I do it, too. I enjoy an evening in front of the TV when I can but hate adverts and filler. So I look at the listings and meticulously plan my viewing schedule: ‘Is this programme on a channel that has adverts?’, ‘If so, can I use the Watch Again feature on my cable to see it another day?’,  ‘Can I fill up this 1/2 hour gap with anything I have left over to watch from yesterday when there was two things on at the same time?’.

I think I see it as just another area of my life to strive for efficiency and fulfilment in. And rather than see the entire of TV output as a waste of time I choose to pick out some things that I can justify as being worthwhile, or entertaining. That way I can sneer at people who veg out in front of inane reality shows or vacuous celebrity features while I’m wasting my time more valuably. After all, I’m learning lots about the secrets of our solar system while watching that jolly indie-band professor. And after a few more episodes of Burn Notice I’m sure I’d be able to walk into a job at MI5.

It’s as though me, and the Japanese Tetris-addicts, are scheduling our leisure time the same way as an executive schedules his day. It’s definitely a modern way to relax but I wonder if it really makes for a more fulfilled life. By pushing our leisure activities right to the edges of the time we’ve got to fit them into are we missing time to think? My blogging partner, Paolo, always says it’s good to get out of the office and go for a walk in the park. And while some might perceive that as procrastination (or even, as I suspect, a squirrel fetish) it might just be that he’s pushing back the edges between work and leisure and leaving some time for thought. If we don’t leave any spaces where the mind is free to think, or just wonder, how are the ideas supposed to get in?

Time to think about commutes, or evenings and weekends, as not only blocks of minutes to be managed with ruthless efficiency, but as it used to be known – ‘free time’. Free your mind.

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I had fragments of posts written about various ads but they were little more than rants and I like to have something vaguely positive to say in my posts here. What tied it all together in the end was one of those pointless commercial TV countdown shows. The ‘50 Best Racist Sitcoms’ sort of thing. This one billed itself as the 20 greatest ads of the decade. I guessed I could bear to sit through it because of two things.

1. The ability of the ITVplayer to fast forward and

2. The thought of seeing any of the Sony Bravia ads again.

The fact that it’s Christmas also hopefully means that I can get away with not squeezing some sort of business lesson into the post and keep it light. That said I think the whole thing is pretty much a business lesson – all these ads whether you like them or not have increased the awareness of their individual brands beyond any expectation by simply being unique.

20. Budweiser, Wassup.
The oldest one on the list. It was recently updated with a fantastic bitter-sweet
internet-only spot that wasn’t shown on this programme. I have to say I never joined
in with repeating the catchphrase the ad is named after but still to this day overuse the words ‘True, true’.

19. Cadbury’s, Eyebrows.
Equal parts cute and creepy. I think this one is a winner for me mainly because I
like ‘Don’t stop the rock’ by freestyle. Not an obvious choice at all for the soundtrack and all the more impressive for it.

18. Halifax, Howard.
Most adverts that I detest are for products that aren’t aimed for me anyway (4-wheel
drives, Bitter, Sanitary towels…) which slightly lets them off the hook. This one, along with one other on the list, is for a fairly universal product – banking.

Howard looks like something a police frogman would find looking on the bottom of a lake for a missing cBeebies presenter and pops up murdering some song or other with a cast of jolly Halifax staff. This set of adverts just go on and on and are so sickening I don’t think I’ve  ever watched one all the way through.

17. John Smith, No nonsense.
I didn’t realise that this was why people have been going round saying ‘Ave it!’ for the last few years. In fact, I’d never seen any of these ads before this programme.

I think this shows the importance of ad placement around shows your target market will watch. This obviously was, and why I missed them entirely. That’s not to say that I never see ads that are completely irrelevant to me. I watch lots of cookery shows and so get to see a lot of ads for Baileys, Hair Dye and Paolo Nutini.

16. Sure, Stuntmen.
Perfectly positioned. Perfectly executed. A great ad with loads of impact that also
succeeds in placing the product at the front of the mind. It’s the way they all play
it so cool and collected.

15. Calsburg, 2006 world cup.
The one where the footballing legends play the pub team. They filmed them playing
for 6 hours solid, apparently. Lots of brands have tried the ‘bringing football to
the streets’ angle over the years but here, for once, it actually succeeds.

14. Sony Bravia, Balls.
Stunning. The ultimate advert. The act of doing something for real is what gives
this the extra push to perfection. The effort is always worth it. Just compare The
Dark Knight to the two Matrix sequels!

13. Volkswagen, Singing in the rain.
A risky move, updating the song and the dance, but it works. I couldn’t have named
you the product before I wrote it down while watching this, though.

