For anyone who hasn’t seen John Lewis’s most recent piece of advertising, shame on you. The song alone, a haunting rendition of Billy Joel’s She’s Always a Woman as interpreted by Fyfe Dangerfield of The Guillemots fame, is enough to tip even the most emotionally detached of consumers over the proverbial precipice. Instantly engaging, touchingly provocative and unpretentiously sentimental, the 90 second short from young comms agency Adam & Eve charts the life of the average British woman through 70 years of emotionally charged vignettes as she experiences her first day at school, her 18th birthday, her wedding and so on…
As the lyrics wrap themselves effortlessly around the seamlessly executed journey of the protagonist’s life, the post Lehman significance of the brand’s promise of a ‘lifelong commitment to you’ becomes increasingly clear; life is too short, let John Lewis look after you. And it is here that the beauty of the campaign lies. Refusing to fall into the trap of aggressively positioning themselves as the British high street’s favourite store, their ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ strap-line is subtly reassuring at a time when brand loyalty is at an all time low. In watching the seven different actresses at each stage of a believably ‘real’ woman’s life, you realise that all these babies/girls/women exist simultaneously now across the globe. And that somehow they’ll all be ok.
Nope, I'm not talking pig's bladders, studs or Ashley Cole's backwards progression from boy to toddler. I'm talking Visa's latest dabble with the beautiful game, because in the run up to the FIFA World Cup later this year Saatchi & Saatchi London have devised an unutterably beautiful - if not slightly unoriginal - TV campaign to demonstrate Visa's partnership with the upcoming event. Ending with the strap line 'Life flows better with Visa', the protagonist runs from his Western living room across the Eastern plains as he traverses the globe with his credit card and kicks a few footballs along the way, finally entering the stadium to score their winning goal. Much as it pains me to say that an ad with anything at all to do with football makes me want to mosh out in my living room, The Pixies' Isla de Encanta is the perfect soundtrack to a perfectly executed piece of advertising and my favourite of the year so far. Come on England!!
Another year, another X Factor final grips the nation. But besides the fact that all Saturday night television from now until September next year will pale in comparison for us punters, the big bosses at ITV must really be looking forward to Christmas. Why? Maybe it's to do with the 10 million plus viewers who voted over the weekend to choose their 2009 winner, maybe it's to do with the expertly handled prime time scheduling whereby both live finals were sandwiched between fellow X Factor judge Cheryl Cole's 'Night In' and a This is Your Life style program charting the meteoric rise of Britain's Got Talent singing sensation Susan Boyle.
Or maybe it's to do with the fact that Mr Simon Cowell has managed to so heavily PR what remains the equivalent of a Butlins karaoke show, that ITV were selling 30 second ad slots during the live finals for £250,000 a pop. Which means every time Dermot-I'm always chirpy I am-O'Leary winked his wink and told us he'd see us on the other side, ITV bosses were pocketing about £1.5 million. Lord knows what percentage makes it into Cowell's bank account by the end of it, but now that the music mogul has reportedly requested an increased budget for next year's show (I'm not sure how many more fireworks I can handle actually) I can't imagine anyone saying no. Quite the opposite in fact. It looks like Cowell's turning the clock back to the days of the high-waisted trouser wearing, cigar smoking, moobs displaying fat cats who sit round a poker table somewhere in Soho discussing their plans to take over the world. Did I mention he's in talks to launch the X Factor in Las Vegas with rotund retail guru Sir Philip Green? Ah. Point proven then.
Kleenex's latest TV commercial campaign, shot by the renowned Rankin, is one of my favourites at the moment. And this time round, not only have they decided to continue with their hugely successful payoff line 'let it out', but they've also enlisted the help of a diverse mix of celebrities; an ageing rocker famed for his political activism, a pint sized popstar hailing from one of the most successful girl bands of all time, and an ex England football manager best known for sporadic sexual dalliances with fellow Swede Ulrika Jonsson.
Whilst we're all familiar with the power of celebrity endorsement when it comes to selling products, the concept behind Kleenex's casting of Bob Geldof, Emma Bunton and Sven Goran Eriksson is truly innovative. Who would have thought that the things that make you or I laugh or cry might also affect the lives of the rich and famous? Geldof laughs in the face of stern-browed businessmen everywhere, Bunton shakes off the infantile epithet of her Spice Girl days as she rocks out in private, and Sven's childhood dreams of sporting athleticism are at once scuppered and fully realised in one moment as he scores the winning goal with a screwed up tissue.
For me, the power of this campaign lies in its unashamed voyeurism; we are privy to the deepest thoughts and feelings of the very same public figures that hold their privacy so dear to them. Targeting typically hard-to-reach demographics with its universal appeal, this is advertising at its best.
