Picking on the wrong people

Hi there,

A perfectly decent response from Blue Dragon this week. It is so calm and ordered that it reveals me to be boring rather than incisive. I'm picking on the wrong people.

Also- why don't I just shut up!

"Dear Mr Spalding

I have been passed your e-mail (below) by a colleague of mine, who
manages the Blue Dragon web-site.  Firstly, apologies for the delay in
replying to you but I have been out of the office for the past week and
this is the first opportunity I have had to respond to you.

Secondly, let me address the points raised in your e-mail.  The TV
adverts for Blue Dragon, utilising the strapline 'The East Made Easy'
were filmed at the beginning of this year in Thailand (both in factories
and on location eg. Chilli Fields).  The adverts are an accurate
representation of tasks that are carried out manually in the factories
we work with in Thailand - with the creation of all advertising, we have
had to provide substantiation of these facts to the Advertising
Authorities before approval on scripts could be gained.  Although we
focus on the manual process in our adverts, there are clearly parts of
the process that are automated eg. cooking of sauces, filling of bottles
etc.  This enables us to make and deliver (back to the UK) and across
the World sufficient volumes to satisfy demand.

We choose the factories we work with very carefully and work directly
with them (we have an office in Bangkok) so communication with factories
and back into our Head Office in the UK takes place on a daily basis.
The factory featured in our TV adverts has recently been subject to a
social audit (in line with Marks & Spencers ethical standards) and the
audit indicated a meeting of requirements in this area (facilities,
working conditions, health & safefy etc etc).  There are also strict
employment laws in place in Thailand which protect employee's rights and
conditions (as in the United Kingdom) and our factories comply with
these rules and regulations.

So in conclusion our products are partly hand prepared in Thailand by
Thai workers but they are not totally hand made.
We produce products for the Blue Dragon brand across the Far East
(Thailand, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan) but the products depicted
in our current TV adverts are all made in Thailand.
The conditions for workers in these Thai factories all comply with UK
audit prcesses and standards and their respective countries Employment
and Health & Safety laws.

I hope this information answers the questions you have raised.  If you
have any outstanding questions / queries, I will be happy to respond.
Kind regards

Tracy Hughes
Marketing Controller
AB World Foods"

Honey Monster- Crimp my style

I didn't blog this one at the time- although I seriously meant to. Browsing You Tube recently to watch clips of the Mighty Boosch I found the Honey Monsters dispicable rip off as a "Similar Clip".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaB7Q-9uwp4&feature=related

The swines.

Most disapoingly of all i know there is an ad exec somewhere rubbing his hands with glee that it has "generated debate" and I bet the incensed fans have, like me, hit it on youtube about a million times (well 100,00 actually, Ha! less than the Boosch clips!)

Blue Dragon East Made Easy

Here is my email to Blue Dragon for, what I suspect will turn out to be, a ridiculously twee view of their products. Did you realise that each pot of green curry, or oyster sauce was HANDMADE in eastern Asia? Because I certainly didn't.

"I recently emailled Blue Dragon through this website to ask about it's recent series of adverts the East Made Easy. In these adverts your food is shown to be hand prepared by Eastern Asian factory workers.
I'd like to ask again if Blue Dragon products are hand prepared in Asia? Where in Asia? and what are the conditions for workers in those factories.
Please respond.
Alistair Spalding"

They've ignored my last email. Hence the post here.

If you'd like to email them- here is an email address for the Marketing Team:

Harriet.Jenkins@abworldfoods.com


Details from the Advertising Director here have helped- but I still want an answer.

The music to that new Honda ad that I unfortunately enjoy.

I saw the ad again last night and it confirmed my worst fears- I do really like it.

The music is from The Life Aquatic Soundtrack, and is one of my favouritesongs from that movie. They play it when they're raiding the pirates.

It's called Ping Island Lightening Strike Rescue Ops by Mark Mothersbaugh

Check it out on Last FM: http://www.last.fm/music/Mark+Mothersbaugh/_/Ping+Island%252FLightning+Strike+Rescue+Op

Oh No! Honda make a good advert!

I really wish this hadn't happened, but I fully enjoyed Hondas latest offering.

You'll see from previous posts here and here that I hate Honda and their stupid adverts. That was my thing, my main hook- I was a Honda detractor.

But last night I though the ad was awesome. I can only hope they've changed it in response to comments read here on my blog. This seems unlikely given that all my newly set up stats, feedburners and readers are still telling me that NOBODY reads this blog- still you never know.

Honda has a new Problem Playground website to support its ad, and i's also really good, with lots of addictive little games to entertain you for a few minutes.

There is a really good song that goes with it too I'm trying to find out what it is and will let you know soon.

