The woman in white

 

I’ve laid off blogging about every generative AI development in creating and producing ads because, frankly, it’s all moving at a speed that I can’t keep up with. But it’s interesting to stick my nose in from time to time to see the state of play. 

I last did that in Dec 2024 when everyone was falling over themselves to get AI-ads out for Christmas. I commented on Vodafone and Coca Cola. I was distinctly underwhelmed by it all and hoped for more originality in 2025.

So far, so bad. 

The example I’ve got for you is typical of what’s being churned out (note the language) this year. You can just imagine the conversation between the brand people and the agency on this one:

- We’ve got this great ad icon but she’s over 100 years old. How can we make her culturally relevant for GenZee?

- Well, the perfect combination of Zeitlos and Zeitgeist would be to bring your analogue icon alive with AI!

So, here we go. The icon in question is for Persil - “Die Weiße Dame” (“The white lady”) who first appeared on posters back in 1922. So, in this 100% AI-generated film we see the white lady stepping out of a poster and onto a German street where she takes a flanier through time up to the present day. 

Persil have achieved plenty of firsts with their advertising - in 1932 they were the first brand to advertise in German cinemas and, in 1956, the first on German commercial TV.

But I don’t think this is going to join those triumphs. 

There’s an idea, of sorts. But hardly original. Great ads work through charm, emotion, storytelling - all absent here. Characters with agency? Humour? Surprise? It’s all a bit flat and inhuman.

Some ads work because they’re well-crafted. You can’t even say that here. Yes, it’s OK - but you don’t admire someone’s ability to press a few buttons. 

Unless there’s a healthy dose of human creativity and originality in the way it’s used, AI ads all end up feeling a bit washed-out. 

By-Gad Astounding!

 

It warms the cockles of my half-British heart to see a brand I worked on in the mists of time finding its feet - and soul - again in its communication.

British Airways had been known as "Bloody Awful” before - and long after - I worked on the brand. And recentish communication had been insipid at best.

Enter Uncommon and the new campaign based on the brand essence “A British Original”, launched in October 2022. 

The campaign gets better and better - and now we have a new masterpiece: “May We Haveth One’s Attention.”

Blimey. What do I love about this instant classic? Let me count the ways ...

INSIGHT: I guess there was a discussion about Britishness and what we can be proud of. What do we export? And the answer, for 2024, is period dramas, love’em or loathe ‘em. So this film draws on Bridgerton, Outlander, Pride & Prejudice, Downton Abbey and probably a few I’ve missed. A huge hit for the cultural bullseye.

EXECUTION: style, humour, watchability, great performances and casting - a triumph

BRAND: the cabin crew and other co-workers (all 40 of them), the well-know Flower Duet from Lakme and the brilliant, self-deprecating Britishness of it all (including the bad teeth)

Safety videos are one of the few times your audience really is captive. I remember Air Canada had some great ads back in the 80s - “flights so good you won’t want to get off”. 

Well, this could be the safety video that’s so good you don’t want it to end.

Old, new, borrowed and blue - or purple

 

One of my favourite German ads from last year was this 1980s extravaganza from Perwoll. And little did I know it last March, but this heralded a rather nifty “practice what you preach” trend in the ad world. Ad recycling. 

Mars went all-out for it with their Healthy Planet Productions Campaign , where well-loved ads for M&Ms, Twix and Bounty have been repurposed to draw attention to the carbon impact of advertising and get some new messages across about climate change. All while saving on production costs to client coffers and planet. 

The other bit of good news about this is that System1, suppported by Mark Ritson, have long been casting doubt on the marketer’s bugbear of “wearout". If an ad is any good, it might still do your brand good 19 years later, rather like one of the Princess Royal’s outfits, which never seem to wear out.

Recycled and repurposed items made it onto the Christmas wish list for many responsible citizens. And responsibly-minded clients got recycled ads. If not the specific execution, then at least the idea - such as Cadbury’s extending their previous year’s campaign into OOH media.

