magnolia.
Ikea - Persian Rug
A series of Canadian pedestrians are ‘taken out’ by a Persian rug on its way home from an IKEA store. A plea for people to use the free delivery service.
IRN Bru - Raoul
Sunbathing Scottish women are bemused by Raoul, a try-hard body builder/diver. It’s all a promotion for IRN Bru, Scotland’s national energy soft drink.
Careerbuilder.com - Monkeys
An office worker is driven to looking for a new job by the antics of the monkeys he works with.
Virgin Mobile - Kate Moss
Kate makes her comeback into modelling with this tongue-in-cheek TV Ad. Heineken - Disturbance
Men around the world are disturbed when a bartender accidentally breaks a dozen bottles of Heineken beer.
Puma - Gifts
Various animals present various Puma sports shoes as gifts on a white background.
Tuna - Elevator
Two spots, one in Thailand and one in the USA. A young slim woman walks to the elevator/lift, attracting the lustful stares of her male colleagues. As soon as the door shuts however, she breathes out, revealing that her skirt is too small for her. We’re encouraged to eat Tuna and lose weight.
World Vision - Gift Catalogue
I’ve just posted a couple of stories connected with the launch of Apple’s new Intel-chip-driven MacPro computer.
Apple Intel Factory
At Duncan’s TV Adland I’ve written up the story of the TV advertisement featuring the music of Moby, “God Moving Over the Face of the Water”, and a concept straight from Postal Service music video, “Such Great Heights”.
The blogosphere in Mac circles has been buzzing with the thought that once again Apple has used a copied concept for its marketing. As it turns out Josh & Xander, the directors of the Postal Service video are also the directors for the new Apple ad.
Postal Service Such Great Heights
Having seen the music video I thought it was worth writing up at Duncan’s TV Music Videos. The video was shot in a wafer fabrication plant - a factory where data is imprinted into silicon chips and disks.
And linked up with the two stories is the launch of Apple iLife 06 for Mac, and the MacBook Pro.
Duncan Macleod posts on life, faith and culture in Australia, drawing from his involvement in the creative industry, the Uniting Church, the blogosphere, generational research, the emerging church and life on the Gold Coast.
I’ve just had a Skype call from Carlos Mora, the guy who raps in Spanish in the Pepsi Samba TV ad with the dancing legs. I’d had an email from Eden, the Song Zu composer responsible for the music, alerting me to the release of the music ‘Asereko’ as a single this week. So I wrote it up at 
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