There’s something I have to get off my chest even though it’s been going on a while now.
Because there’s going to be trouble.
I’m waiting for it.
It’s going to happen at some point.
And then all hell will break loose.
At some point, somewhere in Britain, a builder will slightly change one of the traditional, age old greetings used by such people when they see a young, attractive women.
And he might be killed because of it.
Sooner or later, a yellow safety vested, hard hat wearing man will make a slight revision to an often heard greeting and instead of shouting out, ‘Cheer up luv, it might never ‘appen,’ in the hope that, instead of inwardly groaning, the young woman will find him irresistibly witty and stop just long enough to procreate with him, he’ll change the words slightly.
And may the lord have mercy on his soul.
Because, in an attempt to be just that little bit wittier than before, he’ll shout something along the lines of, ‘Cheer up luv, you’ll be on the blob soon!’ and then all the yellow vests and hardhats in the world won’t save him.
And there will only be one group of people to blame.
The people behind a campaign that’s been running for a while now.
The ones that thought up the Always campaign. The one that invites women of menstruating age to ‘HAVE A HAPPY PERIOD!’
Now unless I’m missing something and Always now work like a nicotine patch, slow releasing class A drugs into the user, I don’t get it.
Because neither my wife, nor any woman I’ve ever known, has ever said to me, ‘I’m feeling a bit down. But never mind, my period’s due soon, that’ll cheer me up.’
The first time I saw the TV advertisements, I felt as if Doc Brown had dragged me into his Delorean and taken me back to a simpler time.
A time when advertising for sanitary products meant a roller-skating women in white being dragged along a beach-side boulevard by a pack of dogs or galloping along on a white horse to prove there could be no leaks.
Then all these ads became the subject of ridicule.
Because it turned out we weren’t fooling anyone into believing that they could do these things on their periods because the reality was that they’d probably be feeling a bit self conscious, bloated, maybe a bit weepy, putting up with painful cramps and feeling, well, just a little bit unhappy.
But then we all grew up and began listening to the target audience. We began to show some understanding. Some empathy.
How did this get through research?
All I can think is they used the latest satellite technology to scour the Pacific Islands, found a group of Japanese soldiers who still thought WWII was on, and asked them if they’d mind joining the group and bringing their 1940s attitudes.
Those elderly Japanese. They’ll do anything for a free custard cream.
Apparently it’s come from America. Which goes some way to explaining it.
After all, they gave George W. a second term.
And just as the repercussions of that little decision spread around the world, ‘Have a happy period,’ is doing the same.
And I, a man, feel let down because it makes advertising look like the half arsed industry it’s become.
Have we really spent so long just trying to win awards for what we tell ourselves is art or making films that have no relation to the product that we can’t come up with a campaign that doesn’t totally miss it’s mark?
But despite the obvious insult to women everywhere and general proof that the brand is showing little understanding of the target market, there hasn’t been any press coverage of any anti always internet campaign started by a woman in Chipping Norton. There hasn’t been any huge backlash or calls for the head of the head of the Always marketing team.
Presumably they’re all too busy being happy as the narcotics slowly seep into their system.
So I suppose I’ll have to do it.
If you’re the team that first uttered these words in a meeting, possibly in desperation after a good idea was blown out, you should hang your head in shame.
If you’re the planer that wrote the brief, you should hang you head in shame.
If you’re the account man who sold it, you should hang your head in shame.
But if you’re the marketing manager that bought it, you should hang yourself. It’ll be a lot less painful than what happens when the drugs wear off and they come for you.
Monday 26 October 2009
Monday 19 October 2009
Barbara Nokes crushed my testicles (and I was only thirteen).
No doubt you’re reading this looking for the juicy Advertising Industry Gossip that the title promises.
Well, like a lot of current Advertising promises, you’ll be disappointed.
It’s merely testament to the power of good advertising (maybe that should be Testiment).
Or rather when advertising was good.
It is true my gonads hang, swinging like two marbles in an old Tesco carrier bag and also that I spent my formative years having them squashed on an almost hourly basis.
But in those day’s nearly everyone was at it.
Because, just as my body was getting ready to drop my plums into the landing position for adulthood, Nick Kamen walked into a launderette, whipped off his kecks, chucked them in the washer and sat reading his paper in his nice, crisp white boxer shorts as pony tailed, bobby socked young nymphs giggled and lusted.