And then there was the heartwarming recycling of the Shake ’n’ Vac song, or Double Diamond works wonders and other jingles from the past as reminiscence therapy for dementia patients via Heart radio and The Wayback Project. 

And the trend shows no sign of abating. This rather wonderful film from Cadbury’s (again) is not really a direct recycle, more a mix of old, new, borrowed and blue. Or is that purple?

What’s clever here is that it not only reinterprets the original Cadbury’s Mum’s Birthday ad ... but it also borrows from a rich school of “heritage” ads - something that the Brits do particularly well:

Some may bemoan the lack of creativity and originality here, but I beg to disagree. Choosing exactly the right combination of familiar and surprising elements for these films is an art.

Could 2024 be the year of the Circular Adconomy?

The Last Campaign

 

I’ve been reading Campaign for more years than the 30 on this anniversary issue from 1998. My  introduction to the British ad industry’s rag was in my first job, working in the market research department of Spillers Foods. 

The trade magazines were divvied up amongst the market research department to scour for articles of interest. The most senior and glamorous of us got Campaign, the middle-ranking execs got Marketing and Marketing Week, and yours truly, the trainee, got The Grocer. 

I loved Campaign - it presented a fabulous world of creativity, eccentricity, wit and wisdom that I couldn’t get enough of.

Once I started working at Saatchi, the magazine was still read avidly and woe-betide anyone that snatched the Group Account Director’s copy before they’d had a chance to look at it.

I’ve had a subscription to Campaign for the 20 years I’ve been freelancing. While it’s been useful to keep in touch with the UK ad scene, I have to say that my interest has waned. Concurrently, the price of the thing has rocketed, even though it has gone 100% digital, which should save costs, by my logic.

From 2021 to last year, the price of my subscription rocketed +172%, and a further price hike of over 50% came this year. 

Campaign still has a few good articles and thought pieces - and I tend to then look up the authors and stalk, sorry, follow them on LinkedIn. But I’m afraid much of it falls into the Reinventing the past category for me.

With those ludicrous price hikes, I’ve come to the conclusion that Campaign has lost its value in terms of being informative, useful or entertaining. Money that can be better spent.

And there seem to be one or two alternatives that won’t break the bank.

So, cheerio, Campaign. Nice knowing you.

Good Pop Bad Pop Good Book

 

I’m back in the UK, in the old house, busying myself with sifting through junk. Well, not really junk, rather my past, which makes the task simultaneously more fascinating and more tricky.

I’m being accompanied by Jarvis Cocker. Not musically, but in a literary sense. I’m part way through Good Pop Bad Pop which is described as “An Inventory”. Another way that Jarvis puts it is “self excavation” - a sort of archeology of the self via artefacts rediscovered in the loft.

In Chapter 9 of the book, those rediscovered artefacts are FMCG brands, starting with a sliver of soap, worn down to the “distinctive brand asset” and not much more:

Jarvis kept this soapy remnant because the Imperial Leather design changed. Other examples he cites are Marmite, which used to have a metal lid and Rose’s Lime Juice, which had a glass bottle with tiny limes in relief. All of these packs and designs were tied up with memories.

And while I’m not a famous musician, so my Castrol and Rover tins will never end up in an art gallery or hard-backed book, I’ve got a few branded memories of my own.

Most people of my age are nostalgic for the crinkly orange cellophane of the old Lucozade bottle. And what about the Strepsils tin? The empty tin was repurposed by resourceful children for all sorts of things - I kept dried shredded sunflower leaves in one - maybe it’s best not to ask.

Jarvis Cocker’s analysis of why he would have kept a useless scrap of soap is about the aspect of his personality that resists change. He concludes (in one of my favourite passages of the book so far):

I am “over” my problem with change. I embrace change. (Maybe “embrace” is too strong a word: more like “I awkwardly shake hands with change.”) I can move on.

I’ll awkwardly shake hands to that. 

Reinventing the past

 

My dad used to annoy me something rotten when we were watching something like Colditz or The Great Escape by pointing out inaccuracies in anything from the pilots not wearing masks through to how many stripes a colonel should or shouldn’t have on their uniform.

