Singing the AI Blues all the way to the bank

We had a pretty grim 13 hour drive back from the annual seaside holiday yesterday. We'd been enjoying the delights of Baška on the island of Krk, a holiday that involved plenty of snorkelling, good food, red wine and ... music.

I know I'm a bit late coming to the "singer" pictured above. Still, it was interesting to discover his music, sitting on the dock of the bay (more or less). We'd ordered our food, probably had a sip or two of wine, when I became aware of the background music. We like to play "spot the intro" when sitting in bars, but couldn't quite place this one. Sounded like bluesy soul with a bit of an Otis Redding feel about it. 

We were both a bit irritated by the lyrics, but couldn't say exactly why. And after ignoring the music for a few minutes I then asked my husband:

Is this still the same song playing, or another one?

It was definitely the same voice, same style of music, same rather cliched world-weary lyrics, but it was almost impossible to tell where one song stopped and the next started. 

We reached for Shazam. 

No result.

I suspected AI in play and said as much. The next time the lady serving came to our table, my husband (with more guts and perhaps less diplomacy than me) asked:

We're curious about this music. Do you mind me asking if you've made it with AI?

Oh no, no, the lady explained. I've got a paid-for YouTube account with no ads and I discovered him on there. Hang on, I'll tell you his name. She came back with a big smile - Eddie Dalton, she said. Do you like the music?

Very pleasant, my husband answered, more diplomatically than usual.

It didn't take us long to discover the truth about Eddie Dalton. He's got millions of YouTube views and followers, been No.1 on iTunes etc. etc.

And, of course he is "created" by a content "creator" called Dallas Ray Little (which may not be his real name). This character churns out a lot of music of various genres on his Crunchy Records label. 

If you look on YouTube, "Eddie" is there in all his smooth, soulful glory, with songs titled "Another Day Old" or "Cheap Red Wine."

I suspect, if I'd heard one or two songs in isolation, I wouldn't have twigged. Would have thought it was a new artist paying homage to the great 60s soul- and bluesman. Or maybe someone from that era who'd never made it as big as he should have.

But there's nothing on YouTube labelling Eddie Dalton as AI. 

Does this matter? On the one hand, maybe people don't care. From the comments on the videos, people - especially the 60+ age group - find the music soothing and the bittersweet lyrics resonate. And is it really any different to the muzak, lift music, chill-out music etc. that previous decades have produced? As my husband said, one or two of the songs are "pleasant" enough to listen to.

Dallas Ray Little claims to write the songs, but I doubt it. The lyrics sound like he's prompted the machine to go through the back catalogue of every soul and blues singer, plus a few MOR artists and string a few cliches together on the subject of drinking to forget, or regretting you were so mean to her, or lamenting about lost youth. 

It pissed me off, and made me feel embarrassed that the charming lady at the restaurant thought Eddie Dalton was real. While Dallas Ray Little - whoever they are - is raking in the profits.

Still, we had plenty of real music of all sorts, too. Brass Palmas for starters. And then a glorious impromptu singalong in a little restaurant where musical instruments were taken down from the walls and English, Argentinian, Austrian, Italian and Croatian all sang Let it Be together.

It wasn't smooth, it wasn't perfect. To anyone listening, it may not have been pleasant, either.

But we were singing from our hearts.

 

BREXILE: A nasty outbreak of Brand Voice

 

Now that I've officially Brexiled myself, my visits to England this summer have been as a tourist. I've noticed on occasions that I feel like a stranger in the country of my birth.

Not for the reasons that the black balaclava lot and their ilk would have you believe, but something else. It's a nasty outbreak of Brand Voice, encountered on airlines, ferries, in shops, packaging, pubs and hotels. And the particular variant that made me wonder "are they talking to me, a (long) grown-up woman with a qualification or two and a reasonably high-powered career behind me?" is this: CBeebie-ese.

The problem with CBeebie-ese is that's it's developed centrally (and I expect with a load of "help" from AI) but doesn't necessarily match the context in which it's used.

I was staying in a beautiful country inn, part of the Chef & Brewer group. They're part of Greene King. Most of the pubs and inns under the Chef & Brewer name are traditional places, in historic buildings and rural surroundings. The one I stayed in was a place we'd go for an extremely posh lunch when I was a child. 

Staying there made me wonder if I'm still a child.

The once-elegant surroundings are riddled with CBeebie-ese.

Take the menu above - "Picky Bits." I can only think of noses, snot and spots, none of which are at all appetising.  To be honest, "Nibbles" isn't any better. Much as I love hamsters, I'm not a rodent of any kind. 

Then there's this. "Pop(ping) to reception" sounds like quite a hazardous occupation. Maybe the instruction should be to "carefully plod", just to be on the safe side?

Well, it is Chef & Brewer, I suppose. But in this case, it's a direct quote from cooks, rather than chefs. Big Cook Little Cook, as seen on - you've guessed it - CBeebies.

This one has less of the chirpy tonality and sounds a bit more ominous. Was I staying in a hostel for severely disturbed youths? Not sure that the colourful flowers exactly go with the message.

Still, maybe it could be worse. At another pub, I saw a notice where the Brand Voice was that of an unhinged teacher at the end of their tether:

Less CBeebies, and more Grange Hill (or its 21st century equivalent).

 
 

RETROWURST: Globetrotting Gourmets (October 1972)

Time to show off this beautiful branded bit of marvellousness, given to me by an old chum as a memento of working on the British Airways account together. Although this dates back to the days of BOAC when British Airways was just a twinkle in someone's sky. 

The magnificent menu evokes the glory of international travel in the early 1970s. It's from 1972, when the Jumbo Jet (747) this lucky lot would have flown in was likely brand spanking new. The journey was London - Sydney, with 6 stops in between. Frankfurt - Beirut - Teheran - Bangkok - Hong Kong - Darwin. Almost 26 hours airborne. 