Levi’s appeared on our TV’s like a war time GI and turned our heads with their Gum and Nylons.
America was cool and more importantly for the brand, Jeans were once again for the young.
We reclaimed them and left our Fathers to wallow in our now discarded Hopsack Farrah’s as we combed our hair into quiffs (ironically, just the way they probably had when they were young and still had hair).
And we lapped it all up.
The older ones amongst us rushed out straight away and bought their own 501’s (‘oh, and chuck in the single from the ad mate, y’know, that Melvin Grey bloke.’), while the rest of us began the onslaught of parent pestering necessary to acquire the mystical denims that would transform us, from spotty boys eagerly checking our pits and pants everyday for signs of new hair, into Adonis like Gods with girls following us down the street.
And while the pestering ran it’s course (these things took time) there was always the Boxers.
We could wear them in preparation. After all, if we just suddenly donned the whole look, all at once, it could prove too much for the women of the street. Best to break them in easy. Start with the Boxers.
And so we eagerly slipped into the cool cotton softness (or if our mum’s had bought them, 40% viscose).
Little did we know of the horror to come.
At first, caught up in the Levi’sness of it all, we told ourselves it was great, this feeling of freedom. Liberating in fact.
How we admired ourselves as we stood in front of our Bedroom mirrors, humming the opening bars to ‘Heard it through the grapevine,’ and telling ourselves the ladies would admire them too, even though in reality the only ones who’d see them would be our mums or Miss Harley, the bearded amazonian PE teacher who always managed to walk into the changing rooms at the most embarrassing times.
The problems began when we stepped away from the mirror and tried to walk.
Because that’s when the tentatively descending testicles of youth would slip into the leg of the Boxers, trapped between your thigh and the cotton and hang there innocently. Little knowing that any sudden movement, any step longer than normal, any sudden change in direction, would mean the leg of the shorts would tighten round them like a cotton noose and strangle the poor unsuspecting little sods.
It even happened when walking normally. Suddenly you’d be gripped by pain.
Which meant that what should have been a confident strut down the road to panting, eager females and our sexual awakening became a slow, nervous shuffle with a stumble, limp and a wince every sixth step. Chuck in the hand shooting down the shorts to straighten things out and it’s little wonder we weren’t beating them off with a stick.
The other problem came when our bodies were finally ready to pull the hormonal lever that would drop our downy balls and land us in manhood.
The boxers meant their was nothing to stop them from keeping dropping. No support at all.
And so, for those of us in my generation that soldiered on with the look, our man apples now hang low and long (on the plus side, we can do a good impression of Ray Winstone in Scum, swinging them round like a couple of snooker balls in a sock).
It was even worse for those that managed to get the jeans to complete the whole look.
Because 501’s had a strange twisted leg (I seem to remember it was the right one) that to the casual glance made it look that it was your leg that was twisted.
So added to the walk and the hand down the shorts, the overall look wasn’t one of a newly unleashed sex god but rather a sexually deviant polio victim.
And we still bought it all.
Lapping up all the images of the campaign and telling ourselves we looked good.
No. Make that ‘goooood!’ And we owed it all to Levi’s.
And the Levi’s phenomenon soon spread not just across the other jeans in their range but across the sexes as well.
Barbara Nokes was the writer of the launderette ad and years later I found myself working at the same agency as she was.
I never discussed her responsibility for my crushed testicles with her, or the fact that my strangely lumpen knee wasn’t my knee at all but I often wonder if she knew.
I say all this because I keep seeing posters for the current Levi’s campaign and it’s causing me pain as well but for different reasons.
‘A series of ads centralized around the theme of unrestrained self-expression. The ads evoke the free-spirit and attitude of Levi’s® 501® as an engaging cast of characters ‘unbutton’ their 501® jeans.’
That clears that up then. Because to me it looked like shots of a load of model types as they ponced around with their top buttons undone.
Presumably in a effort to get the youth of the world (for it’s a world wide campaign) to also ponce around with their top buttons undone.
‘Launderette’ (and it’s Levi’s advertising siblings) told us, the eager viewer and soon to be consumer (well, as soon as Mum would say we could have a pair), something about the jeans, no matter how frivolous. ‘Now available in stonewash,’ said Launderette. ‘Now available pre-shrunk,’ ‘Bath’ informed us. ‘Also in black,’ etc.