12. Citroen C4, Robot.
Just great. Everybody loves the transformer cars.

11. Barclaycard, Waterslide.
Another great, fun ad. Couldn’t have told you who it was for though, even though the product is not only featured in the ad but used as well!

10. PG tips, Monkey & Al.
I must have seen it at some point but it didn’t really register. Do people remember Morcombe and Wise sketches from 40 years ago well enough for them to be used as references?

09. Sony Bravia, Paint.
More genius. Creating beauty out of the ordinary. The end of this ad with the shot of the playground and the sound of the paint ‘rain’ falling is too lovely for words.

08. John West salmon, Bear fight.
Was amusing at the time but now just reminds me of the horrible cascade of viral ads that came along in its wake.

07. T-mobile, Flashmobbing.
Never seen this before this programme aired. A great example of a large brand taking
hold of a trend and getting it completely and utterly wrong. It couldn’t look any less spontaneous if it tried. I’ve followed the FlashMob thing on the net since it started and, unusually for me, will go out of my way to watch videos of them so I have some reference. This ad just flops for me and more than any of the others that I don’t really like I just don’t understand how this one ended up on this list. The very worst part is the utterly horrific medley of dancing hits that is stuck on it.

Wrongly pitched and just plain wrong.

06. Guiness, Tipping point.
A good title for this ad for me as I think it was probably the tipping point where Guiness stopped making good adverts. What should have been fun and visually interesting just comes out twee and dull.

05. Cadburys, Gorilla.
A real puzzle. Most things that I dislike I can at least see how other people do like, or, as I’ve mentioned, are so obviously angled towards other people that I don’t spend much time thinking about them. This really made me feel a disconnctedness, though. I thought it was terrible. I couldn’t understand how such an average setup with such an bland song could be so popular.

It’s not even as though I don’t like ‘In the air tonight’. In fact, I think I own it. It’s just so average that it doesn’t register. The sort of thing that you’d hear in the background in the cafe in Eastenders. As for the people who gushed over the ‘realistic’ gorilla. Really? Come on…

04. Honda, Cog.
Another example of an ad that started out as a viral. The difference here is that this one worked. Clever, relevant marketing.

03. Compare the Meerkat.
A cute animal and a catchprase is pretty much all you need for a successful ad but Compare the Market had the added presence of mind to tie that into the name of their product. Considering that it’s one of the least memorable names in one of the least memorable marketing sectors that’s a genius move.

02. Skoda, Cake.
I presume the soundtrack couldn’t have come cheap, and neither did the ad itself. The problem is that the soundtrack doesn’t really fit the ad’s content and the ad’s concept is more clever than watching it play out. A puzzle that this ended up at number two. Of course, number one won’t be any suprise. The most parodied, the most admired, the sexiest, the classiest, the most copied ad – it can’t be anything except M&S food. Apart from, erm…. it isn’t. It’s….

01. Hovis, through the years.
Well. I think I’ve seen it. But it never really registered. Even seeing it now it doesn’t seem to have the epic feel that other people obviously think it has. It obviously works well for Hovis but why on earth were M&S left out of the list?

There you have it, the top 20 ads of the decade. A nice list to look back on as, sometimes, it seems that advertising is as devoid of creativity as other mediums. Let’s see what the next decade brings us…

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Internet shouldn’t have an uppercase ‘i’ (unless it’s at the beginning of a sentence, as it is here). Neither television, nor radio are capitalised, so why should our medium be?

Website is all one word (and for people looking for someone to do your website it’s a good rule of thumb not to go for anyone who spells it ‘web site’ or, worse, ‘web-site’. That includes most of America).

World wide web is lower case.

Most importantly email neither has a hypen, nor a capital E. Just don’t. It’s wrong and makes you look like an amateur. You wouldn’t capitalise paper or envelope, and it’s no more a foreshortening of electronic mail than radio is of radiogramme.

Useful links: www.oed.com

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More recent – and more serious – additions to the Ministry of Crap’s portfolio are the Black Box recorder and Radar. Maybe it wasn’t news to anyone else but I could barely believe it when I read that an aeroplane is invisible once it leaves the coast of Brazil and only exists once more when it has entered Senegalese airspace. Think about that for a second: that’s a big metal Schrödinger’s cat you’re flying off to Cancun in. More surprising still that the non-existent radar is used as some indication as to where to look for the black box. I thought the black box told you where to look for it itself. Silly me. It appears that the signal it emits for 30 days is detectable from 1000 metres away in calm conditions. I wonder how calm it is 3000 metres underwater?