Now that I’ve reached a certain age, I find myself doing exactly the same when it comes to advertising. When some bright spark starts talking about how such and such a campaign has revolutionalised, disrupted or utterly transformed the category’s communication, it’s usually to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Yes, I know - people want simple stories of from:to, of heroes turning things on their heads, of creatives taking humungous leaps. Short attention span and all that. The vogue for storytelling has a lot to answer for.

Still, it’s sometimes worth putting the record straight.

Recently, in Campaign, I read an article from a chief strategy officer from a major international agency praising Persil’s Dirt is Good campaign. Now, I also admire this campaign, despite its occasional forays into false directions. The campaign has been running for 17 years, which is pretty good going. The chief strategy officer makes plenty of good points about the campaign, yet dismisses all pre-2005 detergent advertising with a sweeping generalisation:

"Historically, the casting and scenarios for washing powder ads were dreadfully homogenous, typically oppressive portrayals of perfect Stepford mums beaming at a neat stack of clean clothing.”

I wonder if he ever saw this Ariel ad from 1997 as a lad? Can you spot any of these:

    - Mum’s perfect kitchen?

    - perfectly folded piles of clothing?

    - oppression?

    - Stepford mums?

No, me neither. All I can see is a brilliant piece of communication, based on a universal human truth: the younger generation think they invented the world.

Sigh.

Naughty or nice?

In the rush to buy last minute presents, there's one gift idea of yore which I can guarantee won't be found under any family Christmas tree - or left out for Santa:

But - oh! The glamour of days gone by!

A good alternative to socks for Dad?

I wonder which gift ideas of today will be seen as not just naughty, but definitely despicable in decades to come?

Polish up those tin signs

I was rather cheered to read in the JWT trendletter that analogue marketing, or the "renaissance of non-digital mediums (sic)", is back.

On closer inspection, the article is more about music and musicians - Coldplay and Radiohead's Thom Yorke, bringing new albums out on cassette and advertising them in quaint old-fashioned ways, such as small ads in local papers, or personally-typed postcards to fans delivered in the good old post.

But there's no reason to stop there. There are so many ways to advertise your brand or cause in real life, from posters to trams to vans to blimps - even on bricks and mortar.

I did learn a new word from the article that I'll have to use somewhere soon: anemoia - nostalgia for a time you've never known.

In the meantime, let's market like it's 1899!

In Flanders fields ...

When most people think about campaigns, they are usually short-term. Branded advertising campaigns, election campaigns, even military campaigns - they are all relatively short-lived compared to the granddaddy of all charity campaigns - the Royal British Legion's Poppy Appeal.

The Poppy Appeal had its roots not in the UK, but in France, and the author of the 1915 poem who inspired it all was a Canadian Medical Officer, Lieutenant John McCrae.

After the war, a French woman involved in fund-raising, Anna Guerin, had the idea of selling poppies made by widows and orphans of the conflict in remembrance of the fallen. The idea was adopted by the British Legion and the first "Poppy Day" held on November 11th in the UK.

The poppies have changed over the years a little in form, and the material from which they are made, and the meaning has shifted from the 1st WW to encompass military personnel in subsequent conflicts too. But the overall idea - and the symbol - has remained constant - unique, meaningful and relevant - for nearly 100 years.

There are questions, of course. Recently, many feel that the profusion of poppies at this time of year is over-the-top (sorry) - undignified, garish. The ceramic poppies at The Tower of London were spectacular, but maybe that should have be kept as a one-off, without later attempts for increasingly dramatic shows and installations. And it has all become politically charged. How predictable. Surely many of the brave men and women who died in conflict would turn in their graves if they could see some of the petty social media spats on the subject.

But all of that aside, kudos must be given for one of the longest-running campaigns ever.

Back in Germany, a different kind of campaign starts on November 11th: the beginning of Fasching or Karneval.

I am sure the Daily Mail could write a suitably barbed article on the subject.