Wieden and Kennedy created the ad (as well as the ones I hated) why can't things just be consistent??

There are all kinds of puzzles solved by the crew at Honda, it's another long ad, except of course now I think that's great, where before I thought it was boring.

Rats.

I'm not the only one going about Lenor

If you follow the below link to the Mirror forum pages you'll see some horrific blogger bashing as people use Mirror-style verbal abuse to support my complaints at the ad.

http://forums.mirror.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=405356

Here's my letter to Lenor...

"I understand what you're trying to say with your new adverts claiming Lenor Concentrate is good for the environment, but what are you actually doing?

If you removed Lenor Dilute from the shelves you'd have something to talk about, but you aren't doing!

You've just realised that an exisitng product happens to have some environmental benefits.

Anyway- this is what I think of the ad: htt://adblogging.blogspot.com"

So let's see if they respond, I'll keep you posted.

Concentrate! Lazy ethics

There is an advert currently pushing the boundaries of ethical laziness.

It runs for lenors concentrated washing liquid and claims the following environmental success:

"Lenor Concentrate helps to take up to 14,000 lorry loads off the roads*
Lenor Concentrate uses up to 70% less packaging*
Lenor Concentrate uses 70% less water per wash*"

Here's what the small print says:

"*Lenor concentrate uses 70% less water and 70% less packaging per wash when compared to regular Lenor If all dilute users swiched toconcentrate, up to 14,000 lorry loads can be taken out of the roads in a year"

http://www.lenor.com/goconcentrate/html1_2.html

Sounds good right? But actually they aren't doing anything at all. They're simply rebranding an exisiting product as ethcial becuase the've stumbled accross the fact that it happens to be smaller and this has a few benefits.

By the same logic you could say that smaller cluster bombs, deal death in a much more environmentally friendly way because they are smaller, use less packaging, and require 14,000 less fighter planes to drop them all over some poor unsuspecting country.

There are some environmental benefits to concentrate- fine. But to make such a big song and dance about doing nothing at all is environmental marketing that is just plain lazy.

BMW vs Lexus

Two music and colour ads for cars running at the moment.

The BMW uses classical music and an ethral but dynamic light show inside and out of the car.

Lexus use colour changing droplets of rain, responding to the revs of the engine.

I feelt eh BMW is infitely superior- and I'm not a fan of the brand generally. Production values seem higher, the music is perfectly suited and they're not afraid to phase the car in and out merging it seemlesly with the light show.

The Lexus isn't bad, but I wouldn't have mentioned it apart from in this comparrison where it comes out unfavourably- so maybe it is bad.

Lot's of cars recently, and I'm not even a car buyer.

Night Driving- Volkswagon

How on brand am I with Volkswagen? Feel the synergy people!

The soundtrack grabbed me originally- I left the washing (yes I'm a house husband) to check out the ad. The music is like a combination of every piece of music I own. I didn't like the words too much- but they're from Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood, so I've nothing against it either.

It's so good that when you click this link:
http://www.night-driving.com/
It just repeats the ad for you, as if saying-,"We know why you're here- you want to watch it again- don't you?"

There's also lots of clicky stuff to do including, my personal favourite, a selection of good places to drive at night. (my least personal favourite click is the "philosophy" section which doesn't feel very credible at all- it's like the Marketing Agencies pitch written down for you.

It taps into isolation, depression, darkness, individuality, alternative living, but, like classic Volkswagen, does it in a way that feels right- authentic and credible.

One of these days I'm going to buy a car...

Prison Break 118 sponsorship deal

I've alreayd pulled 118 up for a pretty good series ripping off the Honda ads that I hate with gusto.

I'm not personally a fan of the before and after slots they've been doing to support Prison Break, but my girlfirend is.

I'm pretty certain the only reason she watches Prison Break (apart from the hot guy of course) is to chuckle at the antics of 118's iditotic henchmen.

Recently we watched an episode together, while she was in Norway, and I was in London.

Some careful manouvering of the webcam, and microphone, and some crystal clear skype reception meant that she got to catch the episode (which isn't being shown in Norway) with me.

I couldn't hear her laughing during the 118 slots, so I found myself filling in for her and laughing on her behalf. How modern is that picture!!

How do you rate my apathy

I've been off message for a little while now.. the blogs become more about me moaning and comaplaining than I originally intended, but I'm back on track with the following on Volvos recent TV campaign:

The recent love it or hate it advert for Volvo has upset a colleague in the office who REALLY hates it, not the car, the advert.

Marketing Week described it as an interesting treatment, but unfortunately a very boring car (I'm paraphrasing) and that such a campaign is not enough to overhaul an image malfunction.

My own response is apathy, no feelings one way or the other about the car, or the advert.

Do you love that response or hate it Volvo?