But telling people about the products you want them to part with their hard earned for isn’t fashionable anymore, so the most they’ll tell us now is, ‘501’s have buttons. And you can undo them. If you want.’
And it seems a shame that the brand that had probably the greatest influence on me in my youth after Penthouse is being so lackluster.
Maybe I’m out of touch. Maybe the youth of the world are, even as I write, eagerly exposing their prized first curly hairs to the world, screaming to the older generation that they are young, the are vital, they are unbuttoned.
Maybe. But I doubt it.
‘Ah,’ you may say, ‘but you don’t know what the brief was.’
And I don’t. And neither will the people Levi’s want to attract.
But I do know that when I was the youth of this story, nobody my age wore jeans. They were ‘Dad clothes.’
And Levi’s changed that in 30 seconds.
Now the youth market is saturated with the things. All being a little bit cooler and a lot younger.
Newer brands that your Dad hasn’t even heard of. So they’ll be the ones you’ll wear.
So it’s even harder now for Levi’s to get people into their jeans than it was for the spotty teen I was to get into other peoples Levi’s.
And they just don’t seem to be trying very hard.
Or maybe it’s just me getting all nostalgic for the day’s when advertising advertised.
Imagine being Barbara or Sir John in the 80s and you’re new Launderette ad has just broke.
You stand looking out of your office window at a sea of Nick Kamen wannabes all shuffling nervously along, occasionally gripping a lamppost for support as their leg lifts in an involuntary, painful spasm and they wipe away a tear. Sod the sales figures. That’s when you know it’s worked.
Will the team who worked on live unbuttoned (and I’m sure there’s hundreds of them worldwide) experience the same thrill? A sea of youthful pubis exposed proudly to the world?
I can’t see it happening.
And even if it does take off, with our ever more obese lifestyles, how will anyone be able to see who’s unbuttoned?
Well, like a lot of current Advertising promises, you’ll be disappointed.
It’s merely testament to the power of good advertising (maybe that should be Testiment).
Or rather when advertising was good.
It is true my gonads hang, swinging like two marbles in an old Tesco carrier bag and also that I spent my formative years having them squashed on an almost hourly basis.
But in those day’s nearly everyone was at it.
Because, just as my body was getting ready to drop my plums into the landing position for adulthood, Nick Kamen walked into a launderette, whipped off his kecks, chucked them in the washer and sat reading his paper in his nice, crisp white boxer shorts as pony tailed, bobby socked young nymphs giggled and lusted.
Levi’s appeared on our TV’s like a war time GI and turned our heads with their Gum and Nylons.
America was cool and more importantly for the brand, Jeans were once again for the young.
We reclaimed them and left our Fathers to wallow in our now discarded Hopsack Farrah’s as we combed our hair into quiffs (ironically, just the way they probably had when they were young and still had hair).
And we lapped it all up.
The older ones amongst us rushed out straight away and bought their own 501’s (‘oh, and chuck in the single from the ad mate, y’know, that Melvin Grey bloke.’), while the rest of us began the onslaught of parent pestering necessary to acquire the mystical denims that would transform us, from spotty boys eagerly checking our pits and pants everyday for signs of new hair, into Adonis like Gods with girls following us down the street.
And while the pestering ran it’s course (these things took time) there was always the Boxers.
We could wear them in preparation. After all, if we just suddenly donned the whole look, all at once, it could prove too much for the women of the street. Best to break them in easy. Start with the Boxers.
And so we eagerly slipped into the cool cotton softness (or if our mum’s had bought them, 40% viscose).
Little did we know of the horror to come.
At first, caught up in the Levi’sness of it all, we told ourselves it was great, this feeling of freedom. Liberating in fact.
How we admired ourselves as we stood in front of our Bedroom mirrors, humming the opening bars to ‘Heard it through the grapevine,’ and telling ourselves the ladies would admire them too, even though in reality the only ones who’d see them would be our mums or Miss Harley, the bearded amazonian PE teacher who always managed to walk into the changing rooms at the most embarrassing times.
The problems began when we stepped away from the mirror and tried to walk.
Because that’s when the tentatively descending testicles of youth would slip into the leg of the Boxers, trapped between your thigh and the cotton and hang there innocently. Little knowing that any sudden movement, any step longer than normal, any sudden change in direction, would mean the leg of the shorts would tighten round them like a cotton noose and strangle the poor unsuspecting little sods.