It's not just digitalisation

I have had a bit of an Aha Moment this week. I've been banging on in this blog and in my work, about digital and analogue, and how increasingly the division is disappearing. How customers don't really distinguish between on- and off-line, or the different online channels, and that it's the brand behind it all that matters.

I've now learned that we're in the 4th Industrial Revolution, a term coined by Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, and that this isn't just about "phygital" - it's about the fusion of technologies blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres aka cyber-physical systems. Some of those technologies are robotics, AI, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, the Internet of Things and 5th generation (5G) wireless technology.

For the record, here is the series of Industrial Revolutions:

1st Industrial Revolution: in the 18th/19th century, when rural moved to industrial and urban, powered by steam

2nd Industrial Revolution: 1870 - 1914, the age of mass-production, powered by electricity

3rd Industrial Revolution aka Digital Revolution: this started in the 1980s, it's about automation and the internet. We're still in the midst of it although we're now seeing the beginnings of the

4th Industrial Revolution aka Industry 4.0 which is about the embedding of technology into human beings and society

An interesting implication of this is found in the speech by Mark Carney entitled "The Future of Work".  Thanks to Good Business for highlighting this in their super newsletter.

While previous industrial revolutions meant that machines will take on tasks previously done by human hands, today, tasks involving cognitive (head) work are increasingly being automated. Does this mean a resurgence in the importance of the human heart? One can only hope so.

Tally Ho!

I always admire the organisation Trendwatching for their breathlessly optimistic tone of voice, something that old cynics like me would do well to take heed of. Back in 2016, in the light of Brexit and the rise of Mr Trump, the agency suggested that brands might like to join the backlash against globalism in a positive way.

It seemed naive at the time: surely all those that supported Brexit were dreadful flag-waving jingoists at best? But now, with Facebook in the particular limelight that's reserved for villains of the piece, maybe there is room for 'Nation Nurturers' to stand up as heroes for people 'seeking solace in the familiar.'

I've found two menswear brands that are doing just that, and combining the history and tradition of the British Services with bang up-to-date business models and media.

First, there's Realm & Empire, who have 'honest, original garments that offer modern fits with strong historical links.' Inspired the archives of the Imperial War Museum, this is just the ticket for those who'd like a piece of vintage kit but find only sizes S and XS on eBay. Wouldn't mind a job as a designer there!

And then there's a brand that's only been around half a year or so, Patria , which is a purpose-driven outfit, founded and staffed by veterans and committed to supporting Armed Forces Charities. The business model here is bang up-to-date, employing crowd-sourcing, which removes the necessity for stores and stock, and cuts down on waste. They're currently offering T-Shirts and Sweatshirts to celebrate the RAF centenary.

Patria's logo, the terrier 'Jack', is, quite simply, top hole.

Chocks away, chaps!

Meanwhile, down at the Old Bull & Bush ...

I've had the pleasure of working on several alcohol brands throughout my career - Courvoisier, Harvey's sherries, and Lanson champagne, to name a few. The 80s and 90s of the last century were something of a golden age for drinks advertising in the UK. Who could forget this glorious commercial?



Working on alcohol brands today is a different story. Much of the brands' budgets are taken up with promoting what's called 'responsible drinking' which must be something of a conundrum. How do you promote your brand, differentiate it but at the same time warn about not going overboard with the stuff? It's a bit devil you do, devil you don't, and I don't envy people working with this puzzle, to be honest.

If you look at the stats and that alarming rise in the early 2000s, you can see why something had to be done:

And this is what you end up with. It kind of swims or sinks depending on how much cred the artist in question has. And I must admit that I don't have a clue on that front.



There was another time in history when alcohol consumption was at alarming levels in the UK - and by all accounts easily available to children:

At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, alcohol consumption levels were even higher than 100 years later. This gave rise to movements promoting 'abstinence' and 'temperance' rather than today's phrase 'responsible drinking.' These movements were usually linked to religions and certainly not to the alcohol producers themselves.