And I'd guess that you'd be unlikely to fit into your size 10 Pucci bikini on Bondi Beach if you took full advantage of the food and drink. 

Fresh Cornish lobster, Steak, pheasant & mushroom pie, Prawn Cocktail, Stuffed baby marrows, Seafood profiterole, Baked lobster thermidor, Breast of duckling with apple and prunes, washed down with Negronis, fine vintage wines selected from the great vineyards of Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Rhine, Cockburns Fine Old Tawny Port etcetera, etcetera.

I hope there were not too many cases of Mr Creosote.

The world and life have changed, of course. First Class passengers today skulk around slightly shamefacedly in sloppy designer leisurewear, trying not to think about the environment.

But if I could have a time machine, I could do worse than joining that flight half way round the world, gazing out at the endless sky, sipping a cool glass of champagne and nibbling on some vol-au-vents.

 

 

The (weirdly) beautiful game

The 2026/7 season has just kicked off, and here's a jolly marvellous ad from bookmaker Paddy Power to get us into the spirit. 

It sums up the weird and wonderful world of football fans. There's great casting, an idea, plenty of clever references to spot, attitude in spades - and the best tagline I've heard for a long time.

Why the football not?

Congratulations to brand and agency - BBH London.

I bet (ahem!) it's even got some of those sanctimonious types who'd never work on gambling or alcohol accounts thinking.

AUFSCHNITT 5: Functional Approach to Leadership Analysis (FALA) probably mid to late 70s

 

I’m resurrecting my Aufschnitt series, which I started back in 2019. The original idea was to immortalise cuttings I’d held onto, so I could chuck them out with a clear conscience.

So the two sausagey series are:

Retrowurst: my own scribblings, anything directly related to my own rather bedraggled career

Aufschnitt: cuttings and found bits and pieces from others

Today’s cold cut is an unusual one because it dates back before I entered the world of work. I was still at school. It’s from my dad’s bits and bobs - he was an RAF officer, in case you don’t know.

I guessed this was from late 60s to early 80s (from the typeface and what I know of my dad’s career). ChatGPT narrowed it down to 1973 - 1979, which seems plausible.

This was known as FALA and was used in officer training. I have to say that I like the approach and it’s not completely out of order for leadership training today. In fact, many commercial operations talk far more about “Leadership” these days than “Management.”

Looking at leadership on three overlapping areas - Task - Team - Individual - seems a pretty nifty way of doing things. The conciseness is great - all on a postcard, cutting down on bumf and BS in a very military manner.

But, to 21st century eyes, two things are very odd. 

“Discipline: Insisting on obedience, Punishing.” I wonder if this still appears in the military context.

And:

No mention of “mental health and well-being” in the “Personal (Problems)” section.

I think I’ll hang onto this one for the time being.

Ooohs, Ahs and Apple Juice

 

I listened in to a webinar from eat big fish and System1 last week on "The Startling Power of Surprise". Surprise and its use in the world of brands and their communications is something I've often posted about, for example here and here. 

The webinar - and my surprise posts - pick up some big (and maybe unsurprising) themes about surprise:

First of all, the pursuit of seamlessness and consistency (rather than coherence), the predictability inherent in algorithms, the requirement to be formulaic so that you can be found by AI, all leads to a rather unhappy dearth of surprise in our lives.

And then there’s getting the balance right - novelty and the familiar - as mastered by brands like IKEA with just the right mix of innovation and ritual.

And finally, there’s surprise and surprise. What about negative surprise? The word is usually prefixed by nasty/unwelcome/unpleasant in this case, but how do you judge that? Then there are those cognitive dissonance types of surprises where things are so off-kilter/not fitting to the brand where the brain simply switches off and ignores it.

And there’s there’s plain old shock-value, just for the sake of it.

What I found particularly interesting in the webinar was the dictinction between surprise as a little creative flourish/an executional twist ,and surprise as a strategic tool. Adam Morgan calls this the “Oh!” and the “Ohhhh!”.

The long “Ohhhh!” has more lasting effect on the memory - and can reframe the category in people’s minds, or change their relationship with the brand. 

I was surprised recently by the design work by the Stuttgart agency Papa Tom for wildling apple juice spritzer. Most German apple juice/applewein brands tend to use artisanal/homely/countryside/traditional imagery and design, which gets pretty samey, especially once AI is let loose on it. 

But wildling is surprising in its approach - which includes the nettles in the product itself - it looks a touch dangerous, edgy, mysterious. Not something for a kiddies’ birthday party.

Gets a definite “Ohhh!” from me.

   

 

Boy meets girl meet IRL

I've been blathering on about what I call the internot for over eight years on this (ahem!) internet blog.

Sometimes I think it's because I'm old and jaded and view the past through Anglo bubble-gum pink glasses. 

But more and more, I get the feeling it's not just me. From digital detox to anemoia (nostalgia for a time you never knew) to AI vegans, there's a tangible weariness about all things internet.

Boy meets girl meets IRL is a popular theme for ads these days. Here are just three I've seen in the last week:

In the latest duplo ad, boy tries to get girl's attention with various internot devices. Finally, a paper aeroplane made from a duplo wrapper does the trick. 

For the couple in the Dr. Oetker Ristorante ad, "It's a Match" on the first IRL date:

And then there's Deutsche Telekom & iPhone 17 with an ad called "Unique Together":

The message of this one is - the whizz-bang tech of the iPhone and the Telekom network is all fine and dandy - but in the end, nothing beats meeting up IRL in a coffee shop. 

If there's one thing that AI has taught us, it's that you can't fake having lived.