It even happened when walking normally. Suddenly you’d be gripped by pain.
Which meant that what should have been a confident strut down the road to panting, eager females and our sexual awakening became a slow, nervous shuffle with a stumble, limp and a wince every sixth step. Chuck in the hand shooting down the shorts to straighten things out and it’s little wonder we weren’t beating them off with a stick.
The other problem came when our bodies were finally ready to pull the hormonal lever that would drop our downy balls and land us in manhood.
The boxers meant their was nothing to stop them from keeping dropping. No support at all.
And so, for those of us in my generation that soldiered on with the look, our man apples now hang low and long (on the plus side, we can do a good impression of Ray Winstone in Scum, swinging them round like a couple of snooker balls in a sock).
It was even worse for those that managed to get the jeans to complete the whole look.
Because 501’s had a strange twisted leg (I seem to remember it was the right one) that to the casual glance made it look that it was your leg that was twisted.
So added to the walk and the hand down the shorts, the overall look wasn’t one of a newly unleashed sex god but rather a sexually deviant polio victim.
And we still bought it all.
Lapping up all the images of the campaign and telling ourselves we looked good.
No. Make that ‘goooood!’ And we owed it all to Levi’s.
And the Levi’s phenomenon soon spread not just across the other jeans in their range but across the sexes as well.
Barbara Nokes was the writer of the launderette ad and years later I found myself working at the same agency as she was.
I never discussed her responsibility for my crushed testicles with her, or the fact that my strangely lumpen knee wasn’t my knee at all but I often wonder if she knew.
I say all this because I keep seeing posters for the current Levi’s campaign and it’s causing me pain as well but for different reasons.
‘A series of ads centralized around the theme of unrestrained self-expression. The ads evoke the free-spirit and attitude of Levi’s® 501® as an engaging cast of characters ‘unbutton’ their 501® jeans.’
That clears that up then. Because to me it looked like shots of a load of model types as they ponced around with their top buttons undone.
Presumably in a effort to get the youth of the world (for it’s a world wide campaign) to also ponce around with their top buttons undone.
‘Launderette’ (and it’s Levi’s advertising siblings) told us, the eager viewer and soon to be consumer (well, as soon as Mum would say we could have a pair), something about the jeans, no matter how frivolous. ‘Now available in stonewash,’ said Launderette. ‘Now available pre-shrunk,’ ‘Bath’ informed us. ‘Also in black,’ etc.
But telling people about the products you want them to part with their hard earned for isn’t fashionable anymore, so the most they’ll tell us now is, ‘501’s have buttons. And you can undo them. If you want.’
And it seems a shame that the brand that had probably the greatest influence on me in my youth after Penthouse is being so lackluster.
Maybe I’m out of touch. Maybe the youth of the world are, even as I write, eagerly exposing their prized first curly hairs to the world, screaming to the older generation that they are young, the are vital, they are unbuttoned.
Maybe. But I doubt it.
‘Ah,’ you may say, ‘but you don’t know what the brief was.’
And I don’t. And neither will the people Levi’s want to attract.
But I do know that when I was the youth of this story, nobody my age wore jeans. They were ‘Dad clothes.’
And Levi’s changed that in 30 seconds.
Now the youth market is saturated with the things. All being a little bit cooler and a lot younger.
Newer brands that your Dad hasn’t even heard of. So they’ll be the ones you’ll wear.
So it’s even harder now for Levi’s to get people into their jeans than it was for the spotty teen I was to get into other peoples Levi’s.
And they just don’t seem to be trying very hard.
Or maybe it’s just me getting all nostalgic for the day’s when advertising advertised.
Imagine being Barbara or Sir John in the 80s and you’re new Launderette ad has just broke.
You stand looking out of your office window at a sea of Nick Kamen wannabes all shuffling nervously along, occasionally gripping a lamppost for support as their leg lifts in an involuntary, painful spasm and they wipe away a tear. Sod the sales figures. That’s when you know it’s worked.
Will the team who worked on live unbuttoned (and I’m sure there’s hundreds of them worldwide) experience the same thrill? A sea of youthful pubis exposed proudly to the world?
I can’t see it happening.
And even if it does take off, with our ever more obese lifestyles, how will anyone be able to see who’s unbuttoned?
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