One such was the 'Band of Hope Union' which tried to nip the habit right in the bud. This was a club for children with the aim of preventing them from starting to drink alcohol. One method was to teach youngsters about the effects of alcohol on the human body, and certificates were awarded for 'reporting a lecture on alcohol and the human body' - the one above was awarded to my grandfather while he was in his early teens.

I know my grandfather grew up to enjoy a pint or two as much as the next man, but I wonder how much of the decrease in consumption seen in the pre-WW1 years above was due to the efforts of the Temperance Societies? Behind all the drum-beating and holier-than-thou stuff, they were at least treating teens as intelligent humans with an interest in the latest scientific findings.

Today, the UK alcohol industry is quite different to the one I knew 20 years ago. There are 10,500 less pubs in the UK today than there were in the year 2000.  Here's a recent article with this and other statistics on the Brits and drinking.

I'll end, I think, with a quotation from Hilaire Belloc which makes me slightly misty-eyed:

But when you have lost your Inns, drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.

A decade of drivel ;)

There's not a lot more dreary and self-congratulatory than a 'bloggoversary' crammed with statistics about post views, page views and your audience from Outer Mongolia to the Inner Depths of Brexit Island. Unless it's a Facebook anniversary - look-at-this-awesome-video-that-I-didn't-put-together-myself-with-pictures-of-silly-monkeys-and-sickly-cakes (oops.)

No-one cares.

So, to mark 10 years of this blog, I'll direct you to my first post, You know it's time to start blogging when, which reflected on a local exhibition of advertising from the past, and pondered on the difference between 'modern' and 'contemporary'.

Then, there's my most viewed post - quite why is beyond me - Spring Cleaning, all about that daffodil-yellow German equivalent of the Hoover, the Kärcher.

And now, to leave the stats alone, I'm going to pick a post from each year that I particularly liked at the time, a kind of curated (bleurgh!) best-of.

2008: Rafts or Rockets? Should agencies be bolder and not give the client a choice?

2009: The Palace of Wisdom - how all successful brands are progressed by Contraries

2010: Journey - the over-used word of the 21st century so far - and talking of which, have we really progressed since the old AIDA models of communication?

2011: Why, oh why? Planning made extremely easy by simply asking the right questions

2012: "Liking" ourselves to death - who got the future right, Orwell or Huxley?

2013: Data can't tell you anything - up on my soapbox!

2014: An element of surprise - the most important thing?

2015: Is the internet the new TV? - from surfing to being (force) fed

2016: The untrendy strike back - diversity is in as long as it doesn't mean diversity of opinion

2017: Measurement Madness - just because you can measure it doesn't mean it's important

2018: Circle of Life - the sooner we get rid of the notion of (mindlessly) produce - consume - dispose, the better.

Which neatly brings me full circle, having responsibly recycled some of the best of the (Extra)wurst!

Baaaaad Brand!

Well, at least one that seems somewhat uncompromising. Stroh rum, known as The Spirit of Austria, is a brand that turns all the current 21st century must-dos of branding on their heads.

From its beginnings in 1832, back in the imperial days, Stroh has made a virtue of being inauthentic. So inauthentic that it's authentic, in fact. Austria is land-locked and didn't have many colonies so it was unlikely that anyone would be able to bring enough sugar cane back from the Caribbean for an authentic rum. So the strong spiced rum was concocted from sugar beet, plus aromas and colours.

It's available in 5 different strengths: 38, 40, 54, 60 and 80 and, yes, those are the ° proof. The two highest are described as "overproof" which is about as blunt as "overweight."

Devoid of stories about crafting and palm trees and pirates, the pack design is also uncompromising. In fact, it could be mistaken for something you'd put in your car engine, rather than your mouth. The whole thing is redolent of last century ski holidays, tin signs, dark wooden huts, smoky bars, paper bags from picture postcard newsagents, the whiff of Jagertee.

The only time Stroh gets slightly less disreputable is when it's used as an ingredient in cakes and desserts. But those aren't terribly good for your waistline.

Please keep the branding consultants away!

