The anatomy of an ad: Tube Chat

A few days ago on a tightly packed tube I witnessed something I thought never really happened in real life. An American man, perhaps in his mid-40s, struck up a conversation with a stranger. Not just any old stranger, but an attractive, suspicious, no-nonsense Londoner, who I think was too shocked by the random nature…

Continue Reading

The anatomy of an ad: Turkish Airlines

With all the geo-political problems Turkey has encountered in the last year, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that Turkish Airlines would roll-out yet another brand campaign fronted by a superstar celebrity to attempt to pull in the tourist dollars. Case in point, the latest outing with the all too predictable ‘Widen Your World’…

Continue Reading

The Absurdity of a Superbrand

This weekend’s Guardian newspaper (a UK broadsheet) included the annual Superbrands 2016 supplement, which inevitably caught my interest. Billed as ‘independently commissioned research to identify the country’s leading brands’, the report reflects ‘the opinions of thousands of members of the British public and business professionals’. Hmmm…. fair enough. And then I got to the results page….

Continue Reading