Before last week it would have seemed akin to blasphemy to suggest that aeroplanes themselves belong to the Ministry of Crap. They seemed miraculous things to me. Huge metal machines that could zoom through the sky. Getting you from one place to the next in the most pleasant way possible. Movies and iced G&Ts and quick journey times.  But now I’m not sure. I mean, is there no way to avoid supercells in the 21st century? Is a mass of boiling cloud 5 miles high not a clue? And why do we need the black box at all? If you can make a phone call from the air how come all on-board information isn’t transmitted directly to the nearest satellite and relayed directly to the destination? And if information has to be contained in a box why not make it float? Or make it visible by satellite? Or give it a radiation signature? Anything. Come on.

So the Ministry of Crap takes on a darker meaning for me with the disappearance of flight AF-447 and moves away from comedy and into complete frustration. It’s something that not only needs to be drummed into product designers but also for anybody in business. Whether designing teapots or running an airline – make what you do fit for purpose. Make sure it does what you say it will do. And make sure it doesn’t kill anyone. Or, if that’s also unavoidable, at least make sure you can find out why it did.

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We’ve also spent a while dipping into bookmarking services, forums and networking tools that don’t work. You need to know what things are worth spending time on and which aren’t. The thing is that what doesn’t work might be different for different people. We find that Digg is cliquey and difficult to get any play on, but some of the smaller social bookmarkers more receptive to people who aren’t neccessarily ‘in the circle’.

The point, in terms of work, is the idea of community and how you nurture that sector that is serviced by your business. If you can tap into those communities, or even create one from scratch, you are helping yourself more easily than trying to artificially build your brand or struggling to make yourself a household name. The right tools are out there to look after these communities and waiting for you to use them. Let me know what you discover.

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“And when you’re on the street, depending on the street,
I bet you are definitely in the top three,
Good lookin’ girls on the street.
(Depending on the street).”

The joke throughout the whole thing is a play on the exagurated claims of R&B stars on the qualities of the lady they have just met. The girl that the Conchords meet is beautiful, sure, but they make sure that they keep the claims they make about her in perspective.

In business, endless qualifications are not a good trait to exhibit, but neither is hyperbole. The middle ground you should aim to occupy is just to moderate some linguistic habits that we have all picked up.

This is where verbal antidote comes in. The idea here is to get rid of words like ‘would’, ’should’, ‘could’ and ‘try’ from your vocabulary so that a question like ‘Can you have this done for me by friday?‘ isn’t answered with ‘I’ll try‘ or ‘I should be able to‘ but in a more definitive way ( ‘I can’t‘, ‘I will do‘ or ‘That won’t be possible‘).

Three real world examples:

1. A supplier asks you if they can have something by Friday, but you’re not 100% sure that you’ll have it in stock or ready by then. Rather than ‘I’ll try‘ or ‘I’ll do my best‘ have a go with ‘It’ll definitely be with you Wednesday next week, is that acceptable? Of course, if it comes in sooner I’ll make sure you get it’.

2. At a job interview someone asks you if you mind working weekends if the project demands. Rather than ‘I might be able to sometimes, but it’s the only time I get to spend with the kids.’ you might like to say ‘I’ve got a young family so it’s not possible to commit to something where I’d be letting them down regularly. Is that a situation that happens often in this company? Is the planning here something I can help with?‘

3. Your sister asks if you can come over for lunch on Saturday but you know you have a fridge being delivered on the same day.  Rather than the unhelpful (and rather pathetic) ‘I’ll try‘ why not go for the more explanatory ‘DHL are delivering my fridge. As they can’t be any more specific than it’ll arrive Saturday, I’ll have to say no to lunch.’

Try it out in situations you come across yourselves and let me know how they go in the comments.

Ps. There is a quite large exception to my dislike of comedy in song form that I’ve remembered. There is an indefinable quality to this. Or maybe it’s the sharp, witty writing and catchy tune. Whatever – it can be found here.

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For business owners that means getting proper invoices from all your suppliers and outsourced jobs. Detail all office expenditure and petty cash. Get yourself a good accountant. If he finds things to claim for that you haven’t thought of that’s probably a good start.

For the self-employed that means equipment, stationary, reference books, travel and subsistence. If you are working from home it also means a percentage of your mortgage interest, council tax, gas, electric, insurance and work done on the house that affects you. If you are in this position and not making an absoulte ton of money then you probably shouldn’t be paying any tax. Get yourself an accountant – their fee is tax-deductable as well!

5 things not to claim for:

1. Moat cleaning (who knew there was a business in that!)
2. Horse manure (unless you are a gardener)
3. Chandeliers
4. Non-existent mortgages
5. Duck islands (unless it is the Duck’s secondary residence)

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