Magnificent Men (... and women)

One major anniversary in 2018 will be 100 years of the Royal Air Force. Those who're aware of my author-ego will know I have something of a soft spot for the RAF and I thought I'd kick off the New Year with a look at how the recruitment advertising for the RAF has reflected cultural changes across the last century. Well, actually, it's an excuse to go rummaging through some wonderful old ads.

When the RAF, born out of the Royal Flying Corps, started, it was all about honour and glory. The beautiful poster above looks and feels every bit of its hundred years old, from the typeface to the sentiments expressed. The 'See the World' poster is probably a little younger, and introduces a perennial theme for the RAF - the exciting possibilities and adventure that such a career opens up.

By 1941, in the middle of the 2nd World War, things were getting grittier and direct on target. There was no doubt here about what was required and what was the task that lay ahead. This image is courtesy of the very magnificent Aviation Ancestry - but I will issue a warning straight away - you are likely to be some time if you visit the site!

Moving into the 1970s and 80s, the promise of excitement and adventure was still writ large. The advert featuring a Tornado is also care of Aviation Ancestry. And changes in society were reflected too in the RAF - or maybe the services actually influenced some societal changes? The advert below is courtesy of the Advertising Archives:

As the century due to a close, the recruitment advertising went into full James Bond action mode, as seen here in a 1997 TV ad:



And now, almost up-to-date, one of the ads from the 'No Ordinary Job' campaign:



Being the youngest of the services, and being born into the golden age of poster advertising, the RAF does sometimes feel more like a brand than the other services. I feel that the RAF Roundel has a lot to do with that - one small symbol that says so much, so powerfully.

Chocks away, 2018!

AIBU?

One of the liveliest sections of the Mumsnet Forum discussions is the section entitled 'AIBU?' - for the uninitiated that's 'Am I Being Unreasonable?' There's everything on here from the trivial to the traumatic, and the answers rarely stop at a simple 'Yes' or 'No.' Ideally, I'd guess, one would like to be regarded as a touch unreasonable, but with justification.

On the subject of unreasonableness in the world of marketing and advertising, here is a short article in Campaign from Mick Mahoney, Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy & Mather, London. It's entitled Being Unreasonable in four easy steps and starts by quoting George Bernard Shaw:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

It's implied that being unreasonable is a harder job than being reasonable. The reasonable man 'adapts' where the unreasonable one 'persists in trying.' And not only is unreasonable harder, but you're likely to be met with more resistance at the end, too. If something 'seems reasonable' it'll probably be accepted. It'll do. The boxes will be ticked and we'll move on. (Ugh.)

But will anything change? Probably not.

These days, our obsession with 'seamlessness' and 'consistency' means that we'll feel more comfortable with reasonable ideas. It's about fitting in and following. It's about looking at the past and what worked there to generate ideas for the future.

It's actually about not needing people at all - reasonable, unreasonable or otherwise. It's how AI works.

But shouldn't our ideas be more about standing out, being unique, leading, being first? Using our innately human ability to put things together to create something new?

To quote George Bernard Shaw again:

We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.

Recycle, reuse - and monks

Films and songs are constantly being remade or re-recorded, so why not commercials? The now defunct Yellow Pages did it a few years ago, and I've recently seen an excellent new example from Xerox.

Now, I must admit that, growing up on this side of the Atlantic, I've never seen the original film from 1976, in which Brother Dominic has a little help from Xerox to achieve 'a miracle.'



More than 40 years later, so not to go the way of Kodak, the brand Xerox has to re-invent itself as going way beyond photocopiers, in order to stay relevant in the 21st century. So the new campaign - sorry, platform - 'Set the Page Free' has been created. The 500 copies must now be translated, personalised, shared around the world and so on.

By taking on where the old commercial left off, Xerox stresses its pedigree, trustworthiness and reliability as well as its innovative new side.

Sometimes the best - and most effective - creativity isn't about creating something completely new:



It's been a bit of a week for monks. Here in Germany (Hessen) we had a public holiday to celebrate 500 years of the Reformation. One of Playmobil's best-selling lines has been the Martin Luther figure.

