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Years ago, when I found myself being pursued into the gents by an

over-zealous traffic man, trying to get artwork signed off, I longed for

the comfort of ’warmed nuts’. Thankfully, not from the traffic man but

from an American airline which, at that time, was offering to pamper me

with all sorts of tit-bits as I was cocooned happily in business class,

crossing the Atlantic.

Now United Airlines is happy to give me a history lesson as its fleet,

starting with the earliest bi-planes, fly up a cliff face, past a young

boy with his toy plane standing on the cliff top. If one word can be

called a line, then ’rising’ hardly reassures me, as they rise just in

time to miss the cliff.

The American voiceover certainly turns up the corporate volume of the

ad, which is well put together, even if the boy throwing his plane into

the air doesn’t quite match into the real plane at the end. I don’t

think it’ll have Virgin rushing for a re-pitch somehow but, then again,

when was the last time Richard Branson warmed your nuts?

The Royal Mail makes a valiant attempt to challenge the millions of

phones and e-mails we can use to communicate with each other. The good

old letter - delivered in your hand, in black and white - cannot fail to

get a response and gives us a good simple brief. In this ad it causes

one recipient to do his karaoke version of For Once in My Life. It’s

good fun and well executed with a great dance scene at the end, but

perhaps it’s just a little too stylised to have all the charm of 24

Hours from Scunthorpe, for instance. I look forward to further examples

of how we respond to a letter - anything that challenges the power of

the Internet my son wants me to get him is OK by me.

Of all this week’s offerings, I felt White Knight Intellidry had a real

and rare USP - and my wife agreed. Despite the odd name, it’s a tumble

drier that switches itself off when the clothes are dry and - despite

the odd use of a burglar, a woman in a straitjacket and a lady blackbelt

presenting the proposition - we want one. The ad also uses a rather

clipped voiceover that complicates the message more than perhaps it

should, but I suppose the budget was fairly clipped as well.

Like all WCRS work, Mecca Bingo is extremely well produced. It sort of

spoofs sports ads by dramatising ’play to win’ or ’it’s all about speed’

and then revealing it’s only a laugh - it’s only two fat ladies down the

bingo hall. It’s all backed by a bit of choral music - to further

dramatise the cathedral of numbers - but I’m really not certain they’ve

captured the fun of a night’s bingo. The Lottery has established the

greed in all of us, so surely bingo can at least afford us a bit more

excitement than the ten seconds we get every Saturday and Wednesday

night in the Lottery draw. The stakes may not be as high at bingo, but

at least the feeling of not losing lasts longer than it does with the

Lottery.

The Citizen watch campaign felt more like showcards than press ads. All

the information was there - a good, big picture of half the watch, an

appropriate stock shot to the headline, the price and some body copy

that actually formed quite good briefs for each of the watches. I know

Rolex is even more expensive but it has done much sharper work in the

past when a young Allen Thomas was still writing copy.

Pears was, predictably enough, the strongest, most single-minded work of

the bunch. The purity of a see-through soap, thanks to the glycerine,

led to the ’Pears tap’ which tells us it ’attracts water and softens

your skin’, while the ’Pears pears’ shows us soap ’as nature intended’.

So obvious really, I’m only surprised BBH hasn’t used John Hegarty

himself to sell Pears Soap.

He’s got to be using something and he can’t be rubbing on the

Boddingtons.

Royal Mail

Project: Business Mail

Client: Charles Darley, marketing director, business and priority

services

Brief: Promote the role of mail in building business relationships

Agency: Bates Dorland Writer: David Prideaux

Art director: Nick Simons

Director: Mark Denton

Production company: Brian Byfield Films

Exposure: National TV

Top Rank

Project: Mecca Bingo

Client: Tony Gibbons, marketing director

Brief: Own the bingo buzz

Agency: WCRS Writer: Jonathon Burley

Art director: Ian Williamson

Director: Jonathan Greenhalgh

Production company: Godman

Exposure: National TV

United Airlines

Project: United Airlines

Client: Jonathan Sumner, international ad manager

Brief: Rising

Agency: Young & Rubicam

Writers: Peter Murphy, Jane Talcott

Art director: Paul Jervis

Director: Joe Pytka Production company: Pytka

Exposure: Regional and

cable TV

Citizen Watch UK Ltd

Project: Citizen

Client: Keith Tubby,

managing director

Brief: Highlight the technology, performance and style of Citizen

watches

Agency: Harari Page Writers: Ruan Milborrow,

Mark Nightingale

Art directors: Ruan Milborrow,

Mark Nightingale,

Richard Lemon

Photographers: Branka Jukic, Daniel Hill

Typographers: Mark Nightingale, Richard Lemon

Exposure: National press

Elida Faberge

Project: Pears Original Soap

Client: Simon Bell,

marketing manager

Brief: Confirm Pears’ positioning as the original classic soap

Agency: Bartle Bogle Hegarty

Writer: Will Barnett

Art director: Mike Wells

Photographer:

Jonathan Lindsey

Typographer: Geoff Merrils Exposure: National style and home decoration

magazines

Crosslee

Project: White Knight Intellidry

Client: Tony Moores, commercial director

Brief: Intellidry gives you perfectly dried clothes at the touch of just

one button

Agency: Barrett Cernis Delves & Partners

Writer: Andy Imrie

Art director: Ray Barrett

Director: Barry Matthews Production company: Black Dog Picture Company

Exposure: National TV