But probably the strangest Martin Luther-related packaging that I've seen is this. I may be wrong, but surely tomatoes had not yet been brought to Europe in Martin Luther's time? Or does this celebrate the 500th anniversary of that event, too?

Speed Queen

Procter & Gamble are still sending me Victoria magazine, with its yoga for the over 50s, handy household tips, myths about bladder weakness, menopause horror stories and patronising advice on how to use Facebook. I've blogged before about how dreadfully depressing this all is.

As a complete contrast, here's part of a smashing brand campaign from Renault celebrating 40 years in Formula 1. It features Irish rally driver Rosemary Smith, who is pushing 80 (years, not mph - she's way faster than that!). In the Swinging 60s, girls dreamed of being fashion designers and boys dreamed of being racing car drivers, Rosemary Smith did both - and in this film she fulfills another dream - and so becomes the oldest person to drive an 800 bhp Formula 1 racing car. There are some super photos of Rosemary in action in all her 1960s glory, and the film conveys her zest for life - past, present and future.

Bravo to Renault for this campaign, and standing up to the potential criticism that they make cars for little old ladies. I wonder - is this maybe a crafty admission on Renault's part that yes, they do - and they're both happy and proud to do so?

O Canada

I make no apologies for today's post being low on words and high on visuals and nostalgia. I've commented before that the Canadian flag is one of the best logos going, and what better way to celebrate Canada's 150 years today than with a parade of Canadian brands.

I visited Canada as a young girl in 1967, the year of the Centennial. It wasn't my first visit - that was as a toddler - but this was the visit where I think Canadian brands first made an impression on me. In these days of globalisation, it's very easy to forget that there were days when almost all brands were unfamiliar when you travelled abroad, and they were crucial in building up your picture of that country overall. The roadside signs, the posters, the packaging - they all seemed exotic and wonderful, even if they were commonplace for those that lived there.

I've subsequently found out that some of my original 'Canadian Brands' were more correctly 'American'. Those things that interest young children like popcorn - with a surprise toy:

Or sweets - sorry, candy:

Or diners serving Snoopy's favourite - Root Beer:

But there was another side to Canadian Brands - a sophisticated, grown-up dreamland of shiny locomotives and aeroplanes, with elegantly-dressed passengers clinking glasses, gliding over, or through, acres of breathtaking landscape:

And here are more wonderful Canadian images on the I.Am:Canadian Pinterest board.

Happy Birthday, Canada!

Logo to Go

The Michelin Man, Bibendum, has to be one of my favourite brand characters. So I've been slightly wary in the last couple of weeks on hearing that the Michelin Man has been 'slimmed down' and made 'more in tune with the 21st century.' But I think all the cries of 'pandering to the pc-police' aren't warranted. The new-look Michelin Man, above, is his jolly, friendly, dynamic self and would still probably command a BMI above 25. In fact, I welcome the return to a 2-D look - far more classic and adaptable than its 3-D predecessor.

The Michelin Man was conceived by the Michelin brothers Andre and Edouard in the 1890s, who remarked, on seeing a pile of tyres: Look, with arms it would be a man.

The famous poster that launched Bibendum's career was illustrated by the cartoonist Marius Rossillon, aka O'Galop. Here is some more of his work for Michelin:

I love the style of some of the early posters, even if some of Bibendum's accessories might be deemed 'inappropriate' today.

Quite the ladies' man - and look at those shapely calves!

Don't drink/smoke and drive? Ah, well.

You can have my spare tyre?

Spot the Beau Geste influence. Or was it The Desert Song?

Ton-up tyreman? No helmet necessary.

And he's still popular today with the meme set.

Maybe all this goes to show that sometimes random, intuitive thoughts ("...it would be a man") lead to better longevity for company logos and mascots than painstaking definition of brand values, essences and character traits and the careful construction of brand models.

Bibendum is a character that has taken his company from bike tyres to the 21st century 'mobility' market. I'll leave you with a picture of him and some of his advertising chums having a bit of a shindig on the London Underground.